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DUX
Soft, the leading solution provider to the animation, VFX and gaming
industry, has announced the release of their Virtualization Solution
as part of their award winning product suite – SPARX, that focuses
on High Performance Rendering (HPR). Termed as SPARX VHPR, this
next generation solution promises to deliver exceptional performance
and cost savings to AVG Studios and HPC as well.
Virtualization in general computing term defines abstraction of
computing resources. Any software that emulates a hardware, software
or networking entity may be called virtualization software. Though
not restricted to software, virtualization is almost always done
through software.
The
most common form of virtualization is to emulate the computer system
itself. The software, running
as an application on another OS, duplicates the components of computer
hardware like processor, ram,
BIOS, disks, network cards etc. Another OS is then installed on
this virtual hardware which can be used
for any application the user wants.
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With
the performance capabilities of computer components exceeding requirements,
most systems have spare computing, memory and I/O resources to spend.
High-end systems can usually run multiple virtual
systems there by reducing a lot of computing infrastructure over
heads.
Virtualization of computers has lot of benefits. One could save
on -
1. Rack and Floor Space
2. Power
3. Air Conditioning
4. Networking Infrastructure
5. Man Power
6. CAPEX from additional hardware purchases
7. Doing more with current infrastructure
Savings
A medium range server hardware consuming around 2KW of power, depending
on the applications, could host up to 10 Virtual Servers. That’s
a clear 70 per cent saving on power alone. Such servers usually
take around 2U of rack space. Comparing this with the minimum 10U
space required by 10 physical servers, it’s a clear 80 per cent
savings on rack space. 1KW of power consumption roughly translates
to 3412 BTU. This means 10, servers would approximately generate
23884 BTU. Compare this with 6842 BTU generated by the 2U Server
and one can see a clear saving of over 70 per cent again. Finally
from the networking aspect, 10 Servers would require at least 10
Ports on the switch, while 1 Server will require only one. It’s
a clear 90 per cent savings.
Needless to say, with a higher end server and more virtual servers,
the savings increase multifold. It also
allows the user to do away with additional purchases and even reduce
the number of servers he currently
has.
Uptimes
This brings us to the obvious question of Uptime? Wouldn't one physical
server going down, bring down 10 Servers? Well at the outset, it
looks like a real problem. But with virtual servers, migrating from
one machine to another is a cake walk. Just shut down the server
on one physical server and start it on another. A copy of the virtual
server can be picked up from backup archives or from a central storage.
In environments where uptime is critical, the load could be distributed
over multiple machines, with each of them backing up for the other.
In such scenarios, virtual servers from one physical machine to
another can be migrated with negligible downtime.
Virtualization tools also provide you with 'Checkpointing'. Just
imagine what would happen if load on one server suddenly increased
many folds. With Checkpointing, one can pause the virtual server
(put a checkpoint) and migrate it to a better hardware machine and
resume from exactly where it was paused. In other words, one could
dynamically assign resources to servers depending on the load requirements.
This is something totally impossible with physical servers.
The Checkpointing feature could also be used during routine maintenance.
Migrate the virtual server from the physical machine that needs
maintenance to another machine, do the maintenance and move it back
to original machine. Imagine this, one could increase the disk capacity,
format the drives and move back the virtual server and no one would
know. Lesser down times directly translates to lower work loads
for administrators, freeing them to do more
productive work.
Benefits
for AVG Studios
Besides the incredible cost savings and uptime benefits detailed
above, DUX Soft’s Virtualization Solution promises to deliver exceptional
benefits for Animation, Visual Effects, and Games Studios world-wide:
1. Server Consolidation for Render Farms – No need for separate
Linux & Windows Servers
2. Better Data Center Infrastructure Management – Usually each node
in a Render Farm has to be connected to a storage, with SPARX V-HPR,
virtual machines can be connected to one central server
3. High Availability – No repeat shutdown and re-boot, and no need
for dedicated servers for specific applications
4. Ability to run both Linux and and Windows OS on the same machine
and dedicate processor/cores to each
5. Ability to simultaneously run applications like Maya or 3DS Max
on same machine and fire jobs at the same time on both
6. Para-virtualization at OS level for Linux to optimize performance,
as well as, processor and memory utilization
7. Hardware-virtualization for Windows without the need for any
changes by simply creating copies of the machines
8. One single ease-of-use web-interface for job submissions, monitoring
and management with unparalleled
control over your hardware resources
9. No need to completely move pipeline & custom plug-ins from
one OS to another
10. Ability to utilize grid and cluster computing featurs of SPARX
using virtual machines for faster
rendering
DUX
and Virtualization
With such a huge cache of features, savings, uptime and peace of
mind it provides surely would be impossible for any organization
to ignore virtualization for long.
DUX
Soft provides complete end-to-end solution in deploying virtualization
solutions for your organization. Our Consultants identify, understand
and design virtualization solutions that suit your organizations
every requirement. Virtualization, like with every other technology,
if not correctly evaluated, sized and designed can be more counter
productive in the long run than productive. Our years of experience
ensure that your organization can benefit from the huge virtualization
benefits to the tee. Moreover, after the design, implementation
and deployment DUX provides complete handholding and support through
its Infrastructure Management Services (IMS). The IMS team is well
equipped with years of experience and expertise in managing all
kinds of IT Infrastructure like large IDCs to the server rooms in
the SME segments.
Overall, DUX through its virtualization solutions can ensure that
you get highest possible cost savings and maximum uptime from your
IT infrastructure.
connect@animationxpress.com
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