Inside Enterprise IT

Hello everyone, my name is Mark Schoennagel and I'm an Autodesk product evangelist focusing on the Softimage 3D product line.  For those that don’t know, our software is used to make many of the films and video games you see today and is one of the officially certified applications for the Dell Precision family of workstations.  One of my prior tasks at Softimage was the lead certification manager where I  worked closely with Dell to test and qualify their newest workstations under some pretty extreme (AKA real 3D world) conditions. My new Autodesk gig is a bit different but Dell still allows me to test hardware because as a power user, and someone who spends a lot of time in the field with customers, I have a pretty good perspective on what a 3D artist needs in a mobile workstation.  It’s also cool to know my feedback might be incorporated into products over time (I’ve seen a few examples) and that eliminating even minor glitches could offer a better customer experience with our software.

Recently, Dell sent me a pre-release of their latest M6500 mobile workstation to get my feedback before it hit the market. When the unit arrived, I must admit that I was wearing a pretty wicked grin.  My previous Dell M6400 mobile workstation had two 500 gig hard drives RAIDed together but with the M6500 I found a third drive!  It’s a mini SSD drive that uses one of the mini PCIe slots underneath the laptop. Unbelievable. This little thumb-sized drive hauls while using almost no power!  Now, I have a terabyte of hard disk storage and this little mini SSD to go along with it.  Not only is it a fast little drive, streaming video or content off of one of these takes considerably less juice then having my two RAIDed drives going at it.  And coupled with the Dell’s great power management software it gives me quite a boost in battery life when sitting on an airplane.  

Also, new to the M6500 is USB 3.0 for monster file transfers, and a Gobi 2.0 chip that will give you 3G access on any cell phone providers network anywhere in the world!  I’m not quite sure how it works with SIM chips but I'm getting mine hooked up this week.  I travel quite a bit so I'm looking forward to not having to tether my phone anymore..oh wait my new iPhone doesn't tether! ;)  I'm still waiting to try a USB 3.0 device but I hear they are faaassst!

Since Softimage is fully multi-threaded, I love the new fancy Intel Core i7 quad core CPU.  It's awesome to throw a few million particles on the screen and watch all eight cores peg to 100%.  It has four physical cores, but eight virtual cores show up in task manager due to the new hyper-threading feature.  What's also incredible is the new NVIDIA 3800M GPU that's in there.  It runs circles around pretty much anything you can buy in the workstation category - desktop or mobile!  It runs most of my scenes just as fast as my NVIDIA Quadro 5800!  Really impressive work from those hardware guys.

Well, I saved a couple of my favorite comments about the machine for last.  I mean the performance is awesome but I am an still an artist at heart.  First, the blood-orange "Covet" version is just plain cool to carry.  The smooth chassis design really reflects something more suitable for M&E pros and the cool anodized aluminum color is rather unique.  Although my favorite feature has to be the edge to edge RGB LED backlit display.   It’s a full 1920x1200 resolution and is really over the top!   …Ahem, yeah I got that option too!  I have to say it's the most incredible looking piece of technology I have seen.  The difference between this screen and traditional laptop LCD is massive.  If you ever get a chance to play on one, crank the brightness up and create a 100% red image in MS paint or something...or Google a nice big shot of a Ferrari.  Behold!! Ha ha, I actually had a flight attendant ask me what I was doing because it was so bright in my seat!  On some evening flight I was playing around with Softimage 2010 and had a few million red and orange particles flying around.  After she asked me I looked around and sure enough the whole row was glowing red!!... I found myself grinning again.

Note from Lionel: Like I mentioned yesterday, graphics performance is one of the most important aspects of mobile workstations. Here's the second post focused on graphics... this one coming from AMD's Janet Matsuda, who is the senior director of their Professional Graphics team. Here's her post:

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We sure are greedy when it comes to new technology! We expect more performance, longer battery life, faster frame-rates, more colors, unwavering dependability, smaller form factors and the

biggest bang for our buck. Just to name a few. This is especially true for professionals who not only want all of these things, but depend on them for their livelihood. There's no room for less-than-great computers when you're working in medical imaging, designing the world's largest airplane, or creating the next animated blockbuster film. And in today's ever-changing work environment, we need mobility and flexibility from our systems so we're able to take our work beyond

the office at the drop of a hat. Bottom line: Professionals want the world's best performing technology at their finger tips 24-hours a day, whether in the office or on the road.

With a clear understanding of the professionals' needs in mind, AMD has collaborated with Dell to offer a powerful GFX solution for the world's most powerful mobile workstation, the Dell Precision M6500 featuring the ATI FirePro M7740 graphics accelerator with 1GB of dedicated memory. Enabling the performance and power previously reserved for desktop workstations to be accessible in a mobile footprint, the Dell Precision M6500 mobile workstation delivers the brilliant color representation, raw power and massive scalability that professionals need to maximize productivity and creativity on the go.

But while portability is important, as a professional I also know that reliability is a necessity. Working on a system you can't trust inhibits productivity-especially when working with huge and demanding data sets. Professionals like us expect their systems to run flawlessly every day, every time. With our ATI FirePro M7740 graphics accelerator and the Dell Precision M6500, you can rest assured that you have more than just a great performing machine, you are also backed by a system that is certified for many of the applications you use every day, creating a highly reliable and real-time interactive work environment.

AMD and Dell are known for bringing first-class hardware to market and the Dell Precision M6500 is no exception. Compatibility, flexibility and optimized performance is what ATI FirePro mobile graphics technology is all about, making it the perfect complement to the Dell Precision M6500 mobile workstation, and providing professionals like you with the necessary tools to complete projects quickly and painlessly wherever you may be. Go forth and create!

Note from Lionel: Since professional graphics performance is a requirement in the mobile workstation space for a product like the M6500 that I blogged about yesterday, I thought it made sense to invite our graphics partners to share more details. First up is a post from NVIDIA's Shawn Worsell, who is the senior product manager in their Professional Systems Group.

With that, here's Shawn's post:

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Who knows when you will have your next great idea, and where you will be? So having a powerful computer with you gives you the freedom to be creative, wherever you are.

That's true professional freedom.

Freedom from the age-old constraints of being tethered to your desk with traditional workstations because, "mobile workstations just can't cut it." Freedom to work wherever and whenever you need to without sacrificing performance. This is the kind of professional freedom that can be realized with the latest breed of mobile workstations.

From the seismic visualization specialist looking for promising new oil deposits off the coast of New Zealand, to the wedding videographer creating an HD video for the newlyweds before they leave on their honeymoon, mobile workstations are the tools that more and more professionals use to get their jobs done.

The new Dell Precision M6500 mobile workstation is built with the NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800M high-performance mobile workstation graphics solution, and features 1GB dedicated graphics memory for manipulation of large data sets. It offers freedom to all kinds of professionals-like geo-scientists working on oil rigs, as well as radiologists who can transfer images from CT scanners immediately to the comfort of their patients' rooms for diagnostic 3D visualization. The possibilities are endless. Feel free to let your mind and your mobile workstation wander.

With NVIDIA Quadro solutions that are "Built for Professionals," the Dell Precision M6500 makes it easy for pros to experience freedom when using the industry's leading professional CAD and DCC applications, like Autodesk, Inventor, and Dassault Systemes CATIA software; or Adobe Creative Suite 4 software with GPU-accelerated capabilities for more efficient rendering.

So if you've been looking for the freedom a mobile workstation provides, what's holding you back?

Proclaim "I want professional freedom!," and get creative anywhere you are with a Dell Precision M6500 mobile workstation powered by NVIDIA Quadro FX professional graphics.

Once you're free, do send us your comments, wherever you are, describing where and how you use your new mobile workstation.

One of the trickiest parts for SMB’s (or organizations of any size) who are utilizing cloud-based applications is integrating these apps with existing on-premise applications.   That’s where Cast Iron Systems, comes in.

Last month Chandar Pattabhiram, VP of Product & Channel marketing at Cast Iron visited Dell.  I met up with him to chat about the company and learn what they are up to.

Some of the topics Chandar tackles:

• Cast Iron is the leader in connecting cloud-based applications with on premise enterprise apps (e.g. Oracle, SAP).
• The company began by offering a pre-configured integration appliance.  They have since expand and now also offer a virtual integration appliance as well as the Cast Iron Cloud (integration as a service).
• While their focus is on SaaS, they are partnering with leaders in each layer of the cloud to integrate cloud offerings with on premise apps:
  • SaaS: SalesForce, ADP
  • PaaS: Google, Force.com, Azure
  • IaaS: Dell
• Cast Iron’s goal is to evolve to be the enterprise cloud integration platform, bridging the world of public, private and on premise applications.

• Cast Iron provides the software underpinning Dell Integration Services.  These services allow SalesForce.com customers to extract data that has been locked in on premise apps and provides centralized visibility within SalesForce.com.

Pau for now…

Recently we spoke to Adam Orpen at Super Group about some of the challenges faced by ‘Africa’s logistics giant’. He talked us through the opportunities and demands created by rapid business growth, and how Dell consultants helped him create a more efficient, flexible infrastructure.  

Johannesburg-based Super Group is an industry leader in supply chain management, and its IT team delivers a high availability environment to sites across South Africa. But rapid growth meant a big challenge for Enterprise Architect Orpen: “We needed more performance and capacity … but we didn’t want to spend a lot of money. Super Group buys and sells subsidiary companies and there’s an associated IT cost every time we do this,” he says.

Dell consultants put forward virtualization as a potential solution. Rather than buying more hardware, the group could extend its use of virtual servers – supporting expansion without sky-high energy costs and extensive space requirements.

An ambitious rollout saw Hyper-V installed at six Super Group sites – three of them major datacentres. The firm now runs 143 virtual machines on PowerEdge R900 servers, connected to Dell/EMC storage area networks. They also installed Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 under the Early Adopter Programme, meeting Super Group’s need for a robust communications platform.

One of the biggest benefits for the team is faster server rollout. Deployment time is now mere minutes rather than three weeks – a massive advantage for a fast-growing, acquisition-based enterprise. The task of juggling server resources has been transformed – it’s quick and cost effective, and it’s given the IT team the flexibility they were looking for. “Dell recommended a Hyper-V farm. As a result, we can provision a new virtual machine in 10 minutes. And, if we sell one of our companies in the future, we won’t be left with hardware we no longer need.” Orpen says.

What makes the project really striking is the fact that Super Group has a higher capacity infrastructure that’s actually much smaller. And the benefits don’t end there – the reduction in server footprint means the team can close an entire datacentre. “We’ve saved lots of space already, and we’re working on the rest. We plan to shut down one of our datacentres soon – we’re definitely going green. Plus, this Dell solution means we save all the energy, cooling and management costs for this facility.”

“We want to reach a stage where we can shut down our datacentres and access all our applications through a hosted cloud environment. We’re looking at Microsoft Online Services – this virtualization project is the first step on that path.”

To read more on Super Group, click here.