Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CGACE (Development of a business model to commercialise GPU accelerated workstations for European hardware providers)
Reporting period: 2019-06-01 to 2020-01-31
Whilst many organisations are moving their data into the cloud, there are applications and workloads confined to
physical workstation computers where GPU is commonly located and not cloud compatible. As workstation applications
become more complex and resource demanding, their data files become even larger. This data transfer to and from the
cloud is time consuming and impacts an organisation’s security data availability policies and risks the value of the data.
A VDI platform provides users a virtualized version of the desktop interface. By deploying VDI, the desktops created in
the centralized data centre act as virtual entities. The virtual desktop operates like any other application because the
endpoint device will still have its original desktop installed on the device. The increasing popularization of centralized
computing also referred to as cloud computing caused multiple education institutions to adopt virtual desktop
institutions. Over the last few years, numerous schools have virtualized their servers, enabling many servers to run on
desktops on one physical device. VDI unifies the schools’ desktop resources, operating computers in the data centres.
This setup offers potential advantages to the schools. For instance, recently in Poland, higher schools began to build their
private clouds not only to support their internal processes, however, also to provide the students with virtualized
workstation model DaS (desktop as a service). The concept of DaS utilizes a VDI environment to provide customers a
highly available, persistent desktop that is accessible from all the devices. More benefits of deploying VDI in a school
setting include ease of management, student graduation timeframes, remote students, improved security, custom
images, among others. These benefits are expected to contribute significantly to the growth of the VDI market.
Virtual desktop technology has evolved to allow the virtualisation of even the most complex line of business 3D graphical
applications. NVIDIA GRID technology allows a virtual desktop to access a dedicated GPU or virtualised GPU depending upon
the requirements of the line of business application. The ebb3 CGACE seamlessly integrates technology from Cisco, NVIDIA,
NetApp, Citrix and VMware to provide a fully managed private cloud virtual desktop solution for business 3D graphical
applications. The ebb3 CGACE solution locates next to the main data repository, allowing unrestricted high-speed access for all
virtualised line of business 3D graphical applications. The move to GPU accelerated platforms over traditional VDI is also being
expedited with the requirement for GPU resource with the Windows 10 Operating system.
Our overall objective is to perform a market study of our new approach, with a view to applying for an EIC Accelerator grant
physical workstation computers where GPU is commonly located and not cloud compatible. As workstation applications
become more complex and resource demanding, their data files become even larger. This data transfer to and from the
cloud is time consuming and impacts an organisation’s security data availability policies and risks the value of the data.
A VDI platform provides users a virtualized version of the desktop interface. By deploying VDI, the desktops created in
the centralized data centre act as virtual entities. The virtual desktop operates like any other application because the
endpoint device will still have its original desktop installed on the device. The increasing popularization of centralized
computing also referred to as cloud computing caused multiple education institutions to adopt virtual desktop
institutions. Over the last few years, numerous schools have virtualized their servers, enabling many servers to run on
desktops on one physical device. VDI unifies the schools’ desktop resources, operating computers in the data centres.
This setup offers potential advantages to the schools. For instance, recently in Poland, higher schools began to build their
private clouds not only to support their internal processes, however, also to provide the students with virtualized
workstation model DaS (desktop as a service). The concept of DaS utilizes a VDI environment to provide customers a
highly available, persistent desktop that is accessible from all the devices. More benefits of deploying VDI in a school
setting include ease of management, student graduation timeframes, remote students, improved security, custom
images, among others. These benefits are expected to contribute significantly to the growth of the VDI market.
Virtual desktop technology has evolved to allow the virtualisation of even the most complex line of business 3D graphical
applications. NVIDIA GRID technology allows a virtual desktop to access a dedicated GPU or virtualised GPU depending upon
the requirements of the line of business application. The ebb3 CGACE seamlessly integrates technology from Cisco, NVIDIA,
NetApp, Citrix and VMware to provide a fully managed private cloud virtual desktop solution for business 3D graphical
applications. The ebb3 CGACE solution locates next to the main data repository, allowing unrestricted high-speed access for all
virtualised line of business 3D graphical applications. The move to GPU accelerated platforms over traditional VDI is also being
expedited with the requirement for GPU resource with the Windows 10 Operating system.
Our overall objective is to perform a market study of our new approach, with a view to applying for an EIC Accelerator grant
We have delivered WP1: carried out a voice of the customer study, and generated a detailed business plan..
All the current virtual workstation solutions, are either public or private shared cloud solutions, meaning that they are
also in a public cloud, with multi-tenant pooling of resources among multiple customers, increasing issues of data privacy
and security. In addition, cloud-based solutions often require dedicated resources creating islands of technology that become cumbersome and costly to maintain and support. Most virtual workstation solutions do not manage the set-up, user resource pool usage or provide support services when the workstation is not performing, meaning users experience
periods of high latency, poor performance and difficulty accessing resources.
also in a public cloud, with multi-tenant pooling of resources among multiple customers, increasing issues of data privacy
and security. In addition, cloud-based solutions often require dedicated resources creating islands of technology that become cumbersome and costly to maintain and support. Most virtual workstation solutions do not manage the set-up, user resource pool usage or provide support services when the workstation is not performing, meaning users experience
periods of high latency, poor performance and difficulty accessing resources.