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Pano: VDI Without A Client? |
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Thursday, 30 August 2007
by Michel Roth
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Yesterday it seems like the Internet was bombarded with the news of a company called Pano Logic announcing their approach to VDI. They call it the first truly virtualized desktop. At the client side it's all hardware with no software. Sounds cool huh?
I've gone through all the articles and dug into Pano Logics website itself and here's what the deal is. The entire Pano Logic VDI solution consists of a client, a Windows machine running the Pano Management Server and ESX Server to host the virtual desktop. The Client is a tiny hardware box that has no software installed.It allow for connection of the user's keyboard, monitor, mouse, audio and USB peripherals. These hardware items are then connected via IP to the virtual machine the user is using. Pano says they are using the IP network as an extension of the PC's bus, so PCI can connect to these peripherals. The Pano hardware box only has a button (affectionately called the Pano button) which is able to run a command on the virtual desktop. Currently all this button can do is, reboot the virtual machine. In the future though Pano is planning on using the button to present the user with snapshots of their virtual desktop.
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| [left]Their technology sounds quite cool. I only wonder how this will work out in real life. For example, I am curious as to the performance of these devices. The performance theoretically could be great since "PCI-over-IP" would yield better graphical performance than the RDP of ICA protocol. What kinds of makes me worried is that the Pano Logic vice president has been quoted saying that the current line of the Pano VDI solution offers "YouTube quality" audio and video. Pano Logic is hoping to fix this in the future though. What I do like about the Pano VDI solution is the cool Pano desktop device. Finally a company has invested in design of a device. It has always puzzled me why companies in our line of business spend relatively so little effort in the design of their hardware. Design is very important these days, even within businesses. Why it may not (and shouldn't be) the core value of a product, there's not denying that it does play a role in the success of a product. Mac anyone?
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