Unlocking the full potential of desktop virtualization for enterprises, NVIDIA and VMware today announced that NVIDIA GRID technology is available on the VMware Horizon DaaS Platform to deliver 3D graphics on virtualized desktops and applications delivered through the cloud.

The combination offers the industry's only multi-tenant desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) platform for service providers to deliver graphics-rich desktops and applications to customers requiring visual computing, such as engineering firms, automakers, movie studios and retail designers.

DaaS can improve productivity by enabling mobile access and remote collaboration for project teams or contractors in multiple locations by delivering graphics-intensive 3D applications to users anywhere, at any time, on any connected device served. Multi-tenancy is a software architecture that enables a single instance of a software application to serve multiple customers - increasing agility and lowering costs.

"NVIDIA GRID technology has opened the door to virtualized visual computing for enterprises worldwide," said Jeff Brown, vice president and general manager of Professional Visualization and Design at NVIDIA. "Working with VMware, we're offering customers flexible access to GPU computing power via onsite virtualized environments or in the cloud. It will help enterprises improve employee productivity, while efficiently managing their hardware resources."

Unmatched Performance Across Users and Clouds

Built on the NVIDIA Kepler architecture, NVIDIA GRID GPUs offer industry-leading graphics performance combined with low-latency display technology to optimize performance on virtual desktops. Combined with the VMware Horizon DaaS Platform, users get no-compromise visual computing as a cloud service, enabling seamless mobile access and on-demand collaboration for highly demanding visual graphics applications, such as Adobe Photoshop and Autodesk Design and Creation Suites.

"Our customers expect incredibly high visual fidelity whether they're designing groundbreaking new products, buildings and civil infrastructure or blockbuster entertainment," said Ben Cochran, senior software architect at Autodesk. "DaaS complements a range of Autodesk software applications that already run on NVIDIA GRID today."

"VMware Horizon DaaS Platform with NVIDIA GRID is a great solution for companies with high-powered computing and visual graphics needs," said Sumit Dhawan, vice president and general manager of End-User Computing at VMware. "It enables businesses to drive innovation via instant mobile access and collaboration across users worldwide by delivering exceptional 3D quality graphics applications from the cloud. With VMware and NVIDIA working together, customers and service providers benefit from working with two industry leaders in their respective fields."

The VMware Horizon DaaS Platform enables service providers to deliver complete virtual workspaces, including desktops and 3D graphics applications, to end-users as a monthly cloud subscription service with predictable, easy-to-budget expenses.

Strong Market Benefits

"The benefits of DaaS are extremely compelling and attractive to customers across all industries, and we see tremendous potential in being the first to have a unique DaaS offer that accommodates the needs of customers with high-performance graphics needs," said Sumeet Sabharwal, group vice president and general manager at NaviSite. "We anticipate VMware Horizon DaaS Platform with NVIDIA GRID will be well positioned to capitalize on this opportunity. NaviSite plans to extend its DaaS offering to include NVIDIA GRID technology later this year."

Coming Soon: NVIDIA GRID Virtual GPU on Virtual Machines

NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang and VMware CTO Ben Fathi announced the NVIDIA GRID technology on the VMware Horizon DaaS Platform during Huang's keynote address at the company's annual GPU Technology Conference.

NVIDIA and VMware also revealed a joint development effort to enable VMware customers to use NVIDIA GRID vGPU (virtual GPU) technology for GPU sharing with VMware virtual machines. Provisioning up to eight users per GPU, GRID vGPU promises to be the industry's most advanced technology for sharing GPU acceleration between multiple virtual desktops - without compromising the graphics experience.

GRID vGPU is designed to deliver graphics commands directly to the GPU, allowing the GPU hardware to assign the right amount of memory to meet the requirements of each user. This combined development effort aims to deliver customers and service providers the highest performance for complex, graphics-intensive applications at the lowest possible cost.

Availability and Pricing

NVIDIA GRID technology with VMware Horizon DaaS Platform is available immediately to service providers and customers. An early access version of NVIDIA GRID vGPU hardware working with VMware virtual machines will be available to select customers later this year.