At this year's VMworld, AMD showcased its new Multiuser GPU, which it touts as the first hardware-based GPU virtualization solution in the world.
The Multiuser GPU, which was created with the industry staple SR-IOV technology, is the company's testimony to its continued inclination for non-proprietary open standards. The said technology is a form of specification that was developed by the PCI SIG. It works by allowing devices to reveal hardware virtualization in a standardized way.
"The AMD graphics cards are uniquely equipped with AMD Multiuser GPU technology embedded into the GPU delivering consistent and predictable performance," said AMC Corporate VP and General Manager of Professional Graphics Sean Burke.
According to AMD, notable features of the Multiuser GPU include: compute capabilities that are based on OpenCL under the support of GPU virtualization, which is the leader of its kind in the industry; complete feature set support that encompasses OpenGL 4.4 and DirectX; support for OpenCL 2.0 acceleration; stable and predictable performance; share of user-owned local memory to provide added security; and a maximum of 15 users for every physical GPU.
Some of the key solutions offered by the Multiuser GPU include preserving and supporting graphics and compute-accelerated features, addressing limitations found among present-day virtualized GPU solutions, providing general enterprise GPU essentials and allowing work with no restrictions.
Another benefit in using a hardware-based virtualization system as opposed to those that are software-based is that it creates a sort of a system shield that makes it more difficult for malicious users to hack the system and peek at the screen of other users.
Hardware-based virtualization, otherwise known as hardware-assisted virtualization, is an evolving technology which continues to increase in popularity among server platforms. It revolves around the basic concept of consolidating a number of small physical servers into a single huge physical server with the aim of using the processor more effectively. It is designed to enhance the processor's performance and overcome certain virtualization challenges, such as memory addresses and translating instructions.
The Multiuser GPU is said to work in environments that use VMware vSphere/ESXi 5.5 and higher. It also offers support for protocols that are considered remote, such as Horizon View.
Consumers can head towards booth 447 at VMworld 2015 to witness the demonstration of AMD virtualization solutions, which is happening until Sept. 3 in San Francisco.
