Once upon a time, and not so long ago, “desktop computers” were terminals attached to mainframes or midrange computers running Unix. Then the PC arrived, and everything changed. Finally, until today. Today, Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) is making a comeback. And Red Hat is joining this trend with the general availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Workstations (RHEL WS) on Amazon Web Services, announced Tuesday.
This is not the only one. Canonical, the parent company of Ubuntu Linux, now offers its Ubuntu desktop on AWS as well. And, if you’ve been following closely, Microsoft has the same project.
Forget Windows on your PC, Microsoft’s plan is to have you subscribe to Windows 265 Cloud PC or Azure Virtual Desktop. Microsoft doesn’t care whether you’re running “Windows” on a Windows PC, a Mac, or an old-school Linux desktop like Linux Mint.
NICE DCV Protocol
The same goes for Red Hat. The traditional desktop computer hasn’t played a big role in Red Hat’s business plans since it made the switch from Red Hat Linux to RHEL in 2004. Today, Red Hat will be glad you’re running RHEL WS via an Amazon-provided NICE DCV, AWS’ high-performance Remote Viewing Protocol client, or your web browser of choice.
NICE DCV supports remote Windows and Linux environments. It is available with native clients for Windows, Linux and MacOS. These native clients support up to 4K resolution, multiple monitors, and features such as pen/touch support, USB devices, multi-channel audio, smart cards, and file redirection. It may also work, although less well, with any modern web browser.
So if you really want to run a RHEL WS from, say, your iPad Pro, you can. No matter which platform you use, you’ll get a high-end RHEL WS desktop for running power-intensive workloads like rendering animations or visualizing data.
A remote offer for teleworkers
Gone are the days when I wrote vi on a VT-102 terminal attached to an AT&T 3B2 minicomputer. These AWS RHEL WS instances use GPU-accelerated hardware instances to handle graphics-intensive processes. They use powerful Amazon EC2 instances for this, including G-family accelerated instances with Graviton processors.
It’s much more powerful than the traditional DaaS you might have used in the past, like Linux-based Chromebooks or Critix on Windows. Red Hat and AWS can make this happen with NICE DCV, high-end processors from AWS, and the growth of last-mile broadband internet. This service is not intended for those who still use ADSL!
No, this new Red Hat workstation outlet is for remote workers in animation studios, visual effects companies, and industrial design companies who need the power of a workstation at home. users. This is a work-from-home offer for high-end users in the 21st century.th century. On this new platform, you will have the same access to the full RHEL software suite and Independent Software Vendor (ISV) applications.
Would you like to try it ? It is available today on AWS Marketplace and supports RHEL WS 8.6 GRID and Tesla drivers.
Source: ZDNet.com