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Visual Area Networking

SGI® Visual Area Networking (VAN) solutions are helping organizations accelerate workflows, solve larger problems, and work together in distributed environments. OpenGL Vizserver® is a key element of VAN implementations and enables users with virtually any mix of client devices to bring the power of networked visualization to their desktops.

VAN removes the requirement to have advanced visualization capabilities, powerful software, and corporate data repositories collocated with every user who could potentially need of them. Individuals throughout your organization can now use existing, unmodified applications to access the powerful visualization, computing, and data management functionality of the Silicon Graphics® Prism® and SGI® Onyx® families of visualization systems over existing network infrastructure. The combination of VAN with SGI® IRIX® OS-based visual workstations also enables desktop users to directly collaborate with experts or colleagues anywhere in the world. In both cases, VAN allows them to interact with their most complex visualization problems independent of their location, the location of their data, or the location of team members

OpenGL Vizserver

OpenGL Vizserver is a technical and creative computing solution designed to deliver superior visualization, collaboration functionality, and advanced performance to any client, whether on a desktop workstation or wireless tablet. OpenGL Vizserver fulfills the VAN concept by using SGI visualization systems as a graphics servers and collaboration systems. OpenGL Vizserver allows users to remotely view and interact with large data sets from any other system at any location in an organization and to collaborate with multiple colleagues using these same applications and data.

More specifically, OpenGL Vizserver enables a single Silicon Graphics® Prism® or SGI® Onyx® family advanced visualization system to act as a multiuser graphics server and allows Silicon Graphics® Octane2™ and Silicon Graphics Fuel® workstations to act as personal graphics collaboration systems. With OpenGL Vizserver, these systems distribute remote and collaborative visualization sessions to client systems running a mix of desktop operating systems. With OpenGL Vizserver, graphics processing is handled entirely on the SGI Onyx family system using full 3D hardware acceleration; the client machine simply decompresses and displays the image. This leverages existing internal infrastructure and allows customers to leverage the power of Silicon Graphics' world-class visualization systems on common desktop workstations such as Silicon Graphics® visual workstations, Sun™ Solaris™ systems or Intel® architecture PCs running the Linux®, Microsoft® Windows NT®, Windows® 2000, or Windows® XP operating systems.

OpenGL Vizserver offers the following features and benefits:
Application-transparent--OpenGL Vizserver runs existing OpenGL® API-based applications without modification
Shared application control--OpenGL Vizserver instantly turns existing stand-alone applications into collaborative applications with up to five remote sites sharing control of a single interactive application
Platform/system independent--OpenGL Vizserver gives existing workstations, personal computers, and even wireless handheld devices the power of a Silicon Graphics Prism or SGI Onyx family system, as well as direct interaction with experts on Silicon Graphics workstations.
Advanced visualization environments--OpenGL Vizserver supports highly immersive visualization environments that include multichannel and stereo displays
Network independent--OpenGL Vizserver uses standard networks including Gigabit Ethernet, 100Base-T, ATM, T1, the Internet and wireless 802.11 networks
High scalability--OpenGL Vizserver leverages scalable systems that each system supports up to 16 concurrent users, 512 CPUs, 1TB of memory, gigabytes per second of I/O, and petabytes of data
Ease of customization and integration--OpenGL Vizserver includes APIs for compression, authentication, accounting, and resource reservation that allow full integration into your computing environment

The tightly integrated combination of high-end visualization and supercomputing available in Silicon Graphics visualization systems delivers the power that scientists and engineers need to gain valuable insight into complex problems, reducing the time it takes to make new discoveries. OpenGL Vizserver makes this technology accessible to more people within the enterprise, delivering more power throughout the organization.