So at work we just picked up the PCoIP and I wanted to post a review for you guys. This is intentionally in the wrong section because the PCoIP section is empty except for the new post for the Zero Client, which is not what I bought. I ended up buying the older Host Adapter and Portal client.
The Problem
Basically at work we needed to use a server class machine as kind of a desktop. Quad socket beast with the fan noise to go with it (4U Tower form factor). Idling the server never stopped the fan noise, but it occurred to us that even if we fixed the idle fan noise the computer still had to spin up to run modeling simulations, so we needed to find some sort of solution.
What We Thought Of
Our initial thought was VNC, but we discarded that because of two reasons. First, VNC has client side rendering, which defeats the purpose of having a decent graphics card in it (which we purchased because we expected to put this in an office). Secondly, VNC would have really bad performance over the link.
We then considered FreeNX. FreeNX supposedly has better compression and renders on the server, so we figured that would have better performance. It was entirely unusable over our link.
Our final consideration was KVM over fiber. Those units are about $2k for the pair and then you still need a fiber path. That fiber would have been expensive to run, so we felt like we didn't have an option other than trying to baffle the machine and duct it to a fan somewhere else.
The Newsletter
I happened to get the EVGA email about the Zero Client, and it occurred to me that the product might fix the problem I was trying to solve. Poking about, I thought perhaps I could use the EVGA Host Adapter and then the Zero Client. The Host Adapter seemed to be aimed at Windows computers and VMWare, but alas, the machine in question was GNU/Linux!. Using my Google-Fu I found the startup providing the technology for PCoIP. They (Teradici) claim there is no OS dependency. Also on Teradici's site they feature a few of the other designs other vendors have, but I decided to go with the EVGA product because it seemed to best serve what I was trying to do.
The Gamble
I called EVGA and asked if the PCoIP works with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5. For those of you not familiar with RHEL5, it's ancient and crusty, but pretty solid. The EVGA pre-sales rep I spoke with informed me I needed the PCoIP Portal to work with the Host Adapter and not the Zero Client. Okay, not a big problem. Then I asked them about other OS compatibility. I asked about how the host adapter connects to the computer and if they've tried it in any other OS. He said that Mac OS compatibility is a bit off (the sound doesn't work), but I didn't really care about that for my application. I just needed remote KVM, everything else was bonus. I confirmed with a vendor I work with that I could have a 30 day no restocking fee, so we made the purchase.
Set Up
I set up the PCoIP today and I must say I'm rather impressed with the entire setup.
Host Adapter
The Host Adapter was the first thing I pulled out of the box. I was momentarily confused when I pulled out the instructions (actually giant folded "quick start" poster) because it explained how to set up the Portal. Expanding the folded paper I saw there was also instructions for the host adapter. The instructions were very clear, and I really appreciated the diagrams which explained all the jumper settings.
Pulling out the extras in the box, I saw that there was an included power switch lead. Interesting...
Reading more on my giant poster, you can actually chain the power switch in line with the adapter. So you can go from power switch to host adapter to motherboard header. I was thoroughly impressed by that low-tech solution for remote power management. I own the Classified 758 and if you use the included panel you can't actually plug in the chassis headers.
How the Host Adapter works is actually pretty interesting. It draws power from the PCIe bus (or from an external header so long as you adjust the jumper setting). From the PCIe bus I can assume it submits USB controls and reads the audio (from the documents it seems Realtek drivers need to be installed). The host adapter is connected to your graphics card with a Y cable to your 2 DVI ports. According to the specs it can run 2 1080p displays remotely.
The Portal
Opening the Portal, I must say it has the look and feel of a nettop. 2 USB ports on the front, 2 on the back, dual DVI out, audio ports. Everything is labeled in legible font and the plastic feels fairly sturdy. There's 2 power buttons, 1 big one for the Portal (with a light ring around it), and a smaller "reset" looking switch which actually powers down the remote computer over the aforementioned power lead chaining.
Powering up the Portal for the first time, you're shown a splash screen with a single button to "Connect". I had the host already up and running, and had put the MAC addresses in my DHCP server already, so I didn't have any problems with it falling back to the default 192.168 address. As a side note, the MAC addresses are conveniently labeled on the outside of the box. That's great for me who sometimes has to power up boxes to even get a MAC address to put in my server. Pressing connect it sat for a second and found my other device. It was a simple interface to connect and I didn't run in to any problems setting it up.
Test Drive
Explaining a bit about my setup, this box will be hosted in the server room, which is connected with gigabit. However, the building infrastructure is only gigabit between switches, and then it's 100mb to the offices. So I'm working with 100mb or a fraction thereof depending on building usage.
The performance was very smooth. Having used the box right before I set this up, it was native performance, even dragging around 3D models. I was super impressed with the performance over the 100mb network. I could give it a gigabit port if I needed to (phones run 1G, but that's a POE switch with limited ports), but I'm really glad it worked with 100mbit. I was running 1x 1920x1080 display over the link.
Thoughts
I ended up having to reboot the box to detect my new monitor. While I was using the box on a local KVM, I had a 1280x1024 resolution monitor. After setting up the Portal for the first time, I tried it connected to another 1280x1024 display. I swapped the cable over to the 24" monitor, and it didn't detect the new display. Forcing the Nvidia driver to re-detect displays still didn't work, so I rebooted it. Upon reconnecting, I could have actually gotten in to the RAID card configuration, which was impressive. I didn't think the card would have responded that fast after POST. Bringing the system back up I was able to see my 1920x1080 monitor without problem.
The Portal itself looks like it could have been fitted with a VESA mount to mount behind my monitor (like one or two of the nettops do these days), or put in-line with a monitor arm. I don't need it to mount, it just looks like it could or should given the right additional hardware.
Mounting a USB drive across the network wasn't a problem. I was able to read the files off fine. I didn't do any write testing because I realized I would probably be network constrained.
I think in the future I'll be testing if this setup can walk through routers or if I need to be on the same broadcast domain. The portal and host card were put on the same subnet (a /24), but I have another subnet I might try to put it on to see if it works, unless one of you know. The other thing I'm curious about is the detection protocol and what sort of traffic that generates (relating back to the routing question). I'll have to sniff the traffic but I had other things to do and my co-worker had already been waiting a few weeks to find a decent remote access setup.
