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  4. Breaking the RAM barrier with a server?

  • Breaking the RAM barrier with a server?

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    Hey Folks -

    I'm curious if anyone has thought through the possibility of running VI on a single applications server? NOT for the purpose of sharing among users, but for the purpose of serving up multiple instances of the stand-alone or host applications to a single user.

    The inspriation: I was skimming the New York Times and out fell an insert for the Dell PowerEdge 1950: 2 Quad-core Xeon processors, and 32 GB of ram capable. 1.5TB of storage in SATA format.

    So, here's my question: Would there be some way to address multiple 32-bit versions of the standalone from within the (x64) applications server environment, giving each its own 3GB of memory, yet sharing access to the server's single massive hard drive and 8 CPU's (and single Vienna Key?) That's supposed to be what the virtualization environment is all about.

    I know nothing about servers, but I'm curious if this could present a solution. Christian???

    Regards,

    Eric
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    The one drawback to the idea of employing Dell PowerEdge 1950 fully loaded with the 32GB of RAM might be the price Dell charges for 32GB of RAM: $23,070. For 16GB you can choose between 4 4GB chips ($10,600) or 8 2GB chips ($2400). A quad processor version of the PowerEdge 1950 (with dual 2.66GHz Xeon dual-core processors) will run you $6,102. How many Mac Minis can one buy for $29,190 or for $8,502? You could also get a MacPro with a Quad Xeon 2.66 GHZ (apparently the same processors as the Dell 1950) for $2299 from Amazon and 16GB of RAM (8 2GB chips) for about $3200 from suppliers other than Apple. OS 10.5 (scheduled for release in April) will, according to all indications, be fully 64 bit.
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    Interest point Steve - I guess I'm trying to think of how to use all of that memory before we get a 64-bit engine from VSL. The server might be able to apportion the huge amount of memory and put it into nice 3gb packages for the current 32 bit engine.

    You inspire another question re: the mac mini, which I will post in its own thread...

    Thanks!
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    One of my points was that you can get the same processors and 16 GB of RAM in a MacPro for considerably less money than the price of a similarly equipped Dell PowerEdge server. Right now on a Mac Pro you can run Logic with 2.5 GB of VI plugins, another 2.5 GB of EXS 24 samples along with several VI Standalones for a total of 7GB of samples if you have 8GB of RAM installed, perhaps more VI Standalones if you have 12 or 16 GB of RAM. Or, if you want to run Windows XP or some version of Vista instead, you can. In two months, Macs are likely to have a completely 64 bit operating system and Mac Pro computers will likely have 8 processor cores for the same price as the current quad core machines,