ThinkLogical debuts Velocity USB KVM -- with a 25-mile range
By Nilay Patel 
posted Dec 11th 2008 10:56PM
posted Dec 11th 2008 10:56PM
[Via Wired]
posted Dec 11th 2008 10:56PM
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It must have taken a lot of work to bring of these to fruition. Cool.
You use the word "fruition" quite a bit.
Purposefully I might add. It seems to annoy everyone on Engadget for some reason. Any idea why?
They have a grudge against fruit?
My next word shall be... voluminous.
Please dont.
Save that for the next GadgetWaif post.
There seem to be a voluminous amount of people on Engadget that are against people having a colorful vocabulary.
@ED
What is GadgetWaif?
Sorry, you'll need more than just a colourful vocabulary to understand GadgetWaif...
At first I was impressed because it was wireless....
I don't think this has any use because who sells the wires that reach 40 kilos?
Also, for the price of this I'm betting you can just get another computer of whatever your using and bring it where it's needed.
You don't get it.
first of all, its not wireless.
secondly, this is obviously not for your average home computer.
third, assume you used this to control some servers, i'm sure you would not want to buy a whole new server room each time you had to go somewhere.
Sorry for not being clear.
I meant at first as in at first glance, I then discovered how it is not wireless.
the internet forgives you...this time...moof...
I'm sure somebody could use it for a long-range Rick Roll attack.
Set phasers to RICK ROLL.
...
No?
Sounded funnier in my head.
So this can wirelessly transmit pretty much an entire computer with audio over 25 miles!? Thats pretty damn impressive.
Did you just read the comments and skip the article entirely?
it's not wireless.
If you use a point-to-point long-range wireless setup (think two satellite dishes pointed at each other) it's certainly possible.
I don't know, i think this product kind of contradicts the name of the company - "ThinkLogical"
At first glance it certainly looks like it's unnecessary, but this is great for people who need to do off-site system maintenance without being able to access things over SSH or VNC (fixing something that won't boot up far enough to start either).
This will go great with VPN and WiMAX!
so i can play crysis 25 miles away from my computer?
SWEET
Good luck turning it back on when it crashes..
COMPUTER: Please insert disk to play.
Can I play?
I think the use for this is for large campuses, either college or major corporate entities. It, as said previously, is most likely to control large servers or supercomputers remotely without exposing them to the internet and the security problems that can arise.
Well, there are many solutions to remotely control servers, and do so without exposing them to the internet. PCAnywhere, VNC, SSH, RDP to name a few, and they can all be run over a private/isolated ethernet network with no internet connectivity.
The only reason to need a KVM is A) BIOS level control, and B) Special cases where network hardware/services are not an option for the host machine.
In those cases you can use an IP KVM, which generally has nice web UI or similar where you can get full console access from anywhere. Again, if necessary for security, this can be done over a private/isolated ethernet network, which is probably cheaper to install and implement than this KVM.
I suppose there may be a very small number of places where this is a better solution, but I can't think of any.
Why do they call you "the widowmaker?"
I think its hysterrical the company's name is "ThinkLogical"
I've always wanted a KVM with DVI and USB, now I might actually be having one and not even know about it! The 25 miles radius is ludicrous.
set warp speed to LUDICROUS!
Not sure if I'm missing loocas' point, but there are lots of KVM with DVI - I have an Aten model here and it works great.
Bit pricier than a standard VGA one, but worth it.
Believe it or not there are lots of uses for this. I have used similar (but less capable) devices in the past. Picture this: You've got a computer controlling a telescope at 14000 feet. The computer has to be there due to all the connections to it (analog and digital I/O). The operator on the other hand could be in an office at 8000 feet where it is much more comfortable. One fiber to have direct access to that machine? Oh hell yes!
@Ineptitude
But in that situation, a much cheaper IP KVM would be just as suitable, if not more so. And if you want to keep it isolated from the net, there's nothing stopping you from still using that dedicated fibre.
That said, I haven't used an IP KVM myself, so I don't know what the video quality is like. Since this device uses uncompressed video, it may be more suitable for the odd situation that requires absolutely perfect image quality. The only one I can really think of is real time telescope viewing. But then do they actually run at high frame rates? If not, it would be much cheaper to just get the computer to transmit the frames itself over TCP/IP...
I've done the IP KVM thing. They're typically slow for video and control purposes. Astronomers want to feel like they're right there - and they're happy to pay for it (telescope time is expensive). Maybe it's a niche market. I can't help but think that there are lots of similar situations in science and industry.
BTW: As far as image quality goes, nobody looks at images from the telescopes anymore (aside from basic tracking images, or publicity shots). All the light goes to various instruments and turned in to numbers that support the astronomer's theories. Unless you're an astronomer it's horridly boring.
There are loads of uses for this - including military ones.
KVM over IP is horrible....
This thing is awesome!
You only need to take a look at the information on the website " thinklogical.com " and read.
It transmits signals uncompressed all-inclusive USB2.0.
It works via one singelemode fiber you can rent from a carrier and can be implemented in
existing infrastructures via wavelength multiplexing.
So it is a masterpice of high tech and is a tool for pros.
"Okay, we can't actually think of a single reason why you'd need a KVM switch with a max range of 25 freaking miles"
Seems like a lot of people here - including the author himself - have absolutely no idea what are they trying to talk about...
Instead, just try to run a mission-critical datacenter before writing silly things like that, really...
To the facts?
1- A really HA datacenter (like one of a big bank, or defense-related) is often built upon vault-rooms and secure environments, with redundant power supply, air conditioning and sensor-alarm systems that could easily reach an 8-digit US$ sum itself. Make room, in such environments, to accommodate operators, analists and support staff is, by design, a money waste approach, compared with whatever will be a tag price of some thinklogical kind of device (plus optical fiber);
2- KVM over IP is a great solution - for those who never used it. Read about a tech or gadget solution is far from take it for a ride in a real world basis...
3- SSH/VNC, c'mon, this cannot be serious. These are (great) protocols/services used to access applications and fully operational OSes. You could (sorta) run your website or your cloud app that hosts inside a datacenter with them, but no way you can manage a entire datacenter without a low-level access to the hardware you are supporting!
If you are sit far from your datacenter and your (IP) network is down, either cause the carrier run a blackout or your ethernet switches are non operational, how in the world you're gonna access your serverfarm to do a basic troubleshooting?
If you need to access BIOS and boot-time features (such as RAID configuration), how to do this by VNC?
In a virtualized environment, with OSes and data residing on a SAN/NAS structure, and where you can hot-swap a VM between several machines, it's just naive not to have some hi-perf KVM solution.
Just try to figure...
At last: a comment that is actually grounded in truth.
First let me say I worked with some of the ThinkLogical products about 4 years ago. They have some great engineers and their product development team has a solid handle on what real customers need in the real world.
I have since moved into other specialties, but when I was working with this type of gear we would use it to connect large visualization clusters to remote display rooms...
Consider an array of high end graphics workstations with gen-locked and frame-locked graphics engines. Let's say each of the video outputs is pushing a 1900x1080 stereo video signal at a rate of between 96 and 120 Hz. Now package together 9 of these video outputs along with audio input/output, KB/Mouse, specialized serial interfaces, a video sync signal, and perhaps a remote data interface over USB. Send this all a few buildings away to a different part of your campus and bring in the scientists and decision makers. Put on the 3D glasses and start looking at a seamless 9000x6000 pixel image of the earth, a nuclear simulation, a potential oil reservoir 25 miles below the sea floor, sub-molecular viral interactions, advanced computational fluid dynamics in a power generation system, etc. This is just one application area for the type of technology detailed here. The other layer that one would explore is an advanced KVM matrix. Consider the hardware, software, power, and maintenance costs associated with installing a dozen powerful computing clusters as detailed above in local datacenters throughout your campus, city, or world. Much of this investment would be lost to idle time. Now take one of these computing clusters and remotely send every signal coming from the back of the hardware to where you need it at that moment. Do this using a high performance KVM switch. (About the size of a large fridge and able to matrix over 1000 sources to 1000 different locations while maintaining ultimately allowing multiple locations around the globe to interact with the same data visuals and IO stream in real time with synchronized graphics.) These scenarios are how this type of equipment is used. (And 25 miles is not the range limit of such technology. With some additional network bandwidth one is able to go cross-Atlantic. ...and then the real fun begins.
Hmm MSequiera, this wouldn't be the one from NJIT by any chance?
At work we use KVM over IP, and that works fine for regular servers. Seeing as these use fiber its not a surprise there is not any loss over long distances, but I don't know what market these are for where KVM over IP isn't good enough. If you are managing servers you don't need 1080p and stereo audio.
Maybe if you have a huge server cluster with one machine that can take all that power to do video editing or something, or scientific purposes. But if you already have fiber run to your quiet location then couldn't you just run a machine on the other end of the fiber? Just seems like an odd product.
Exactly! Finally someone is making some sense
It might be useful for wiring up the Pentagon, I don't think any ordinary sized building or campus would really need that much power, though.
Then again, where does the second place product rank in? If everything else maxes out at 100 feet or something, then there are shorter range possibilities for this thing.
Here are a few applications some of you missed. Inginero is right on it.
The distance range is less important to me than the bandwidth and its ability to transport every frame of a 1920 x 1200 @ 60Hz (or higher) video stream with no compression along with any other desktop peripheral (including 480Mbps, USB 2.0 or even Firewire 800) with no perceptible latency (1.5ns/ft). This has real value in post production and editing in the film making and broadcast content creation businesses (advertising) due to the terabytes of secure data required to do effects, etc. These projects are generally collaborations between sound stages, post houses, editing sites, etc. (consider LA, NYC and SOHO in London as entertainment metro areas). Other applications are scientific modeling and collaboration, large scale digital signage, shipboard and land based command and control rooms, medical imaging, industrial computing such as power plants, refineries, and mining. Let's not forget the huge applications in the military and (dare I say on this blog) the intelligence community (NSA, CIA, NRO, NSA and the like) for secure image analysis, mission centers, and simulations.
Server management is easy from a KVM perspective, just consider the number of companies that make pedestrian KVM extenders. Most have made a living with either compression techniques (IP) or vga and ps2. As resolutions increase and desktop peripherals get faster, performance related issues associated with physics forbid them to be used in many applications , especially those requiring every pixel and frame at the far end and a truly secure infrastructure in between. DVI (165 MHz) requires over 5 gig to deliver everything (uncompressed).
The guys at thinklogical also have products that switch anything to anything over really long distances which has many HD video routing, extreme AV and high performance KVM applications. If you need it and the pockets are deep enough, no network can replace it.
This is not for the gamers world or those that can get by with VNC. At least not yet. It goes well beyond pro AV as well.
usage:
porn rig 25miles away from house
keyboard monitor and mouse at house
parent dont know what is going on
Nice product - one of those that will make you rethink your way of doing things. It made me really think if there is really a need for such in our system. But, if this can be a lot of rethinking too for most providers of KVM over IP like http://www.raritan.info/ but then again, i would like to know which is more cost effective and cost efficient. Until then, this product can only make me muse and nothing more. :)