Your fleeting fascination with a remote workstation solution in the past may have recently shifted into anxiety-driven race to find an option for yourself, your co-workers, or employees.
We didn’t get much warning, did we? If your high-efficiency, centralized teams have suddenly switched to a pajama-clad ‘work from home’ workforce, the scrambling to patch together software, server, and desktop access may have left you with a little ‘it’ll do for now’ relief, but what about the next time? Or even the next few months?
One option I’ve had my eyes on is TGX Remote Desktop from Mechdyne. They’ve partnered with Lenovo to offer a remote workstation solution that marries Lenovo Workstation hardware with TGX Remote Workstation Software to put workstation power in your hands wherever you need to work. And with it, Lenovo has announced a 120-day test drive.
How Does TGX Remote Workstation Work?
TGX Remote Workstation, simply stated, captures a desktop display and streams it on a remote display. Their software combines compression algorithms and hardware acceleration on the ‘Sender’ machine to provide ‘like-local performance’ on the ‘Receiver’ machine. Further, TGX uses H.264 compression video encoding and AAC compression to encode and play 44.1 kHz stereo audio.
How is TGX Different From Other RD/VDI Solutions?
There are a number of features that make TGX an option to consider, the first of which is performance. It provides 4k resolution and a highly optimized bandwidth to frame rate ratio, which reduces both latency and bandwidth consumption while providing control over the real-time desktop experience. With this, they also provide the ability to connect multiple users in the same session for remote team collaboration.
What Hardware is Needed for a TGX Remote Workstation?
On the host (Sender) side, you need:
- A Lenovo ThinkStation P520 and P920, or P920 Rack
- Optimized, Dedicated NVIDIA GPU Processing
- Physical and Virtual Workstation Support
- Microsoft or Linux OS Support
- Full Remote Management
Your host can be a local computer, server, or cloud server (Amazon AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, etc). It does support virtual machines and connection brokers and encrypts all network traffic using Secure Socket Layer (SSL) with credential hashed with 256-bit AES.
On your (Receiver) side, you need:
- A modern Intel Processor (Core i5 and up)
- 8 GB RAM (minimum)
- Microsoft or Linux OS
- NVIDIA Quadro GPU (recommended)
It’s important to point out that your computer doesn’t need to be the workhorse desktop you may have in the office. Lenovo recommends the ThinkStation P330 Tiny tower (starting at $809) or the ThinkPad P1 laptop (starting at $1559). Up to receivers can connect to a sender.
Lenovo has arranged a 120-day test drive for TGX Remote Workstation software to help those feeling the pinch of their current remote work situation. For details, contact Lenovo here (Select Request Test Drive to the lower right side or enter your information in the pop-up). Though it is only a trial, if you decide to continue using it, the cost is $455 for a one-year license. However, they do have options for multiple licenses.
There’s also a great set of TGX FAQs on the Mechdyne website that provides more answers on everything from performance to security and other information for your particular setup and needs.
