Physical Infrastructure (PC Farm)
While DaDesktop primarily leverages virtual desktops, certain tasks demand the performance and specific capabilities of actual hardware. Bare metal deployment ensures that every participant is assigned a dedicated physical desktop or server, all centrally managed within the DaDesktop platform.
Dedicated Physical Resources
Rather than sharing virtual instances, each participant operates on their own dedicated physical machine.
Remote Classroom Management
Integrate existing physical classrooms with DaDesktop to oversee all hardware operations without requiring on-site presence.
Use Cases for Bare Metal
- Applications that require native execution without virtualization, such as ONAP and OpenStack.
- Specialized hardware that cannot be effectively virtualized, including specific GPUs, Mellanox cards, and other networking devices.
- Training modules where interacting with firmware or physical components is integral to the curriculum.
- Physical lab environments that require centralized remote oversight.
Operational Mechanics
Physical machines are linked to a DaDesktop node via a control cable known as ddnexus. When provisioning a standalone or fresh-start desktop, choose the "Metal PC" option to deploy the environment directly onto the physical hardware.
PC Farm Architecture
Existing office desktops can be integrated to function as bare metal nodes. In this configuration, each physical desktop is referred to as a potato. The central server responsible for managing these devices is termed a pumpkin (also known as the DaDesktop node, or ddnode). The USB cable connecting each potato to the pumpkin is designated as a potato stalk.
Potato stalk cables can be sourced from eBay and Alibaba.
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