Workstation

SGI O2 Workstation

A workstation, often colloquially referred to as Unix workstation, RISC workstation or engineering workstation, is a high-end technical computing desktop microcomputer designed primarily to be used by one person at a time, but can also be connected to remotely by other users when necessary.

Workstations usually offer higher performance than normally found in a personal computer, especially with respect to graphics, processing power and multitasking ability.

At its main console, a workstation is optimized for displaying and manipulating complex data such as 3D mechanical design, engineering simulation results, mathematical plots, etc. Consoles usually consist of a high resolution display, a keyboard and a mouse as a minimum but often support dual displays to double the viewable information. For advanced visualization tasks, specialized hardware such as SpaceBall can be used in conjunction with MCAD software to improve depth perception. Workstations, in general, are usually first to offer accessories and collaboration tools such as videoconferencing capability.

As true with computers in general, today's average personal computer is more powerful than the top-of-the-line workstations of one generation older. This forces workstation vendors into niche markets as many complex operations no longer require the technical superiority of modern day workstations. However, workstation hardware is optimized for multitasking and multithreaded computing and in situations requiring considerable computing power, workstations remain usable while traditional personal computers quickly become unresponsive.

Differing Design Philosopies Between Personal Computers and Technical Workstations

Workstations have followed a different evolutionary path than personal computers. They were lower cost versions of minicomputers such as the VAX line and took advantage of the first 32-bit microprocessors as opposed to the multi-chip 32-bit processors prevalent in early personal computers. In later implementations, workstations used the 32-bit RISC processor desigh to substantially increase clock speed beyond the CISC processors used in personal computers.

They also ran the same multiuser multitasking operating system that the minicomputers used: Unix. Finally, they used networking to connect to larger computers for engineering analysis and design visualization. The much lower costs relative to minicomputers allowed greater overall productivity for many companies that relied on powerful computers for technical computing work, since the individual users now had a machine to themselves for small to medium size tasks, thereby freeing up larger computers for batch jobs.

Personal computers, in contrast to workstations, were not designed to bring minicomputer performance to the individual engineer's desktop, but rather were designed to keep costs within a certain price range, with backward compatability in terms of hardware and software for as long as feasible. The first personal computers always used single-chip microprocessors starting with 8-bit in the early days of the Apple II, Atari 800, and Commodore 64. Industry standardization occurred with the Intel and Motorola lines of 16 and 32-bit microprocessors, leading to 64-bit dual core processors in current PC's. As far as practical, the latest machines can run software natively dating back over 20 years. Operating systems were originally designed to be single tasking (MS DOS, Windows 3.0 etc), then with limited co-operative multitasking (Windows 95, etc.), and then pre-emptive multitasking (Windows XP, Linux). Each of these different types of operating systems has varying abilities to fully utilize the hardware's inherent abilities to perform multiple tasks simultaneously.

Examples of the First Workstations

The earliest examples of workstations were generally cheap minicomputers like PDPs which only one person used, despite being intended for a number of users. The first computers consciously designed for one user (and so a workstation in the modern sense of the term) were the Lisp machines developed at MIT ~1974. Other early examples include the famous Xerox Star, which never saw production, and the less well known Three Rivers PERQ.

In the early 1980s, successors in this field were Apollo Computer and Sun Microsystems who created Unix-based workstations based on the Motorola 68000 processor. Meanwhile DARPA's VLSI project created several spinoff graphics products as well, notably the SGI 3130, and Silicon Graphics' range of machines that followed. It was not uncommon to differentiate the target market for the products, with Sun and Apollo considered to be network workstations, while the SGI machines were graphics workstations.

Workstations tend to be very expensive, typically several times the cost of a standard PC and sometimes costing as much as a new car. But minicomputers sometimes cost as much as a house! The high expense usually comes from using costlier components that (one hopes) run faster than those found at the local computer store. Manufacturers try to take a "balanced" approach to system design, making certain that data can flow unimpeded between the many different subsystems within a computer. Additionally, workstation makers tend to push to sell systems at higher prices in order to maintain somewhat larger profit margins than the commodity-driven PC manufacturers.

The systems that come out of workstation companies often feature SCSI or Fibre Channel disk storage systems, high-end 3D accelerators, single or multiple 64-bit processors, large amounts of RAM, and well-designed cooling. Additionally, the companies that make the products tend to have very good repair/replacement plans. However, the line between workstation and PC is increasingly becoming blurred as trends toward consolidation and cost-cutting have caused workstation manufacturers to use "off the shelf" PC components and graphics solutions as opposed to proprietary in-house developed technology. Some attempts have been made to produce low-cost workstations (which are still expensive by PC standards), but they have often had lackluster performance. Their main advantage to customers is the binary compatability they have with larger servers made by the same vendor. This allows software development to take place on low-cost (relative to the server) desktop machines.

There have been several attempts to produce a workstation-like machine specifically for the lowest possible price point as opposed to performance. In these cases the machines, like the earlier network workstation products, remove local storage and reduce the machine to the processor, keyboard, mouse and screen. These machines fill a niche much closer to a terminal than a computer, but when combined with a server there was an argument that they would lead to a lower cost of ownership. The 3Station by 3Com was a typical early example, and Sun has also introduced similar machines on several occasions. However the relentless price pressure in the traditional PC market has always undercut these products by the time they reach market, and none have been successful to date.

The fact that consumer products of PCs and game consoles are now themselves at the cutting edge of technology makes deciding whether or not to purchase a workstation very difficult for many organizations. Sometimes, these systems are still required, but many places opt for the less-expensive, if more fault-prone, PC-level hardware.

What makes a workstation?

It is instructive to take a detailed look at the history of specific technologies which once differentiated workstations from personal computers. The more widespread adoption of these technologies into mainstream PCs was a direct factor in the decline of the workstation as a separate market segment:

• RISC CPUs: while RISC in its early days (early 1980s) offered something like an order-of-magnitude performance improvement over CISC processors of comparable cost, one particular family of CISC processors (Intel's x86) always had the edge in market share and the economies of scale that this implied. By about the mid-1990s, Intel CPUs had achieved performance on a parity with RISC (albeit at a cost of greater chip complexity), relegating the latter to niche markets for the most part.
• Hardware support for floating-point operations: this was standard among higher-end PCs by the late 1980s, but did not become common at the lowest end of the market until the mid 1990s. Now, even the lowest priced PC on the market has it as a standard.
• Operating system: early workstations run on a variant of the Unix operating system. The early 8-bit and 16-bit PC CPUs could not run an OS as sophisticated as Unix, but this, too, began to change from about the late 1980s as PCs with 32-bit CPUs and integrated MMUs became widely affordable.
• High-speed networking (10 Mbit/s or better): common among PCs by the early 1990s.
• Large displays (17"-21"): common among PCs by the late 1990s.
• High-performance 3D graphics hardware: this started to become really popular in the PC market around the mid-to-late 1990s, mostly driven by computer gaming.
• SCSI disk storage: never very popular in the PC market, except for the Apple Macintosh. SCSI is an advanced controller interface which is particularly good where the disk has to cope with multiple requests at once. This makes it suited for use in servers, but its benefits to desktop PCs which mostly run single-user operating systems are less clear. These days, with desktop systems acquiring more multi-user capabilities (and the increasing popularity of Linux), the new disk interface of choice is Serial ATA, which has some SCSI-like speed, but at a lower cost.
• Extremely reliable components: this is actually the most distinctive feature of a workstation. Although most technologies implemented in workstations are available at a much lower price for the consumer market, finding good components and making sure they work compatibly with each other is a great challenge in workstation building. Because workstations are designed for high-end tasks such as weather forecasting, video rendering, and game design, it's taken for granted that these systems must be running under full-load, non-stop for several hours or even days without issue. Any off-the-shelf components can be used to build a workstation, but the lifespans of such components under such rigorious conditions are questionable. For this reason, almost no workstations are built by the customer themselves but rather purchased from a vendor such as Hewlett-Packard, IBM, SGI or Dell.
• Tight integration between the Operating System and the hardware: Workstation vendors designed both the hardware and maintain the Unix operating system variant that runs on this hardware. This allows for much more rigorous testing than is possible with an operating system such as Windows. Windows requires that 3rd party hardware vendors write compliant hardware drivers that are stable and reliable. Also, minor variation in hardware quality such as timing or build quality can affect the reliability of the overall machine. Workstation vendors are able to ensure both the quality of the hardware, and the stability of the operating system drivers by validating these things inhouse, and this leads to a generally much more reliable and stable machine.

These days, workstations have changed greatly. They are beginning to use many technologies common to the consumer market as a cost-cutting strategy. For example, some low-end workstations use CISC based processors like the Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon 64 as their CPUs. Higher-end workstations may use more sophisicated CPUs such as Intel Itanium 2, AMD Opteron, IBM POWER or Sun Microsystems SPARC or UltraSPARC and run on a variant of Unix delivering a truly reliable workhorse for computing-intensive tasks.

Some workstations are designed for use with only one specific application such as AutoCAD, Avid Xpress Studio HD, 3D Studio MAX, ect. To ensure compatibility with the software, purchasers usually ask for a certificate from the software vendor. The certification process make the workstation's price jumps several notches but for professional purposes, reliability is more important than the cost.

It is important to note that the PA-RISC, Alpha, and MIPS CPUs are still sold in workstations but are excluded in the above list because they are reaching their end-of-life soon, along with their operating systems (HP-UX, Tru64, and Irix, respectively). While Apple's PowerPC with Mac OS X is a workstation combination, we will need to see what Intel processor will replace the PowerPC. However, most are confident that Apple will use a processor (or have the option of having a processor) that is like (or perhaps the same) as the Xeon processor and continue its share in the workstation market.

List of workstations and manufacturers

Note that many of these are extinct.

• 3Station
• Apollo Computer
• Atari Transputer Workstation
• Datamax UV-1
• Dell
• Digital Equipment Corporation
• Hewlett Packard
• Intergraph
• Lilith
• NeXT
• Silicon Graphics
• Sun Microsystems
• Unisys ICON
• Xerox Star

See also

• Music workstation

This article is based on material taken from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing prior to 1 November 2008 and incorporated under the "relicensing" terms of the GFDL, version 1.3 or later.