NEC Computers' Virtual PC Center: guest of honour at the 60th Festival de Cannes!

Puteaux, 15th May 2007 - NEC Computers S.A.S., subsidiary of NEC Corporation, , is the official IT partner of the Cannes Film Festival for the 13th consecutive year, which will take place from 16 to 27 May. Its mission during the fortnight: to ensure the deployment and correct operation of all I.T. infrastructures.
This year, NEC Computers is making its latest innovative solution available to the Festival: the Virtual PC Center virtualized PC solutions incorporating IP telephony. More than 50 terminals will be incorporated into the IT infrastructure and will equip the press room.

Within the framework of this partnership, NEC is bringing all its know-how and expertise to the organizers and participants of the Cannes Festival thanks to an infrastructure comprised of several hundred computers and servers connected by fiber optics.

The technology installed:

• A network of 10 servers, 350 computers including the POWERMATE ML460 equipped with Intel® vPro technology and 50 Virtual PC Centers,
  
• An Express5800/320Fb-R server, enabling unprecedented service continuity,
  
• High availability for critical applications thanks to the NEC ExpressCluster® software,
  
• The capacity and performance of NEC storage solutions,
  
• Data recovery in the event of loss or serious deterioration,
  
• Ultra-rapid and secured communication,
  
• A WIFI access

These enable the whole IT structure of the Cannes Festival to be managed: the 32 000 authorizations and 20 000 daily passes, real-time ticketing (about 30 000 tickets), and access control to the 2 000 film showings…
This deployment also benefits the press room which is equipped with the most modern data transmission resources, meeting the requirements of almost 900 journalists from all over the world (with more than 1000 connections per day).

Thanks to NEC, the journalists have at their disposition:

• - An individual personalised account (user profile, email address, access to their own data from all computers),
  
• A user profile in 30 different languages,
  
• An easy and user-friendly user environment
  

The Virtual PC Centre solution (VPCC) comprises of the hardware and software for virtualized workstations, combining I.T. and IP telephony. The architecture of this global solution is based on 4 key elements:
- the client station,a US100
- the virtualization server, comprising NEC Express5800/120-Ri2 servers connected to thin clients. A virtualization layer provided by VMware® is installed on the server, thus enabling each virtual PC user access to their own Microsoft® XP Pro, Windows® XP Pro environment, applications and VoIP software. The user data is stored on server disks, on a NAS, or a SAN. The server can support up to 20 virtual clients.
le the administration server : comprised of a single Sigma System Center console installed on a NEC Express5800/110Ej server (monoprocessor with the Microsoft ® Windows® Server 2003 operating system).
- And a NEC SV7000 IP communication server: ensures transport of voice over IP and supports 16000 connections.

Above and beyond the technological progress that this solution represents for the company, NEC wishes primarily to put into practice the result of genuine research into client station evolution, and to demonstrate its advantages both for the user and for the administrator.

For the Festival IT team and for NEC consultants in charge of this project, or the journalists who will be working in the press room, this architecture:

• facilitates the administration of workstations thanks to centralization of user environments and simplified integration.
  
• ensures real user mobility : users can now access their working environment from any workstation
  
• offers significant comfort of use with top-of-the-range multimedia performances. Thanks to its integrated video microprocessor, the US100 offers multimedia qualities unmatched among thin clients.
  
• reinforces user-friendliness: : the user finds his usual working environment with its usual applications. With no fan or hard disk, the US100 is silent and takes up minimal space (155 mm x 104 mm x 34 mm for a weight of 370 g), particularly appreciable in a workplace such as the Festival press room.

Thanks to Intel® vPro technology integrated in its POWERMATE ML460, NEC Computers has the advantage of ease of management by means of iAMT technology (Intel Active Management Technology) which facilitates management of the IT base. The network administrator can remotely manage all workstations whether they are switched on or off: troubleshooting and takeover, spot inventories… Intel iAMT technology also enables machines to be powered on remotely.

« The Festival is a real technical and logistics challenge for NEC», declares Pedro Marques, technical project manager for this event. « We prepare the platform several months in advance, requiring maximum organization. Every year for 13 years we have been enhancing our global offer of services and have provided a flexible, powerful, available and reliable IT solution ». For 2 weeks, the whole of NEC Computers will be working to ensure that the Festival de Cannes remains the unmissable French cinematic event throughout the world, without the slightest technical hitch.

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