Mission: possible. Every now and then, our KVM products have to face really tricky challenges. They even were applied in sunny, hot Dubai where they helped building the unique Palm Jumeirah.
Dubai’s first artificial island
You’ve probably seen The Palm Jumeirah on pictures or even in person while visiting Dubai. Despite the contradictory opinions about the man-made island: You have to admit that building the island was an incredible achievement.
The palm that came from nothing was supposed to become the latest attraction at the coast of the rich emirate. Dubai’s vision of an extraordinary housing complex was partly built by Van Oord, a Dutch company with core competencies in dredging, construction and land reclamation for the maritime industry. These skills made them the perfect partner for such a huge task
Over the past 10 years, Van Oord’s system integrator Koning & Hartman have been equipping the company’s ships with KVM devices. And there’s a good reason for that. Spraying 94.000.000 cubic metres of soil and sand to their destination requires precise planning.
With ultra-modern equipment, the pipeman monitors and operates many different processes on board of the ship. The accurate mixture of soil and sand, the pump speed and moving the robot arms are only some aspects that play an important role for reclaiming land and therefore need to run smoothly.
In other words: great responsibility for the crew, much equipment that needs to be operated and monitored and little space on the bridge. The perfect requirements for KVM equipment.
KVM equipment helped shape The Palm Jumeirah
By applying KVM extenders, computers can be removed from the bridge to be placed in a separate server room. Despite the separation, computers in the server room can still be accessed with KVM extenders. Equipped with mouse, keyboard and monitor, the extenders let the crew on the bridge operate their computers.
Considering the size of the ships, there are of course large distances between server room and bridge. But this aspect must never be a reason for compromised video quality. To comply with this demand, KVM extenders connect bridge and server room.
KVM matrix switches let the crew access multiple computers from their workstations. Now they can easily monitor and operate their equipment.
On top of that, there’s more space on the bridge and the heat from computers disappears. But it’s not only the crew that benefits from removing computers from workstations. In separate server rooms, computers can be stored according to their requirements: cool, dry and with as little dust as possible.
The crew at the bridge can still access its computers in real-time. In case of emergencies, everyone can react immediately. Redundant parts in the devices provide even more safety. After all, a failure in any device is not supposed to stop the work process.
The palm that nurtures palms
After The Palm Jumeirah was finally finished, it looked rather bare. Today the island is decorated with hotels, villas and apartments. In the gardens of the houses grow palms, which seem to thrive on the palm-shaped island.
The once bare island turned into a small paradise. Therefore it’s no surprise that we are proud that we played a small role in building the island.
By: Cennet Gülmen
Editor, translator and blogger at Guntermann & Drunck.
You can find me on LinkedIn.
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