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Benefits of Using Workstations for Data Science Workloads

by Sayan Dey June 14, 2022 0 comments

Data has become the fuel for every business today, thanks to rapid digital acceleration worldwide. Today, data is being generated from so many sources. Unless you can capture, filter, clean, and centralize it, you can’t make use of it. This data’s sheer volume and growth require data science and data scientists to analyze it and bring out business insights. To enable Data scientists and Data analysts to work smoothly, you can’t rely on conventional office desktops or business laptops. You need a more powerful computing device that can run data models and enable you to do extensive data mining. Only a Professional Workstation class desktop or laptop can meet these requirements. Let’s understand how data science is beneficial for every business today, how the right hardware can help you extract maximum value from it, and what you should look for in a good workstation.

How Data Science Can Benefit a Business

There are several ways in which data science can benefit a business. Here are some key applications and use cases:

• Gain Better Understanding of your Customer: Data science can really help the marketing folks in an organization understand their customers better. From customer segmentation to analyzing their preferences on social media to sentiment analysis, data science can help you find out more about your customers beyond their age, gender, and location.
• Analyze What Your Competition Is Doing: To find out what your competitors are doing is essential for every business in order to compete. A comprehensive market analysis is always necessary before launching a new endeavor to uncover competitors’ strengths and weaknesses. Competitor data can be very complex and requires data science for proper analysis.
• Campaign Development: When developing marketing campaigns, data can act as a catalyst when creating new ideas. All marketing campaigns are not successful, but with proper data, you can create better ideas, increase relevance and target specific kinds of audiences. If everything clicks perfectly, even a simple campaign might get a lot of traction.
• Logistics Optimization: Logistics is one of the most crucial points where many enterprises suffer initially. Proper research and well-processed data based on real-time information can ensure your operations stay at peak frequency all the time. Receiving products from manufacturers and delivering them to customers should be fast and painless, and by analyzing and applying data science, you can make it so. This can help reduce inventory and warehousing costs.
• Strengthening Security: Security factors are more important than ever these days, even for micro-scale businesses and enterprises. The networks and the systems should be kept under regular surveillance all the time. This is where data science can warn you about upcoming threats in advance so that you can counteract them promptly.
• Customer Service: Premium customer service separates high-value brands from average ones. With the increasing need for after-sales services and personalized customer services, Data Science can help businesses understand key aspects of customer service. A skilled data scientist can pull apart trends to understand how certain customer services impact a business’s stability.

Why Workstations are Essential for Data Science

First, you need to understand what a data science workstation is and how it is different from conventional PCs. To understand that, let’s consider an example of vehicles. Though any vehicle can be used for mass transport and logistics, we still use different vehicles for different purposes due to efficiency and cost-effectiveness. For example, trucks are used for transporting heavy goods to a longer distance at a low cost. In contrast, buses are used as a public transport solution at a low cost, and private luxury cars are used as personal transportation for the best comfort and security. Like cars, many types of computers are optimized for different tasks and needs. Data Science Workstations are optimized to deliver businesses and enterprises with extremely powerful computation so that they can process and render big data models. Workstation PCs are capable enough to employ machine learning algorithms and deploy AI solutions to derive actionable data from raw information.

If we put it simply, a workstation computer is a particular type of computer with more processing power than a standard PC. As a result, it can do more work than a typical business desktop. For example, workstations can do video editing, graphics rendering, 3D animation, VFX design, computer-aided design, data analytics, Machine learning simulation, AI development, etc. Usually, they have more memory (RAM) and multiprocessor support. Some of the best Workstation PCs, like the HP Z8 G4 Workstation, come with 2x 56-Core Intel Xeon Scalable CPUs, 2x NVIDIA RTX A6000 GPUs, and 1TB RAM, which is engineered for the tasks mentioned above.

Advantages of a Workstation PC

Here are a few benefits you can get by using workstation-class machines:

• Professional GPU: Unlike a gaming PC, workstations are powered by professional GPUs, which provide better performance and hash rates in rendering and data mining. For machine learning simulations, gaming graphics cards from Nvidia or Radeon are not enough, even if they have 8 GB VRAM. Workstations use GPUs like Nvidia Quadro RTX A5000 or Radeon Pro W6800, typically with 24 GB and 48 GB VRAM. Most Workstations support multiple GPUs, just like numerous CPUs, increasing rendering power exponentially. Such workstations are often used by studio professionals like VFX artists, cinematographers, etc. The Professional GPUs are the most significant component that turns a desktop into a workstation, providing way more computing power than any CPU.
• High performance: They can give you more performance than a regular computer. It is best suited for rendering complex graphics, financial analysis, marketing data, and digital content creation like sound engineering, video editing, VFX, game development, and CAD. A normal computer’s processing capability depends on the CPU cores, which are typically limited to 16 Cores in high-end desktops. In the case of professional desktops, it goes up to 56 cores at max. But with the help of a professional GPU, the Data Science Workstations are powered by 1000-plus cores. For example, the Quadro RTX 5000 has 3072 CUDA cores, 384 Tensor cores, and 48 RT cores, making it easier to process simultaneous data.
• Single user: Unlike a server PC, Workstations are meant to be used by a single user. So the single user can use the total power of the PC, which will let them work with real-time high-end solutions. Unlike Cloud, you do not have to depend on a third-party system for speed and processing here.
• Multi-Platform Accessibility: With the rise of advanced algorithm development and testing, multi-platform compatibility has become an issue that developers have to face regularly. They need to for instance run some tools in Windows, while some others in Linux. There are options available today, like select Z by HP desktops and mobile workstations that provide Windows Sub-system for Linux 2. This allows you to run Ubuntu Linux directly in Windows. It doesn’t require dual-boot, which increases your productivity as you don’t have to waste time restarting the system. Moreover, it’s a complete Linux kernel that comes pre-loaded with the most popular tools that are critical for data science work.
• Wise investment: Increase productivity, create new ideas, and draw new insights, which can solve many business problems and ring a bell before any mishap takes place. For studios and digital content creation companies, production speed can be increased exponentially with the power of a workstation PC.
• Reliability: Analyzing and diagnosing any problem or any information set in the Workstations is much faster. It is easier to identify issues here than through third-party Cloud or Server services. Due to the high-end components used in workstations, the system’s longevity is more than business desktops.
• Large memory: A workstation has larger memory kits than a standard desktop PC. In 2022 where a typical PC uses 8 GB or 16GB RAM, Workstations come with 64 GB or 128 GB RAM. Using larger memory can do more work in a shorter time. Workstations also use ECC (Error correction code) memory, where there are nearly no errors in memory while performing any task.
• Multiple processor support: A workstation might have multiple processors attached to it. The motherboards used in Workstation PCs are designed specially in a way so that they can install and use two CPUs simultaneously. By using multiprocessors, you can run multiple heavy applications at a time without any issue. Such workstations are used by professionals like engineers, scientists, analysts, and designers.
• Larger Storage Capacity: Workstations typically have storage capacity for terabytes of data, so any file of any size can be stored. Usually, they come with an 8 TB+ storage capacity. These days Workstations use SSD (Solid State Drives), which are 30-70x faster than HDDs and have a 10x longer lifetime. Workstations usually come with multiple SSDs and HDDs installed together. They are designed in a way to provide easy accessibility of the drives so that one can replace or remove a drive without disassembling the system.

How to find the Perfect Workstation PC for your business?

To employ data science, you need to have professional data scientists and data analysts on your side. Consult them to understand the hardware requirements, and then look for the best deal you can get online. A lot of businesses are using HP Workstations PCs in India due to their customer service and after-sales support. Check out the HP Z2 Tower G9 Workstation, which comes with 16 Core 12th gen Intel Core i9 CPU, NVIDIA RTX A5000 GPU, 128GB DDR4 ECC RAM and 48TB SSD storage. This is a budget segment Workstation PC, which can give your business a kick start with the power of Data Science. The budget and requirements will determine which Workstation PC you should be investing in.

Check out the HP Online store to find such suitable laptops at a fair price.