The great challenge of COVID 19 shows it to all of us. Companies have had to move their workstations to home on short notice. This challenge has been a major obstacle for local workstations with expensive graphics cards, workstations had to be completely converted to home. The powerful virtual desktop offers companies the flexibility to access CAD software from home.
Marc Weidner, founder of PLM Bakery and a long-time architect of CAD solutions, explains the benefits of virtualizing CAD software: „This unusual situation allowed corporate employees to quickly switch to remote workstations at the onset of the Corona pandemic.“ Furthermore, the model is suitable to further advance remote working and work from anywhere.
Everyone knows CAD these days
Every designer, draftsman, civil engineer, architect, contractor or engineer knows the three letters, CAD (Computer Aided Design). CAD replaces the manual creation of drafts, designs and technical drawings with an automated, computer-aided process. It is still common for many to print out the drawing, but no one sits in front of a sheet of paper with ink and a razor blade. CAD software is used today in many industries. From architecture and building services engineering to mechanical engineering, metal construction and structural/civil/road engineering, the CAD solutions range from the well-known ones such as Siemens NX, Catia, Nemetscheck and many smaller, partly industry-specific solutions.
If we now include the solutions for CAM (Computer Aided Manufacturing) and FEM (Finite Element Method), whose data are all still to be managed in a PDM (Product Data Management) system (Teamcenter as an example) and documents are still managed to map the PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) process, or even to create a digital twin, all systems have one thing in common. It requires a very powerful and expensive computer to work efficiently and stable.
Performance requirements
One of the most important requirements for efficient and smooth work is a fast and stable internet connection so that the network latency is not too high. CAD applications react enormously to latency delays. Unfortunately, we are still a developing country in Germany, as far as the expansion of the Internet lines is concerned. If this report was a Tik Tok video, here would come Excuse me, we have 2022!!! Delays of just a few milliseconds massively increase loading times. This still means that you are bound to the location, at least in Germany, because you reach the best latency and performance only in your own LAN. Initial tests conducted by Marc Weidner in August 2022 in Tyrol have shown that these can be exceeded with a 5G network. For this purpose, he accessed a machine at home from Tyrol and achieved latencies like in the LAN, and this via a mobile radio network. Unfortunately, it was not possible at home on Lake Constance, where LTE was not even available. But this is important for the use of CAD on the road, something on a construction site or assembly where a service technician wants to access data via his IPAD, for example. So if the network is not good, a problem arises here. In this case, for example, synchronization and data exchange with a company file server can be very slow, error-prone or even impossible.
Therefore, we can currently state that location-independent work is only possible through continuous expansion. The costs have become reasonable in the meantime. So companies are faced with the decision between high performance and mobility? No, they no longer do. If you want a virtual workstation, especially a CAD workstation, you can opt for CAD from the CLOUD. This guarantees performance anytime and anywhere. Some people may say that this is also possible with a workstation as a notebook. This is true, but it is more expensive and in the event of a defect or theft of the notebook, it is a greater effort to get it back.
Virtual CAD workspace from the cloud
The technology behind CAD workspaces from the cloud is desktop and application virtualization. User desktops and applications are published to data centers where users access them remotely or locally through their workstations. All applications run on servers in the data center, but few client devices are used. Users still feel as if they are sitting at one of their workstations. This is not new. Marc Weidner has already investigated this in 2008 at the company Dr. Wallner Engineering in a project with Bosch GmbH in Abstatt. This was also presented to the public at the user conference in Pforzheim at that time.
Transferred to the CAD application, users can securely access their CAD workstation with all their work tools and data 24 hours a day and from anywhere using their personal devices. Computing power is sourced centrally from secure data centers. Technically, a normal office workstation, an office notebook, a thin client or a mobile device is sufficient.
The use of cloud-based CAD is becoming increasingly popular due to its many advantages. The Business Advantage Group, a market research firm specializing in IT, software and communications, in its 2018-2019 Global CAD Trends – Business Advantage survey. Here, on page 19, a very increased interest in cloud based CAD was reported.
Who now looks at the current report sees himself confirmed in this article. In 2019, cloud based CAD was still in 12th place. In 2022, it will be in 3rd place. The CAD trends have changed compared to the years before. Of course, 3D Modeling is at the top, closely followed by Digital Twin and then Cloud Based and Collaborative Design with PDM are already coming. See 2022 report here
Marc Weidner already presented these top 5 in 2010 in many workshops and had to take some heavy criticism for it. In 2010, he introduced parts of his ideas at Inicom Service GmbH, the then market leader for service-oriented customer service in the sanitary industry. In 2012, he even provided technicians with tablets so that they could perform their tasks on the road. So 10 years ago. Therefore you can say that he knows what he is talking about in this field of activity.
The special feature of the virtual workstation is that not only the computing power of the servers for the virtual clients comes, but also the graphics power so important for CAD applications is supplied centrally from the data center. Each user has his own graphics card in the data center which provides enough power for him. In addition to the processors optimized for CAD, there is always enough graphics card power available. Scaling up or down is therefore possible.
In the past, access was easily provided via Citrix. Since Microsoft now offers Azure, a solution that comes directly from Microsoft, a powerful competitor has emerged. At one customer, we already have NX2206 with Teamcenter 14 in use and successfully deployed in the Azure Cloud. The customer’s employees enjoy working remotely from their home office.
Fast learning curve and low investment
Purchasing a CAD workstation is no longer as expensive as it was in the 90s, but it is still a very costly and second cost to do so. CAD sales from the cloud provide a novel and very simple way to provide a CAD computer in a very short time and at a fraction of the cost. Virtual desktops are set up „at the push of a button“ centrally from the IT department’s in-house data center. Only usage is paid for and is typically a flat monthly fee that is allocated to the department, which helps provide transparency of development costs and budgets can be better planned.
IT compliance is improved and maintained as a higher compliance factor is achieved through the use of this standardization.
Competitive advantages and customer benefits
The dilemma we currently have between mobility and performance in CAD is completely eliminated by the cloud approach. The data is centrally located in the data center and can therefore be retrieved more quickly, since the data is only retrieved in extreme cases, and technical problems are eliminated to a minimum. Delay loss should also be elided as the servers for the data are usually located right next to those of the virtualized computers or connected via a fast fiber optic network.
Get the best performance, with the lowest latency, generate fast live presentations at meetings no matter where you are, or access the visualization data of the wind turbine that is malfunctioning as a service technician in the vastness of the Spanish Sierra. You are on the assembly line and discover an error, correct it immediately and pass the info on to production.
„With the CAD in the Cloud application, your digital twin and you have arrived in the world of tomorrow today and have highlighted your market leading position with maximum mobility“ Says Marc Weidner, PLM Senior Consultant for Teamcenter and CAD Solution Architect for Siemens NX.
Conclusion 2022
Unfortunately, many companies did not take the opportunity during Corona to move to the cloud to improve their profitability or the work-life balance of their employees. Many companies order their employees back to the office, the reasons are certainly diverse, in the eyes of Marc Weidner no longer contemporary. Likewise the work week could divide itself everyone, at the end is nevertheless only important that one to the Deadline Day the things settled, whether I make on Monday morning of 03:00 o’clock – 06:00 o’clock and on another day of 19:00 o’clock – 23:00 o’clock is left then to everyone. A 40h week can also be well divided. The companies are slowly ready to go to the cloud, but only slowly recognize the advantages. It doesn’t matter if the top employee lives in Flensburg, but designs for Mikron AG in Agno, Switzerland. Or?
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