NVIDIA GRID vGPU was launched in 2013 to enable applications to virtualize GPU resource and share GPUs to enable super-responsive graphics at a cost-effective price. Autodesk applications benefit greatly from GPU acceleration and over the last 3 years we’ve seen a huge number of customers deploy Autodesk applications such as Maya, Inventor, Moldflow, Revit and Autocad with our technologies.
This week NVIDIA is yet again at the amazing Autodesk University and I thought it would be nice to highlight some of the benefits of these technologies via a review of 4 of my personal favourite real customer implementations and stories and what they achieved virtualizing Autodesk applications.
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Allow university students doing course work with Autodesk applications to do their coursework on their own laptops (Macs, Chromebooks, Windows laptops) or even their iPad from wherever they want without compromising security.
For many Autodesk users a choice of end-point is vital. Students want to remotely log in to use software for course work on their own Chromebooks, Apple Macs, tablets, laptops etc. BYOD is a huge driver for virtualizing Autodesk software. Istanbul Aydin University (IAU) have recently deployed an NVIDIA GRID deployment to 1000 users using Citrix XenDesktop and VMware vCenter on Dell R720 servers. You can read more about the BYOD driving factors that drove the project here in this Dell Case Study.
Professional AEC users and designers also often have their own preferences for iMacs or even Linux workstations and love the ability to run Windows applications on their workstation or laptop of choice. Many companies already have lots of hardware so the flexibility to repurpose it as an end-point has cost benefits too!
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Architects (AEC) able to buy cloud services rather than run and maintain hardware so can quickly adapt to changing projects.
dwp|suters are an architectural firm headquartered in Australia who operate in 15 countries. With one option being a very costly hardware upgrade this company decided instead to implement a Citrix XenApp DaaS solution from a service provider on HP servers. It’s worth reading the Citrix Case Study as it covers how as well as savings it allowed dwp|suters to work in a completely different way freeing them from IT management and allowing them to scale their business, take on new projects rapidly and build a larger distributed team with enhanced security and data backup benefits too.
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How Autodesk with NVIDIA GRID is simply the power behind amazing world renowned AEC and BIM projects including Olympic Stadiums!
Populous has created some of the most recognisable sporting venues, including Wembley Stadium in London, the new Yankee Stadium in New York, Soccer City in South Africa, and the Fisht Stadium in Sochi, which was the focal point of the 2014 Winter Olympics. The firm used VMware Horizon View and vSphere together with NVIDIA GRID K1 and K2 to virtualize AutoDesk Revit alongside other AEC applications. You can read more here: NVIDIA Case Study or even watch this VMware Video;
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Enables designers, engineers and users to work remotely, flexibly and differently.
At Citrix Synergy in the spring of 2014 (NVIDIA GRID’s been around a while!), I saw one of the most fascinating demos of NVIDIA GPUs running Citrix XenApp to deliver Autodesk REVIT. XenApp (or similar RDSH solutions) can be a really cost effective and user-satisfying way to deliver Autodesk applications on VMware vSphere, Citrix XenServer or physical servers using NVIDIA GPUs.
This demo wasn’t so much about the underlying cost of the technologies though but end-user experience and utility. NVIDIA commissioned a real CAD drafter to design a house over three days at Synergy using our GRID GPU technology; this meant that you could go back time-after-time and watch how it had progressed and the various stages of design from 2D plans to 3D rendering and ray-tracing. It was a fascinating insight into the design process and I was delighted to find a blog by the designer himself on the GreenDrafters blog, here.
Designers are by their nature demanding and sensitive to the user-experience and I was delighted to see his comments:
- “The short answer is that I was blown away.”
- “The bottom line is that I did not notice any performance degradation between my personal workstation and the NVIDIA GRID K2 VDI”
I was also excited to see how the designer himself started imagining working differently, better, with virtualisation technologies:
- “What I did notice was the simple thin client on my desk that took up far less space, needed far fewer cables, and caused far less clutter than my workstation.”
- “I could use my Macbook Air or possibly even an Ipad to continue the design work away from my office, maybe at a Starbucks.”
- “I also realized the intriguing potential of client/designer collaboration at the job site. Tweaking the design with the client in Revit, on-site. Now that is cool.”
Interested? Come and talk to NVIDIA at Autodesk University this week
Learn how designers can create from any connected device and location with NVIDIA GRID, which will be running Autodesk Revit 2016, 123D Design, AutoCAD, Inventor and other applications on VMware Horizon with vSphere. See our side-by-side comparison and discover how GPU-accelerated cloud services such as Autodesk’s Fusion 360 can offer 3D CAD, CAM and CAE tools on a single cloud-based platform with twice the performance of the CPU.
We’re also helping lead some informative AU classes:
- Reinventing Reality with Breakthrough Graphics, VR, and Workstation Technology — NVIDIA’s Dave Weinstein and Andrew Rink with Louis Gaiot from HP Inc.
- Innovations in VR/AR with Scott Ruppert from Lenovo and NVIDIA’s Bob Pette
Visit the BOXX, Dell, HP and Lenovo booths to see how our partners use NVIDIA graphics technologies to deliver the best performance and visual experience for Autodesk users. And be sure to follow us on Twitter on @NVIDIAGRID and @NVIDIA_MFG for the latest on our activities at AU or follow #AU2016.
There will also be plenty of other NVIDIA technologies and exciting demos at #AU2016 including Photorealistic rendering, Virtual Reality as well as Quadro and workstation products.
Can’t make it? There’s plenty of other ways to learn more:
- Check out more NVIDIA GRID Case Studies on our website: http://www.nvidia.com/object/enterprise-virtualization-success-stories.html
- Get a FREE trial on a GRID server with Autodesk and many other CAD and Graphical Applications pre-installed: http://www.nvidia.com/object/vmware-trygrid.html
- Ask questions on the NVIDIA GRID forums: http://gridforums.nvidia.com
- Have a look at our Autodesk Revit and Autocad Application Guides (under the Resources tab choose Application Guides): http://www.nvidia.com/object/grid-enterprise-resources.html
- Follow @NVIDIAGRID and @NVIDIA_MFG on twitter
Virtually Visual 
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