Making the Jump to Virtualization

Workstations have long been a status symbol for engineers. Big cases, faster processors, more RAM and storage were all bragging rights as the engineering department moved from drafting tables to computer-aided design and engineering. But now that mobility, security and workflow are paramount, their world is evolving again. In this new world, they need to work from anywhere, on any device, without worrying about workstation downtime or whether they’re accessing the most recent version of a file. They want their work to take center stage and the hardware to fade into the background. Virtualization can make that happen.

Virtual Workstations are Here

Virtualization is not new, but its ability to push the pixels needed by CAD and CAE software has taken a quantum leap in recent years. With the Dell Precision Appliance for Wyse, it’s now possible to deliver workstation-class user workspaces to a zero client, an older workstation, a laptop, or even a tablet. Deploying the appliance is easy and can be performed in a few minutes using the free Quick Start Tool.

Doing real engineering design work over Wi-Fi or a cellular connection may sound too good to be true, but Dell has engaged virtualization and graphics technologies from leading providers like Citrix, VMWare, Teradici and NVIDIA to overcome the challenges of delivering rich user workspaces remotely. Dell has even created Workstation Virtualization Centers of Excellence around the world to let users evaluate the benefits of running their own engineering applications on an end-to-end virtual workstation solution so they can experience virtualization themselves with no fiscal outlay or risk to the existing production environment.

“We realized early on that end user experience is of paramount importance, so we’ve done rigorous testing in partnership with leading ISVs (independent software vendors) such as Autodesk and Dassault,” says Rishi Manocha, Head of Workstation Virtualization Marketing for Dell. “In real-world scenarios, we’ve found that users are unable to distinguish between a local workstation and a virtual workstation environment. In fact, users are impressed by how quickly they’re able to load data and render models.”

Secure User Access and Improved Workflows

File replication can be an issue with today’s global, connected collaborative workflows. Multiple people working on various models in a system design sometimes duplicate or even overwrite each others’ work, wasting time and creating errors. With the Dell Precision Appliance for Wyse, proprietary engineering data is kept secure in the data center because only the pixels are pushed to the end user. Of course, having the hardware in a central location means IT can quickly scale computing resources as needed, add or remove users and apply software updates efficiently.

The Dell Precision Appliance for Wyse allows engineers to take advantage of the many benefits of a mobile, more collaborative workflow. For more information, visit Dell.