With the new Dell Wyse Datacenter for Virtual Workstations solution powerful 3D CAD tools can be run on virtually any device.
Dell is making a massive push for the growing virtual workstation market, teaming up with major CAD software developers to deliver its new Dell Wyse Datacenter for Virtual Workstations solution. The rack-based technology is designed to give engineers and designers secure and central access to their data and graphics-rich CAD tools from any location on almost any device.
Dell is working with Siemens PLM Software, Autodesk, PTC and Dassault Systémes to certify standard configurations of its new virtual workstation solution for NX, Inventor, SolidWorks and Creo. The idea is that design and engineering firms will be able to invest in these recommended configurations, which include hardware and software, and have confidence that they will be stable and deliver good performance.
Configurations optimise CPU power, memory and other considerations. The virtual workstation solution can be deployed using Dell Precision R7610 rack workstations or Dell PowerEdge R720 rack servers with Nvidia GRID K1 or K2 graphic cards on the VMware Horizon View and Citrix XenDesktop platforms. Users can connect via a diverse set of endpoints including desktops, laptops and tablets, Dell Precision tower and mobile workstations, and Dell Wyse thin and zero clients.
Dell has also opened a Workstation Virtualization Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Round Rock, Texas to offer a physical location and remote access capabilities for customers and software developers to evaluate the benefits of running their CAD and other 2D and 3D applications on an end-to-end virtual workstation solution.
Software developers will be able to compatibility test and certify existing applications for virtual workstation environments.
Siemens NX
“Dell’s Centre of Excellence for virtual desktops will be an invaluable resource for both Siemens PLM Software and our customers,” said Paul Brown, senior marketing director, Siemens PLM Software. “We’ve completed certifications of our NX software on a variety of virtual configurations helping to provide our customers with deployment options to future proof their architecture. Our customers can duplicate and test their planned configuration to confirm the hardware and software environment meets their requirements. This will be an extremely valuable resource that aids the transition to virtual desktop environments for graphically rich applications like NX.”
Dell’s Centre of Excellence for virtual desktops, is loaded with racks of Dell Precision R7610 rack workstations or Dell PowerEdge R720 rack servers with Nvidia GRID K1 or K2 graphic cards
Autodesk
“Design and engineer professionals are more mobile and distributed than ever before and they are working on projects with ever increasing complexity. These projects teams need the ability to access critical design data from anywhere and at any time,” said Ben Cochran, Senior Architect for Platform Products, Autodesk. “Virtualization solutions give designers and engineers the flexibility, security and power to run sophisticated 3D design applications such as AutoCAD, Inventor, Revit or 3ds Max on virtually any device, or via a web browser. We are excited that Dell is providing a virtualisation solution targeted at our professional customers.”
SolidWorks
“We have seen a keen interest from our customers in virtualised environments for increased security, streamlined manageability and end-user flexibility so we are very excited to partner with Dell to bring a solution to market to meet their needs,” said Bertrand Sicot, CEO SolidWorks, Dassault Systèmes. “We’ve committed to certify and support configurations for virtualised 3D graphics to provide the same level of confidence and support that current SolidWorks workstations users have come to depend on.”
PTC Creo
“PTC and Dell are long-standing partners. A key focus of the partnership is to ensure that Dell system configurations undergo extensive testing and are certified on PTC Creo,” said Brian Thompson, Vice President of Product Management, CAD Segment at PTC. “PTC Creo 2.0 desktop virtualization certification on the Dell Precision R7610 and Citrix XenServer 6.2 is in-process, with additional configurations in the planning stage. Our joint customers will benefit from improved performance when working with large assemblies stored on a remote server, while ensuring IP protection of the design data and streamlining administration and deployment of PTC Creo.”
Meanwhile, to learn more about workstation virtualisation read our in-depth review of the Dell Precision R7610
