Top AEC Firm Adopts GPU Cloud Workstations, Achieves New Levels of Business Agility

Challenge:

This fast growing architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) firm needed to open five branch offices quickly, without implementing a full stack of servers, routers and switches in each location. Included in their requirements was making sure that CAD designers using AutoCAD, Civil 3D, Revit, and Bentley among other applications, have outstanding performance, as if using a local workstation. In addition to the immediate need to open branch offices in locations across the U.S., the firm’s near term growth strategy included making ongoing use of flexible co-workspaces, such as WeWork and Regus.

Having experienced the performance limitations and infrastructure complexity of traditional VDI, the IT team was both skeptical about trying another virtual desktop solution and ready for a change because of the countless hours spent maintaining and troubleshooting their VDI infrastructure. When the administrative work required to maintain VDI outweighed the benefits to the firm, the C&S team knew they had to find a better way, and that’s when they decided to evaluate Workspot.

Solution:

• Workspot Workstation Cloud next to a virtual Panzura instance in Microsoft Azure
• GPU cloud workstations are delivered from Azure to low cost devices
• Built-in disaster recovery for anywhere, any device productivity

Benefits:

• Power users experience performance that is as good or better than local workstations
• Administrative burden of VDI infrastructure management is eliminated
• New levels of agility enable pursuit of revenue opportunities in any geography
• Joint venture partners improve collaboration via a single technology platform
• Disaster recovery is vastly improved with work-anywhere capability