Workstation computer maker BOXX Technologies has announced this month the introduction of BOXX Cloud Services, a virtual private workstation cloud offering.
Virtual Workstations
“We’re going beyond the limitations of traditional virtualized infrastructure which relies on server-based technology,” said Shoaib Mohammad, VP of BOXX Cloud Services. “Unlike Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) or cloud-hosted solutions, which fail to address the high-performance needs of architects, engineers, product designers, and other CAD users, BCS provides custom, dedicated workstations inside a scalable data center environment. It also allows you to extend your data center with a pay-as-you-go model and without the complexities and upfront cost of building an onsite private cloud.”
BOXX Cloud Services is a new VDI offering tailored to the needs of AEC and MPD industry professionals.
BCS is tailored around the needs of the CAD industries where single-threaded application performance is equally important as the number of CPUs and their cores. BCS cloud-hosted desktops, says the company, offer performance identical to that of high-performance deskside workstations. These workstations in the data center feature dedicated NVIDIA Quadro RTX™ GPUs, BCS delivers state-of-the-art graphics performance and support for CUDA. Many cloud-hosted desktops fail to support CUDA at all and CUDA workflows can be critical for many organizations.
Sheehan Nagle Hartray Architects (SHHA), a leading architectural firm with offices in Chicago and London, became an early adopter of BCS.
“We tried a number of cloud-based solutions, but each was unsuccessful in meeting our needs,” said Oscar Medellin, BIM Manager, SNHA. “What separates BOXX Cloud Services from the rest is outstanding performance and service. BCS delivers higher performance to our architects while significantly lowering our IT burden. I can’t overstate the significance of that with employees working from home or the office.”
Easier On-Ramp to VDI
Another aspect of BOXX’s BCS is it is designed for a wide range of AEC and manufacturing and product design (MPD) companies that likely lack expertise in VDI or cloud-hosted deployments.
BOXX is leveraging Teradici PCoIP® technology which securely delivers lossless, high-fidelity color and high-resolution graphics, BCS provides an enhanced user experience extending beyond the remote graphics capabilities of competing cloud providers. Ensuring the best possible performance with a wide variety of peripherals found in CAD workflows, a BCS-hosted workstation is delivered to any notebook, desktop, thin client, zero client, or tablet, as if the desktop is actually in front of the user.
“Highly specialized industries like architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, and product design have unique requirements that differ from the typical enterprise,” said Ziad Lammam, Vice President of Product Management, Teradici. “In shifting to cloud-based virtual workstations, companies in this space can see significant benefit from working with a specialized service tailored to meet these requirements. BOXX Cloud Services with integrated Cloud Access Software from Teradici offers such companies a way to keep their teams online and their projects moving forward quickly and efficiently with the high level of performance, security, and user experience they need.”
The New Remote Work Standard
Computer Aided Technology (CATI), experts in deploying SOLIDWORKS and other engineering and manufacturing technology throughout multiple companies, believes cloud migration will continue if performance is consistent with that of traditional workstations.
“Even in our present work-from-home situations, it’s essential for cloud service providers to deliver the same level of performance a user expects from their deskside workstation,” said Adrian Fanjoy, Senior Vice President, Operations, CATI. “Our thorough testing of BOXX Cloud Services revealed a flexible and highly capable platform that meets the needs of the most demanding SOLIDWORKS workloads.”
For further information and pricing on BOXX Cloud Services, contact a BOXX sales consultant in the US at 1-877-877-2699.
Learn more about BOXX systems, finance options, and how to contact worldwide resellers, by visiting www.boxx.com.
Architosh Analysis and Commentary
This latest development from BOXX Technologies is a very welcome given the new global pandemic COVID-19 reality we all live and work under now. But this isn’t just another virtual workstation offering. The difference here is that BOXX is utilizing hardware that is tailor-made for the predominance of single-threaded performance typical in CAD and BIM applications in AEC and CAD and PLM applications in MPD (manufacturing and product design).
Another aspect is the support and ease of use the company is touting to help often smaller firms who have both low in-house IT expertise and no cloud-hosting or VDI experience to get up and running. Within this COVID-19 context which looks to be around for quite some time, this benefit really can matter.
Another aspect of importance that should not be overlooked is the economic context in the COVID-19 era. As firms contract in size, numerous scenarios begin to emerge that place IT burdens on those firms. Many firms will need to lay off large staff. Some will relocate to smaller offices with lower overhead. Others may feel burned by being burdened by computer leases they must pay for empty workstations. When they think about ramping up when economics return to normal, they may select different strategies for adding workstation capacity to their companies—ones that can shield them more from a future pandemic.