ABOUT THE COOPERATION BETWEEN MuM AND SYSGEN

MuM and sysGen work closely together in the digital virtualization of IT infrastructures. They each have very experienced, well-trained employees, large customer bases and a portfolio of products and services that is well suited to support their customers in the transition to digitalization with leading edge technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR), physically based rendering, technical real-time simulation and 3D graphics virtualization. Together we are now even stronger.

With our contribution VDI by Day - Compute@Night we show how you can use a single platform to integrate new AI techniques such as digital twins. With this article we would like to give you a first impression of the virtualization of design workplaces and with the experience report of PurPlan we would like to show you how such a virtualization works.

INDUSTRY IN TRANSITION

Desktop, workstation, server virtualization covers the entire working world. The areas affected by change include architecture, engineering and construction, government, industry (manufacturing, energy), healthcare, finance, education, media and entertainment.

In summary, it can be said that almost the entire industry is affected by this change.

IN THIS ARTICLE WE FOCUS ON THE MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY

With Industry 4.0 we are at a turning point in an era that will bring about major changes and set in motion a selection process that must be passed. The process links product development with production, which in turn is controlled by current demand. The change therefore goes far beyond product development. It encompasses areas such as demand, production, quality assurance, troubleshooting, packaging, disposal - and this is only the beginning. Investing in this area can give you a strong competitive advantage and avoid expensive home-made mistakes such as the BER airport project.

In the future, the focus of development will be on 3D models of modelled individual products, which are "assembled" on the screen to form assemblies and then assembled into virtual machines and further into production lines. In the tests that follow, errors such as collisions can be easily detected. The mechanical virtual model is then expanded to include electrical, electronic, sensor and software components. At the end of the process the functionality of products, production lines, ships, airports can be tested virtually just like in the real world.

Developments are accelerated and can be brought to market faster. This means: better end products in less time, faster and more efficient troubleshooting and all this at lower development costs.

With Industry 4.0 with intelligent, networked products and the intelligent factories in which they are manufactured, we are facing the unification of automation and artificial intelligence. This means that we can use the full range of new technologies with a single platform:

• Enable employees at different locations to collaborate securely and in real time during working hours. Employees in engineering, manufacturing, architecture, education, and healthcare often have large, graphics-intensive data sets that need to be edited securely and in real-time in 3D.
• Outside regular working hours, the same infrastructure can be used to solve complex, computationally intensive tasks. Large companies with offices in different time zones can move their work from time zone to time zone using the same infrastructure. The data remains securely in the data center or the cloud. Network speed and latencies are not affected.

Desktop virtualization offers a way to make the traditional graphics workstation hardware and location independent. Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) deliver better performance and user experience with 3D graphics in virtual environments while reducing CPU load. Until now, however, only two variants have been juggled with:

• Variant 1: Here, many virtual desktops share GPU resources. Although this is cost-effective, it offers only a limited increase in performance.
• Variant 2: Here, each virtual desktop uses a GPU completely for itself. This brings a considerable increase in performance, but is associated with considerable acquisition costs and running costs per user.

THE 4 NVIDIA SOLUTIONS FOR VIRTUALIZATION

We would like to give you an overview of the current possibilities in virtualization. 4 software editions are currently available, whose use depends on the applications you want to virtualize.

Virtual Compute Server stands for applications in the field of artificial intelligence, deep learning and high performance computing.

Quadro Virtual Data Center Workstation is designed for high performance graphics applications such as rendering, complex design creation, deep learning inference workloads. Here it is important to know that the virtual graphics card is in no way inferior to the physical one in function and performance.

The Virtual PC Edition is aimed at standard office applications such as Power Point. The applications are provided in a VDI environment. The goal is to maintain a high user density on the servers while simultaneously improving performance and user experience for the user.

If you have applications that you want to virtualize over remote desktop environments such as Citrix Xen App, the virtual application license is the right choice.

From experience, we can say that customers generally use several different applications. In this respect, a Proof of Concept (POC) is always a good idea. A demo environment is available from us.

ON HOW TO RUN A QUADRO VIRTUAL DATA CENTER WORKSTATION PROJECT

WHY TRADITIONAL WORKSTATIONS ARE NO LONGER UP TO DATE

Traditional workstations are expensive. The cost of a workstation is considerable. A powerful power supply, expensive CPUs, expensive memory, local SSD/HDD storage, a dedicated GPU - all these are significant cost factors. But this is only the beginning - Also the administrative effort for software and hardware maintenance is exorbitant. Imagine your admin or admins running from one workstation to another in a widely ramified building, correcting errors, installing new CAD software, replacing defective data disks, restoring data, and their designers twiddling their thumbs while doing so. Further costs arise when a lot of data has to be transferred or restored from the central storage to the workstation via the often slow network.

Traditional workstations stand around unused most of the time. When the working hours are over, they only eat up electricity, as they are rarely switched off. In contrast, virtual workstations can continue working at night. Global companies can let their work move with the sun, from time zone to time zone, on the same infrastructure. Other companies solve AI or computationally intensive tasks at night, the day then belongs to the design engineers and knowledge workers.

Traditional workstations are unsafe. Since important data is distributed throughout the company and often stored multiple times, data can easily be corrupted. Data can also easily be transferred to foreign data carriers and stolen. When employees visit customers or work on joint projects, confidential, important data is often stored on heavy, expensive notebooks. You don't want to take them with you during your lunch break. Data theft or the theft of entire PCs is said to have occurred.

In summary, traditional workstations do not meet the requirements of the manufacturing industry, nor those of knowledge workers.

ADVANTAGES OF VIRTUALIZED DESKTOP AND WORKSTATION INFRASTRUCTURES

Virtualized workstation are inexpensive compared to traditional workstations.
Even the mere cost comparison of physical versus virtualized workstations is in favor of virtualized workstations.

In the course of our contribution, we have already been able to provide you with a lot of valuable information, but you are surely asking yourself: How does such a project work? Therefore, we would like to give you an understanding of the individual steps in the following schedule:

Schedule: "Those who don't keep up with the times, keep up with the times" (Schiller)

1.   Contact
2.   Analysis of your CAD/CAE environment
3.   Configuration of your hardware
•   with first budget coordination with constant cost transparency
4.   Four-week test phase to evaluate the need for virtualization
•   always individual for your construction
5.   Offer preparation & order processing
6.  Evaluation of the POC - transition to live operation
•   secured by the POC settings
7.   Establishment of long-term business relationships through support of your live environment or completion of the project
•   You are always in control and decide how we continue

We would like to thank Rainer Schittek , Head of IT of PurPlan, for sharing his experience in the conversion of the development and design department of PurPlan to virtualized tools, which he gained in the cooperation with us and MuM.

We would like to share with you his experience with regard to this visualization project. His path could also be yours.

We have unfortunately reached the end of our article and hope to have given you an overview of a rapidly developing technology. Please do not hesitate to contact us for further information and explanations.

We would like to provide you with the time frame for the implementation of such a project, which will certainly be interesting and useful for you. The determination of a time frame is very much dependent on the existing infrastructure and already used virtualization technology.
Among the essential factors are the quality of the existing network structure, the available power supply, the available rack space and the flow of information of the customer (IP addresses, contact persons, etc.). Under optimal conditions a project can be completed within 2-4 weeks.

We thank you for your time. Feel free to contact us if you need advice, we will be happy to assist you. So that you don't have to buy a pig in a poke, we offer you test installations (proof of concept) in which we integrate solutions directly into your infrastructure. This gives you decision security.

Ask the professionals - If you have any questions, feel free to contact us.