The CAD Insider

Virtualization - What Is It and Why You Want it

BURLINGAME, CA – Jon Peddie Research, a small San Francisco bay area firm best known for their expertise in computer graphics technology, put on their first all day event, and the computer industry’s first ever virtualized computing conference, I am told.

What is Virtualization?

The term virtualization is being used to describe a “virtualized” workstation, where a workstation as we know it, a high-end personal computer used for engineering applications, is replaced with a cheap computer, with almost all of its capability transferred to a server. The server can be set up anywhere, but ideally it would be in a data center environment. The engineer is left with essentially a terminal connected to the server, keyboard, mouse and a screen or two, if they are lucky. The computing, graphic processing and storage will happen on the server. The server is a specialized computer, usually mounted on a rack in a cabinet which it may share with several other servers, is visually unimpressive. The thinner ones, called "blades," may be only a couple of inches high, with very little going on their front panel and have no input or output devices attached. But it can be enormously powerful. Servers are designed to run unattended nearly forever, be ultra reliable, are loaded with fast processors and have capacious, multiple hard drives, often in a RAID configuration. Handling the workloads of two or three workstations is nothing for them. In fact, there was talk of one server handling 24 AutoCAD users simultaneously.

Why Virtualize? The Argument for Virtualization

Separating the user from the computer does have its technical problems --not all of them worked out yet -- and several advantages.

Advantages

The main advantage of virtualization seems to be that a engineering company could take control of its computers. The people in charge of procuring and maintaining the computers as well as the applications running on them constitute your company's IT department. They've never really felt comfortable with the idea of all the power being in the hands of the engineer but have begrudgingly put up with it for a couple of decades. It was hard to fight the personal computers that swept on to the workplace in the late 80's. IT's role dropped from the technical heart of the company, the company showpiece behind glass walls, a compulsory stop on VIP visits, to managing the network.

IT wants their vaunted status back. And here’s why.

Backups

Having centralized computing makes backups easier.

Security

It’s more secure. No viruses from USB drives plugged into users' PCs. No downloads of company IP sold to a competitor.

Health?

Heard for the first time, but almost in chorus at the Virtualize Conference, were the health benefits. Your workstation actually makes a lot of noise with all those fans. And the heat. Did you know each workstation is a few hundred watts? As your computer got more powerful, it’s louder and hotter. Now you have to turn up your air conditioning. IT staff to the rescue. Why don’t you let us take those noisy, hot monsters out from under your desks? We’ll keep them in a special room where they won’t hurt anyone.

Freedom

Access to the server would let an engineer leave his desk, work from another desk, from the field... or home (a possible disadvantage from the engineer's family point of view). And it allows the possibility of allowing engineering application to run any platform and on mobile devices, without having to rely on the software vendor to port their application. You can finally show the kids how cool you are on the iPad.

Back to the Future

Centralized computing has been around practically as long as computing itself. Called mainframes, they cost millions and were meticulously cared for and watched over. Users were allowed access only through terminals. Hundreds or thousands of terminals in Boeing and Detroit's big auto companies.

Boeing may have kept their hand in centralized computing longer than any of them, may be the last big company to let go of its centralized computing. Its last attempt to keep it’s computing centralized, which failed 20 years ago, is being hailed at the conference as the birthplace of virtualization.

Is it Time to Virtualize?

A survey by Jon Peddie Research does reveal that many would be interested in acquiring the benefits of virtualization. Though they may be unfamiliar with the term "virtualization," they are desirous of it's advantages, chief among them, the ability to work from anywhere and on any device.

Use edddison Light Table to Enter Mixed Reality

VANCOUVER, BC (SIGGRAPH 2014) - edddison (that's a small "e" and 3 d's) allows you to move a matchbox-sized car on a light table and have it move a 3D model of a car in a SketchUp model. Or move the human figurine and walk through a Revit model.

How does the edddison table (being called LightRig at SIGGRAPH) do this particular type of mixed reality? The underside of the light table is ringed with sensors that pick up the position and motion of the he objects on top.

The effect is remarkably natural, quite a bit more than even the most popular 3D input device, the 3D Connexion mice. In the spectrum of 3D virtual and mixed reality, the LightRig is by far more attainable that other devices we have looked at, examples ranging from million dollar CAVEs to zSpace. And it's hardly as goofy looking as head mounted displays.

In fact, the LightRig may be the least expensive way to get into virtual reality. It's folding table (which can easily be taken to a client's site) costs only $1600. 

eddison's owner, Austrian Thomans Keinzl, chose SIGGRAPH 2014 to launch the LightRig to the US market. 

For more information, see edddison's website, http://edddison.com/

Lenovo P900 - Beautiful on the Inside

VANCOUVER, British Columbia  - Lenovo was letting the press peek under the covers off their top of the line P900 workstation at SIGGRAPH. Recently introduced as part of the new ThinkStation P Series (see press release), it won't be ready to ship until October.

But I already want one.

Engineers, those lucky enough to get a P900, will appreciate the engineering that has gone into the internals workings. While Lenovo offers multiple drive bays, up to 3  high-end NVIDIA graphics cards, support for 3 monitors, Intel Xeon processors and DDR4 memory, even 8 USB 3.0 ports...and a host of other advantages over ordinary PCs, what really sets the P900 apart from other workstations is its innovative air flow management. Whereas ordinary computers may rely on one fan to suck air from the front, with the heat dissipation off the hot zones a hit of miss affair, the P9000 has a "big ass" fan on one side and 2 smaller fans on the other, an effective push-pull arrangement. In between, there is a carefully designed plenum with channels airflow from and over hot spots.

 

Robert Herman, whose business card declares him a "distinguished designer," is so proud of the plenum that he chose to commemorate the opening launch party with an ice sculpture of its shape and a "P900" punch that cooled itself as it flowed through it. I expect the working model will have no such feature.

Rob Herman of Lenovo demonstrates the cooling effect of the ThinkStation P900 baffle

"Won't that fan be noisy?" I say pointing to what has just been referred to as a "big ass" fan. A large fan will actually run quieter, says Rob without so much as a I-thought-you-were-an-engineer look lets me know that a larger fan can draw the same amount of air at a lower speed. That means less noise.

Also proudly shown was the extent Lenovo has gone tool-less. Red markings and indents over components show where to press and and obliging drives, fans, boards, power supplies -- even the motherboard -- pop right out. 

For more information, see Lenovo's product page: https://www.thinkworkstations.com/

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Virtalis ActiveDesk zSpace Receives Best of Show at PTC Live Global 2014

BOSTON (PTC Live Global 2014) - Virtalis, the company best known for its million dollar immersive virtual reality rooms (which it calls Active Cubes or CAVEs, for computer augmented virtual reality) and ActiveWalls, now has a version of virtual reality for the desktop.Virtalis has ported its technology to the zSpace device, which with what appears to be an oversized iPad, a wired stylus and not-very-obtrusive glasses, to create a holographic image. Of course, you do have to give up the 1:1 scale provided by Virtalis flagship products but also downsized is the price. Starting at $33,000, this device suddently makes virtual reality far more approachable for engineers and designers. 

With Virtalis ActiveDesk zSpace, you can pretend to be Luke Skywalker getting a message from Princess Leia even if you are pulling a car seat out of a convertible.

The zSpace is as close to natural 3D space as is currently available. Oculus Rift may have received a lot of attention lately, being bought by Facebook for $2 billion, but I've found the Oculus mask, like other 3D headsets heavy, cumbersome and disorienting, cutting you off from the real world. Meanwhile, the zSpace specs can pass for reading glasses.

Virtalis ActiveDesk is a combination of 3D virtual reality software, Visionary Render, and the zSpace desktop interactive display system, announced last month.

Virtalis also announced that PTC Creo users will now be able to view their CAD models in virtual reality its new VR Extension for PTC Creo View. 

For more information:
http://www.virtalis.com/ 

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HP Plans to Displace LED Printers with PageWide

SAN DIEGO, CA - HP's large format printer division is based in Barcelona, but their print heads are made in San Diego, the software may be written in Oregon and their PR firm is in Atlanta -- an arrangement that favors frequent flyer miles for most involved -- and jet lag.

A large contingent was on hand in San Diego, actually looking none too worse for the wear, to introduce a couple of new large format printers. See HP Introduces PageWide Technology for Large-Format Printing.

The HP PageWide large format printer (on right) promise higher speed and color than LED printer currently in use at repro shops. It's due to hit the streets towards end of 2015. Price has not been announced.

A couple of large format printers hulked on the sides of the stage as the western hemisphere press filed into the ballroom of the Sheraton Marina Hotel. But as the music bulit up, the curtains parted and a spotlight tracked the star of the show as it came forward by itself to center stage. Enter the page wide large format printer!

May be not as dramatic an entrance as Gene Simmons at a Kiss concert, but in our world, that's as good as it gets. We applauded.

Plans for Invasion

It was the first large format (40") printer with PageWide print head. Whereas a normal print head goes back and forth across the page, a PageWide printhead is actually a collection of stackable printheads tha covers the whole width of the sheet. All colors are dispensed at once. It's way faster than back and forth, multiple pass method and also. Print registration should be spot-on (pun intended) since the paper doesn't have much chance to slip on the rollers.

A series of printheads can be stacked to achieve a 40"wide printhead

While the other printers have notable improvements (the T3500, which is not even based on PageWide technology, can output a D-size print in 21 seconds!), HP has big plans for this battleship-class printer. It intends to displace the current (electrostatic) technologies in repro houses. HP sees this as a $1.3B market. Same speed or faster ...plus color! How could they not love it, HP asks rhetorically.

Perhaps because they'll be bound to HP for expensive ink?

Users in Ink Prison?

HP insists that their total cost of ownership is still low, even with their proprietary inks. It's a widely held belief that printer companies lose money on their hardware but profit immensely from ink cartridges. It's certainly true for consumer printers. I have been shocked at paying $40 for probably an ounce of ink. I can see the cartridges of the large format printers from the second row. Each looks like it holds half a gallon.

Why Now?

The page wide printer will not be avaialble until late 2015, more that a year away. HP says the technology is all there, but they want to do enough testing to ensure that it meets their reliability standards.They are announcing their plans early to send a message to the repro shops, that something better will be coming down down the road eventually, so don't enter into any long term relationships.

Potential Uses

While engineering and AEC prints are E-size maximum, HP is counting on the creation of signs and banners, which is getting increasing popular.

See Also

Sumary Notes from HP's Large-Format Printer Launch, Ralph Grabowski, World CAD Access, June 11, 2013

Dell: You Bought the SUV, Now Buy the Workstation

ROUND ROCK, TX - Dell’s workstation division seems to be enjoying a surge of support within the company –so much so that they had their 1st workstation-only press event, flying in media folk from all over the world to tour their HQ near Austin, Texas. Over two days we heard how their computers and workstations were superior and loved by their customers. For those who attended only to be able to get into the enormously popular South by Southwest⁽¹⁾..well, they just had to wait until Dell was done.

Andy Rhodes of Dell introduces Dell's $1200 mobile workstation, the M2800.

We were treated to the world’s fastest workstation (though results have not been made public), their new "budget"mobile workstation, the M28800, super cool 4K monitors, an industrial design department that thinks outside of the Dell black box and the opening of a “Center of Excellence,” which ironically, offers a non-workstation alternative.

But first a bit of background. Dell has been through a rough patch. Stung by the recent surge in mobile devices (as were all computer vendors), it has gone through the throes of falling out of favor with investors in a market where cool and a hip takes precedence over performance and value, the company went from public to private and is now back under the leadership of founder Michael Dell. It was under Michael that Dell enjoyed its heyday with an undisputed solid #1 position as PC manufacturer, unseating the very companies that invented the personal computer (IBM and Apple) -- and it is under Michael Dell that the company hopes to bring back those glory days.

It is a multimillion dollar gamble -- $25 billion⁽²⁾ to be exact. A hundred thousand jobs rest in the balance -- 14,000 of them in Round Rock. In this part of Texas, Michael is viewed as a celebrity, philanthrope, a savior -- if not a god, his Olympus being a nearby Austin hill on which he has built a 22,000 square foot residence. He may not have been there during the press events, but his presence was continually invoked (as in "Michael and Jeff⁽³⁾ think...").

It's clear from from here on, Dell's fortunes (the company and the man) depend a large part on workstations, not on PCs. It was in another era when PCs were a hot item, but now they are just commodity items bought on price alone with margins so low that no company can make any money. Remember how Big Auto almost died trying to compete in the car market against foreign competition? Then they discovered the SUV. A happy accident, bolting a luxurious body onto a truck chassis filled a need nobody knew they had. A base model sedan may have been costing Detroit money to produce but a SUV could generate as much as $18,000⁽⁴⁾ of  profit. No one else had them and Detroit could charge what they wanted.

Indeed, the consumer market for Dell is only generating 15 to 20 pct of Dell's business.

-----

Footnotes

1. Dell paid for travel expenses plus SXSW admission.

2. "Michael Dell Buys Back PC Company He Founded in $24.8 Billion Deal," The Guardian, Sep 12, 2013

3. Jeffrey W. Clarke, Dell Vice Chairman, Operations

4. from Wikipedia Sport Utility Vehicle, though with increased competition the profit margins are probably much lower

AMD FirePro Blazes Into the Lead

SAN DIEGO, CA (SolidWorks World 2014 - David vs Goliath. Avis vs Hertz. In CAD graphics, it's AMD graphics vs NVIDIA. NVIDIA claims to have 80% share of graphics cards for CAD users. Of course, this makes AMD to try harder.

I can count on Antoine Reymond, Sr Strategic Alliances Manager at AMD, to provide me the latest advantage AMD has gained. At SolidWorks World 2014 Antoine presses into my hand the latest the latest benchmark. It is the result of SPECviewperf 12. I see why Antoine is eager to spread the news. On a AMD brochure wherein it states "AMD dominates NVDIA across the board, from the entry level and mobile, up through the mid-range and into the high end ," the AMD FirePro cards seem to have beaten their NVIDIA counterparts by as much as 46% (AMD FirePro W5000 vs NVIDIA K2000) when running SolidWorks 2013.

A good journalist would corroborate the story, I remind myself. The official SPECviewperf site show results not quite as good as the AMD document, but AMD FirePro is still significantly better when comparing their two midrange cards, which is probably what most SolidWorks users would buy. I calculate a 41% more frames per second with the AMD FirePro W5000 compared to the NVIDIA K2000.

Chart based on data from  from SPECviewperf 12 SolidWorks test

At the time of this writing, the AMD FirePro W5000 was available in Amazon for $515 but the NVIDIA K2000 seemed to be on "special" at $404. Both had 2GB of memory.

TenLinks Show Judge

Roopinder Tara

For More Information

• AMD FirePro for SolidWorks - product page on AMD site
• SPEC - Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation, independent graphics benchmark organization
• TenLinks Best of Show coverage

Lenovo W540 Mobile Workstation Aims for Power with Mobility

SAN DIEGO, CA (SolidWorks World 2014) - Lenovo may have opted for the less-is-more approach. Rather than chase Dell and HP mobile counterparts with massive 17" monitors, Lenovo draws the line at the W540 with the 15 inch screen -- and saves over 2 lbs. With its has NVIDIA Kepler graphics hardware, the Lenovo W540 actually packs the same number of pixels (1920x1080) on the smaller 15 screen as the 17 inch Dell M6800 and with external monitors you can go all the way to a screen resolution of 3480 x 2160.

The recently redesigned W540 mobile workstation promises rock-solid operation expected of the ThinkPad line.

TenLinks Show Judge

Roopinder Tara

Disclosure: Roopinder has owned a series of Lenovo ThinkPads, which are standard issue at TenLinks.

For More Information

• Lenovo W540 - product page on Lenovo site
• TenLinks Best of Show coverage

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Dell Precision M6800 Mobile Workstation Recommended for SolidWorks

SAN DIEGO, CA (SolidWorks World 2014) - Of the 3 big hardware providers (Dell, HP, and Lenovo), Dell and HP are the only ones who offer a mobile  workstation with a 17" screen. The most recent in Dell's mobile workstation line, the Precision M6800 bills itself as the most powerful of its kind with the latest Intel i7 processor and high end graphics from either NVIDIA or AMD. And if you would like to show your Dell is different from the other somber black mobile workstations without even opening the lid, you can opt for the "Covet" edition in "Phoenix Red." Perhaps flames on candy apple red would have been more appropriate.     

TenLinks Show Judge

Jason Pancoast

Disclosure: Jason owns a Dell Precision M6600 mobile workstation, his computer of choice for CAD. His company, CAPINC, is a customer of Dell, HP, Lenovo, and other computer vendors.

For More Information

• www.dell.com 
• TenLinks Best of Show coverage

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Boxx Revs Up Processor for 2X Performance with SolidWorks

SAN DIEGO, CA (SolidWorks World 2014 - The exhibit hall at the annual SolidWorks user conference provided an opportunity to do a quick test with several computer vendors: open a large SolidWorks part on your biggest, baddest workstation. 

Boxx was able to load this SolidWorks part more than twice as fast as rival workstations.

BOXX outperformed them all. Significantly. It was more than 2X faster than the next fastest computer! BOXX may well be the best performing tool for the SolidWorks user.

BOXX uses an over-clocked processer but offers the same warranty as a "standard" workstation. BOXX workstations do cost more but power users are finding the performance gains justify the extra cost.

TenLinks Show Judges

Josh Altergott

TenLinks Judge (name withheld)

For More Information

• www.boxxtech.com
• TenLinks Best of Show coverage