Virtualisation is firing the imagination of the CAD/CAM/PLM industry
Sindelfingen, 26 March 2018 – Virtualisation is a magic word for the CAD/CAM/PLM industry. It increases IT performance and lowers maintenance costs, enables more productive human resources management and increases data security. And JANUS Engineering is also convinced of the benefits. The software developer from Sindelfingen has recently invested in a virtual training environment.
The CAD/CAM/PLM industry is still hesitant when it comes to visualisation. Only about 5 per cent of companies use the technology that transfers software and data from workstations to servers. That's actually quite unbelievable. Because virtualisation offers enormous potential. This starts with the issues of maintenance and performance. When companies work with traditional workstations, IT staff must keep every single workstation in order to ensure reliable performance – for example, by performing regular updates and reinstalling the system after two years at the latest. This takes a lot of time. It's much easier when data and applications are stored on servers with the help of virtualisation, which are then accessed by employees using clients – normal PCs, notebooks or tablets – via the Internet. IT staff then only need to maintain these servers and guarantee reliable performance for each client. Gone are the days when employees can't provide full performance because their workstations are on strike. These two points alone, maintenance and employee performance, ensure a relatively fast return on investment. And there are other benefits.
HR and data security also benefit from virtualisation
Virtualisation also has a positive impact on human resources and data security. Why HR? Because flexibility plays an increasingly important role for companies in times of a shortage of skilled workers. Companies should have the opportunity to let qualified employees, who work in a home office far away, participate in projects – in complete contrast to the traditional in-office jobs. Virtualisation makes this possible. And data security is also ensured at all times. Because not data transfers are needed. Employees access applications and data from outside the company via the Internet. Sensitive data does not need to pass the secure boundaries of the corporate servers. Horror scenarios, such as a laptop with important company data suddenly breaking down or falling into the hands of a thief, are a thing of the past.
New training environment: JANUS is convinced about the benefits of digitisation
JANUS Engineering AG is convinced about the potential offered by virtualisation. The software developer put a virtual training environment into operation at the beginning of the year. The heart of this environment is located at the company headquarters in Sindelfingen. Two redundant servers are located there with hardware from the manufacturer DELL, which are equipped with the latest flagships from the graphics card manufacturer NVIDIA: the Tesla M60 cards. They form the backbone of the NVIDIA Grid 2.0 – a graphics virtualisation platform that delivers the power of the NVIDIA GPU to virtual workstations.
Standard PCs, thin clients or notebooks are sufficient for the course participants. "Thanks to virtualisation, the performance of the devices no longer plays a role," explains Stefan Denzinger, IT consultant at JANUS Engineering. Even older devices enable the participants to enjoy smooth CAD/CAM/PLM software performance. "As we no longer need powerful workstations thanks to virtualisation, we can provide a much larger number of participants with high-performance training at the customer sites." Many participants learned to appreciate the strengths of virtualisation during the training. "Some have been inspired by the training to make their own IT infrastructures more flexible and to simplify the overall system so that they can implement new requirements more quickly."
About JANUS Engineering AG
As a certified solution partner, JANUS Engineering supports manufacturing companies with the integration, optimization, individualization and training of Siemens NX PLM solutions. Our claim is to maximize production capacity by achieving an efficient automation of the manufacturing process.
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JANUS Engineering AG
Product Lifecycle Management Systemtechnik
Frau Martina Weik
Gartenstrasse 19
71063 Sindelfingen
E-Mail: Martina.Weik@janus-engineering.com
Tel.: +49 (0) 7031 7 55 99-0