Tag Archives: Autodesk

Autodesk Connects Desktop To Mobile And Cloud

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Autodesk launched the company’s 2013 portfolio of design, engineering and entertainment software, including the latest design and creation suites. The suites provide expanded toolsets and new automated suites workflows for building, entertainment, engineering, construction, infrastructure, product, plant and factory design. The 2013 design suites connect the desktop to Autodesk 360, a cloud computing platform that enables customers to dramatically improve the way they work by providing the ability to store, edit and share their designs and access virtually infinite computing power anytime, anywhere.

“Last year, we introduced Autodesk design and creation suites and cloud services, and have seen a tremendous response from our customers. The 2013 suites are a major step forward to a cohesive and interconnected product family,” said Andrew Anagnost, Autodesk senior vice president of Industry Strategy and Marketing. “The tools in the suites now work more seamlessly with each other and with the cloud, offering tremendous value by opening new ways for our customers to solve their most complex design and engineering challenges.”

The new Autodesk 2013 design and creation suites feature in-product, customizable one-click workflows and improved interoperability, making it much easier to connect design and visualization tasks. This gives users the ability to better communicate their design intent visually. In addition, the 2013 suites offer a consistent user experience across the software in the suite and in Autodesk 360 — making it easier to learn new tools and services, and adopt them in the design workflow.

“The advantage of using an Autodesk design suite is that it offers us a variety of tools, and we can pick and choose the most appropriate solution for the project and for the client,” said Phillip Ra, senior designer, Cannon Design.

Autodesk 360 (formerly known as Autodesk Cloud) now provides even more cloud benefits to Autodesk Subscription customers, including additional cloud storage and the ability to access cloud services for rendering, simulation, design optimization and energy analysis. Subscription customers now have up to 25 MB of storage and between 100 and 500 Autodesk Cloud Units per user, based on the suite edition they purchased. Combining the power and capability of Autodesk 360 with the enhanced workflows of Autodesk design suites give customers a competitive edge to respond to changing business requirements.

Autodesk 2013 Design and Creation Suites

Autodesk design and creation suites offer an economical way for users to access their primary design and creation software, including AutoCAD, Autodesk Revit, Autodesk Inventor, AutoCAD Civil 3D, Autodesk 3ds Max and Autodesk Maya software, plus an expanded toolset of complementary software and cloud services.

The 2013 family of Autodesk design suites includes:

  • AutoCAD Design Suite
  • Autodesk Building Design Suite
  • Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suite
  • Autodesk Factory Design Suite
  • Autodesk Infrastructure Design Suite
  • Autodesk Plant Design Suite
  • Autodesk Product Design Suite

The Autodesk Exchange Apps store is expanding to include apps for multiple products, including Autodesk Revit, Autodesk Inventor and Autodesk 3ds Max software. Autodesk Exchange Apps are companion apps that help design professionals find and immediately download solutions to some of their most pressing design challenges. Customers will now be able to access Exchange Apps both directly via the web and from within Autodesk products.

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4 Myths of Cloud Computing

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With all the talk about cloud computing and its impact on business it’s important to understand what the cloud is — and what it isn’t.

James Staten, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research, provided his company’s take on the subject this week at the Autodesk University, where cloud computing was Topic A for the annual users conference that drew more than 8,000 people.

The main advantages cloud computing provides — connectivity, mobility, flexibility and the power of infinite computing — are easy to grasp. But less well understood is the definition of clouding computing and its key attributes.

Staten sought to bring clarity to the matter in a talk about for four common myths of cloud computing.

Myth 1: The cloud is just another name for outsourcing.

No, it isn’t, said Staten, who offered this definition:

What makes a cloud a cloud: A standardized technology capability (services, software or infrastructure) delivered in a pay-per-use, self-service way.

The three characteristics — standardized technology capability, pay-per-use and self-service — need to be present, said Staten, who warned of “cloudwashing” by vendors and others who mistakenly or deliberately say they have a cloud product, when in fact they don’t.

Staten added it’s important to keep in mind the business model of the cloud. “You never own the cloud,” he said. “You always just rent from the cloud.”

Myth 2: The cloud is the future for everything.

While cloud computing is reshaping the way business is done and how people connect, it will not replace traditional computing even though it may greatly inform it.

“Not everything is [or will become] cloud and shouldn’t be,” said Staten. He and various Autodesk execs pointed out that there are things cloud computing does very well and others best left to traditional computing.

“I would submit to you that cloud is inherently good for four things,” said Amar Hanspal, Autodesk’s senior vice president for platform solutions and emerging business, in another discussion session:

  1. Connecting people to each other and connecting devices.
  2. Connecting people to information and fresh data in real time.
  3. Delivering the power of infinite computing.
  4. Making it possible for everyone to have access to design technology, so that in effect everyone can be a designer or participate in the process.

Traditional computing typically involves fixed costs and items, enables varied deployments by a single tenant, is more manual and affords a high degree of control and customization, Staten said.

In contrast, cloud computing is characterized by variable costs and items, standardized deployments, multi-tenancy, a high degree of automation, lower levels of customer control and limited customization, he said.

The most likely scenario for IT as well as business solutions going forward is a blend of the two, said Staten, pointing to Autodesk’s approach for some of its new offerings.

Myth 3: The cloud saves you money.

A couple of qualifiers need to be added to make that sentence true, according to Staten. “The cloud can be cheaper, if you use it right,” he said.

He offered car rental as an analogy: Renting a car is a pay-per-use proposition that is cost effective for certain situations but not for those requiring extended or permanent 24/7 use.

“For the cloud, you want to put things out there that a) have elasticity and b) transiency,” Staten said, “Go up there for a little while and then go back down.”

Myth 4: The cloud is not secure.

“The cloud is more secure than you are,” Staten said.

He noted that companies offering cloud services are focused on that deliverable. They are acutely aware they have a high degree of exposure and “invest heavily in the best security minds out there.” They are in a constant cycle of validation with customers. And they take into account that multi-tenancy requires a higher degree of security.

“If you’re Coke and in the cloud, Pepsi can be right next door,” said Staten, which is why cloud services entail more encryption to keep data secure.

He stressed, however, that businesses using the cloud, as well as the vendors that provide cloud services, have responsibilities.

“Secure cloud computing is an uneven handshake,” Staten said. “You have a responsibility as a user.”

That includes carefully managing how points of access are given to internal and external work partners and when that access is lifted.

Staten was among several presenters who helped frame the discussion during Autodesk U. As the conference came to a close yesterday, business and tech consulting firm Microdesk, a participant and exhibitor at the gathering, offered a forecast of cloud computing’s impact on the architecture, engineering, construction and operations industry.

Here are Microdesk’s five predictions:

  1. Firms will push the envelope of what’s possible in the cloud.
  2. More companies will embrace building information modeling, a transformational technology. Building information modeling, better known as BIM, enables people to visualize how design elements, materials and other choices affect projects and their performance.
  3. AECO professionals take full advantage of mobility and bring data, designs and work documents with them in the field, and wherever else they are needed.
  4. The industry will adopt technology faster in order to streamline processes, reduce costs and improve ROI.
  5. Collaboration will occur on a larger scale than ever.

In addition to cloud computing, other themes threaded through the Autodesk conference included:

  • The impact of cloud and advanced technology on sustainable design of products as well as buildings and communities.
  • The rise of the makers’ movement as a result of technology that enables the “democratization of design,” which is one of Autodesk’s aims.

The developments have fueled what Hanspal and his Autodesk colleagues described as a post-Industrial Revolution revolution. “Design and manufacturing are moving back into the hands of people,” Hanspal said.

 

Author: Leslie Guevarra
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Autodesk Moves To The Cloud

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Autodesk is planning to take the bulk of its software onto cloud services in the next three years, beginning with AutoCAD WS.

“The collaborative aspects of cloud working are going to revolutionize the design field,” Andrew Anagnost, vice president of suites, web services and subscription at Autodesk, told The Register.

He explained that a properly configured platform could host design data and ensure that individual users would get the most relevant information, such as building specifications for structural engineers or visualizations for architects. What’s more, since no local software will be needed, additional viewers can be added on the fly.

The company has hosted cloud services itself for the last decade, since the launch of Buzzsaw, but it will now be buying compute time from Amazon EC2 to run a design and visualization suite aimed at small and medium sized companies who are looking to run collaborative design sessions. The company is also including testing and optimization code, so that a designer could test various build scenarios to find the optimal one.

The pricing model will be subscription based, with a basic offering for small jobs and then data maintenance pricing if a company needs more computing cycles or fine-grained management of who accesses its data. Within three years, the company expects to have all of its software available online in this way, but it will initially focus on software like AutoCAD WS.

On the security side, Autodesk will be offering a one-size-fits-all package, and it is planning on adding encryption to the service. But Anagnost says that fears over data security will be the biggest brake on people getting involved.

“This is one of the biggest concerns, and the biggest governor on adoption,” he said. “If someone’s highly concerned then may not be able to get them off that – in the same way that some people refuse to use online banking.”

The other problem for some companies will be fear of downtime on the service, but according to Anagnost, this was really a matter of configuration and having failover plans ready. During the recent EC2 outage, he said, Autodesk wasn’t affected because it had plans in place to shift servers to alternative areas of supply.

Shifting the focus to cloud access on mobile devices may get Autodesk customers it didn’t know it had, he said, pointing to the example of its Sketchbook application. This was originally envisaged as a tool for industrial designers and sold in the thousands. However, when the company ported it to mobile devices like the iPhone, it took off among the general public, and there has now been over seven million downloads of the package to date.

Author: Iain Thomson
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A Clearer View of How to Exploit Cloud Computing

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Design engineers and design managers may have heard the term ‘cloud computing’ but found it hard to establish exactly what it is – or whether it will help them in their jobs. Alistair Rae presents some answers to these questions and looks at what might happen in the future.

As information technology companies describe new ways to offer infrastructure to businesses, the term ‘cloud computing’ is becoming more common – but what exactly is it? The definition of the internet is quite simple and easily understood: a freely accessible network of servers for information, services and commerce. Cloud computing has no single, clear definition, partly because it is difficult to explain. As a consequence, it is not easy to see the advantages, disadvantages and how a particular company might exploit cloud computing.

Predictions by Gartner Research for 2011 and beyond suggest that, by 2012, one-fifth of all companies will no longer own their IT (information technology) assets and that, by 2015, information-smart businesses will increase recognised IT spending per head by 60 per cent. But, at the same time, in 2011 Gartner predicts a clash between cloud computing and more conventional ways of providing IT.

Although the idea for this type of computing has been around for at least a decade, it is only now that there is reliable software and infrastructure readily available to support it. The term ‘cloud computing’ comes from a way the IT industry has historically explained how systems function. There is what you know a lot about and have control over, usually a local computer (a PC, Apple Macintosh or other workstation), which is connected to something else that you do not have to worry about – and this undefined ‘something’ is depicted as a cloud (Fig.1). Connection between the two is usually through a network, although sometimes the diagram refers to processes coexisting in a single computer. What goes on in the cloud is often not explained but, whatever it is, it is assumed to work. In fact the technology involved is not new, although it is continually being improved as fresh commercial demands are met by more development.

Those instances not normally considered to be cloud computing are those where everything takes place within one computer, or where there is a single server providing multiple services. The latter case is common where there are many virtual private servers (VPSs) on a single physical server at an internet service provider (ISP), sometimes presented as a ‘cloud’ even though this is not really the case. The essential characteristics of cloud computing are that processing is carried out remotely from the user, using variable amounts of metered resource, with payment on the basis of a subscription or the resources used, rather like a pay-per-use mobile telephone (Fig.2). In business terms, it makes a user independent of hardware and moves IT expenditure from capital expenditure (capex) to operating expenditure (opex).

There are three basic types of cloud, all delivered over a network connection as computing services to the end-user.

Infrastructure clouds, which are also referred to as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), are where hardware resources – processing power and storage – are made available to the user, thereby removing the need for companies to have their own servers. The correct usage of the term refers either to data and storage clouds or compute clouds, which provide the infrastructure on which applications can be built.

Data and storage clouds (for example, Amazon S3) offer reliable access for varying amounts of data. Amazon’s Simple Storage Service (S3) is built with a minimal feature set and allows reading, writing and deletion of files from 1byte to 5terabytes each. They are firewall-protected and have high reliability (designed for 99.99 per cent reliability).

Compute Clouds provide environments that include processing power, but there are many different models. The important characteristic is that they offer scalable, on-demand resources to run code that has been developed to use them. There are various restrictions on what they will do (languages and types of storage, for example) but they can offer an organisation reliable and flexible computing with high availability. Users often do not know where the code is executed or the data stored (which can be a problem) but the point is that it will be executed and stored remotely. Typical examples are Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), the Google App Engine and the Rackspace Cloud (see panel for other examples of cloud computing).

Sometimes vendors use cloud technology to offer scalable server environments built with cloud components. In this case the hybrid offering is similar to using a VPS but with the benefit of being able to have more than one instance of the server if required. There is no change needed in the software used, whether it is proprietary or written in-house, as the cloud just provides the underlying infrastructure for a given level of service.

Platform Clouds, which are also referred to as Platform as a Service (PaaS), feature computational resources that are made available on a platform for which applications and services can be developed. While this was once a separate class of service, the name survives despite the boundary between the latest compute clouds and PaaS clouds having almost disappeared. The difference is now more between environments that deliver application functionality (see Software Clouds) and those which do not. The Google App Engine is sometimes classed as a platform, rather than infrastructure.

Software Clouds, also referred to as Software as a Service (SaaS), are where a single application is made available as a service, possibly by using one or both of the types of cloud service described above. This is the oldest type of internet-based service and some vendors have always operated in this way. Typical examples are the Salesforce.com customer relationship management (CRM) system, Google Docs (office documents), and SAP Business by Design (a business management system). In this case the end user buys precisely the service that is advertised. For designers, Autodesk is one of the more advanced in terms of its cloud-based offering, which includes the Project Neon rendering service and Bluestreak collaboration software.

Cloud computing overcomes many problems inherent with conventional IT resourcing, but the newer technology is not without its risks. First, company data (and possibly also intellectual property) will be stored remotely, so organisations need to be sure that is it in the right jurisdiction for their type of work, that the service provider complies with all relevant regulations and that the provider is open to security audit. This could include questions about any of their staff who might access to the organisation’s data – which may or may not be encrypted.

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