Virtual Desktops for Creo - Questions?

[davehaigh]

At the PTC conference in Boston, HP showed Creo running on a palmtop. All the computing was done in Kansas City and displayed back to the unit in Boston over the network. With 100ms latency. The performance on the PTC world car was pretty good. IBM also had hardware at the conference, but no live demo. Dell had no hardware, and no demo. They said to me that they would have an announcement in the September timeframe.

I'm wondering if anyone out there has done any performance testing on this type of setup, and if you would be willing to share your observations?
Or if you have not do any testing, have you arrived anywhere in researching this? Could you point me to some knowledgeable contacts, or papers on the subject you found helpful.

[ptc-1932745]

I have tested this live using the Dell setup. The Xenserver with the Kepler Cards could support 8 sessions per box. The performance in part mode, drawing mode, small assembly mode (<`100 parts) and NC machining was very good. We also ran ANSYS Workbench, among other apps. Also ran sessions on some tablets (Fujitsu/Win 7, iPad) and phones.

We are still evaluation the costs, but it seems to be a wash for 8-12 users vs. purchasing new workstations for now, but next go around (2-3 years) I expect to have only an NVIDIA 'Shield'-type tablet that has dual cores and GPU acceleration as my primary compute device. When I'm at my desk, it connects to my Monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc... but I can pick this up and go to the shop, a clients site, whatever, and have MY EXACT DESKTOP and apps. No more license borrowing, VMware, ...

We have some more evaluation to do, but imagine this; you can set up sessions for 'roles'. In our case we exchange parts with our customer using FTP and PGP, and we translate files using Transmagic. The license for FTP and PGP is on one workstation, and the Transmagic license is on another workstation, so you have to go to a particular user / workstation to do the download / conversion work. We expect to roll a CITRIX/Xen session that includes the apps for FTP,PGP,Transmagic,CREO2 and deploy this so that Any number of Engineering users can launch this session and get their work done.

Worth looking in to.

Christopher F. Gosnell

FPD Company
124 Hidden Valley Road
McMurray, PA 15317

[DeanLong]

It's cool developments and advancements like these that make me sad I am in the final act of my design career. Not the "End Days", mind you...just nearing the end.

In Reply to Christopher Gosnell:

I have tested this live using the Dell setup. The Xenserver with the Kepler Cards could support 8 sessions per box. The performance in part mode, drawing mode, small assembly mode (<`100 parts) and NC machining was very good. We also ran ANSYS Workbench, among other apps. Also ran sessions on some tablets (Fujitsu/Win 7, iPad) and phones.

We are still evaluation the costs, but it seems to be a wash for 8-12 users vs. purchasing new workstations for now, but next go around (2-3 years) I expect to have only an NVIDIA 'Shield'-type tablet that has dual cores and GPU acceleration as my primary compute device. When I'm at my desk, it connects to my Monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc... but I can pick this up and go to the shop, a clients site, whatever, and have MY EXACT DESKTOP and apps. No more license borrowing, VMware, ...

We have some more evaluation to do, but imagine this; you can set up sessions for 'roles'. In our case we exchange parts with our customer using FTP and PGP, and we translate files using Transmagic. The license for FTP and PGP is on one workstation, and the Transmagic license is on another workstation, so you have to go to a particular user / workstation to do the download / conversion work. We expect to roll a CITRIX/Xen session that includes the apps for FTP,PGP,Transmagic,CREO2 and deploy this so that Any number of Engineering users can launch this session and get their work done.

Worth looking in to.

Christopher F. Gosnell

FPD Company
124 Hidden Valley Road
McMurray, PA 15317

[ptc-1932745]

It may seem to some (like me) that remember timesharing, etc... on old CAD systems in the late 70's early 80's and may comment that we are going back to this, but this type of system adheres to Pournelle's rule 'One user/session, at least one CPU' that makes the whole thing possible.

The other thing not really mentioned is because of the NVIDIA cards and the limitation of 8 sessions per box, performance is better guaranteed. The trick becomes the network, with good design, load balancing, etc... being crucial.

Also, no Internet, no work being done. Maybe this will eventually push us to create fast Internet access that is both cheap and plentiful in the USA, like other countries have done.

Christopher F. Gosnell

FPD Company
124 Hidden Valley Road
McMurray, PA 15317

[FV]

Hi all,

Did anybody try to run Creo Parametric on Virtual Desktop based on MS 2012 server with RDP-FX protocolrunning on top of Hyper-V ?

Our IT guys for one reason or another do not want to deal with Cirtrix XenDesktops and trying to persuade engineering to useMicrosoftsuggestedVDI configuration.

Thanks in advance.

Feliks.

In Reply to Christopher Gosnell:

It may seem to some (like me) that remember timesharing, etc... on old CAD systems in the late 70's early 80's and may comment that we are going back to this, but this type of system adheres to Pournelle's rule 'One user/session, at least one CPU' that makes the whole thing possible.

The other thing not really mentioned is because of the NVIDIA cards and the limitation of 8 sessions per box, performance is better guaranteed. The trick becomes the network, with good design, load balancing, etc... being crucial.

Also, no Internet, no work being done. Maybe this will eventually push us to create fast Internet access that is both cheap and plentiful in the USA, like other countries have done.

Christopher F. Gosnell

FPD Company
124 Hidden Valley Road
McMurray, PA 15317