We’ve given you an overview of CAD in the Cloud as it stands today. In this installment of our CAD in the Cloud blog series, we’ll focus more on how Converge is leveraging the Cloud to emancipate SOLIDWORKS Cloud users from the local office.
This whole journey begins with SOLIDWORKS Cloud PDM (Product Data Management). If you’re not familiar with SOLIDWORKS PDM, you should be. We evangelize the SOLIDWORKS PDM product every chance we get because it solves a lot of the issues revolving around managing the data that results from our work as designers and engineers. Duplicate files, missing files, files from mismatched SOLIDWORKS versions, you name it and we’ve seen it. SOLIDWORKS PDM solves these problems by housing all data in a central file vault with full revision control, and check-in/check-out functionality so that only one user at a time can make changes to any given file.
SOLIDWORKS PDM vaults have typically been implemented on a local server, and SOLIDWORKS users could only access this data if they were in the same physical location as that server. However, 7 years ago, EpiGrid was founded on the notion that the same PDM vault that gets implemented on a local server could be deployed to a Cloud server, giving the user the ability to access the PDM Vault from anywhere in the world with an internet connection. Chad Garrish, founder of EpiGrid pioneered this Cloud-hosted infrastructure and began deploying Cloud-hosted PDM vaults through the use of a VPN (Virtual Private Network) software connection to include SOLIDWORKS Cloud.
The solution was perfected over the ensuing years, and now, all of EpiGrid’s Cloud-hosting infrastructure runs on SolidBox Tuned servers. Bringing SolidBox in as the hardware provider was a no-brainer, and now you can get the same SolidBox server experience without having to invest the upfront costs associated with a new server. The entire user experience is managed and tuned specifically for each user group. If your company is looking to reduce its IT burden, as well as its CAD hardware footprint, the EpiGrid hosted PDM Vault is the perfect place to start. With instant ROI and increased productivity, our aim is to simplify the ultra-complex tapestry that is your CAD in the Cloud Infrastructure.
Along the way, EpiGrid’s main goal was to virtualize the entire SOLIDWORKS Cloud user experience, in addition to the Hosted PDM Vault solution. With the emergence of technology from NVIDIA, Precision class servers could also be leveraged to provide a hosted platform for programs that required a heavy graphical processing load, such as SOLIDWORKS. EpiGrid then pioneered the hosted SOLIDWORKS VDI workstation in the Cloud, much like it did with hosted SOLIDWORKS PDM. With dedicated server resources (CPU, RAM, GPU, and HD Storage), you’re now able to access a fully capable SOLIDWORKS workstation from any device with an internet connection, anywhere in the world. While the rest of the world is waiting for new tools that will take advantage of everything the Cloud has to offer, we’ve developed two ground-breaking solutions that are available to you this very instant for the tools you already know and love.
As the overarching sales entity for EpiGrid, Engineering Services, and SOLIDWORKS products (in certain areas), Converge is positioned to take your CAD data to the Cloud with SOLIDWORKS Cloud.
Contact us today to discover how Converge can bring your engineering department into the 21st Century with forward-thinking CAD in the Cloud solutions designed to maximize your productivity.
