FAST FACTS
- Virtualization of a computationally intensive 3D CAD environment within 2 months
- About 15% higher efficiency work of designers
- Faster marketing of end products
- Savings when purchasing new hardware
EXIT STATE
The company's optical engineers Meopta - optics worked before the project with a 3D CAD system installed locally on very powerful workstations. Nevertheless, the demanding calculations were subject to delays that prevented the developers from continuing their work (and a small part of the team had to use two workstations). The company's management therefore decided to innovate to allow the engineers to work in their application environment from any location, with the provision of high performance and for high safety standards.
"When running IT in a manufacturing company, it is necessary to constantly look for solutions to save operating costs and at the same time increase production efficiency. Our CAD engineers are among the more demanding users, but they are also invaluable to the company with their expertise in optical instrument development. For them to work, we not only need to deliver high performance that is accessible beyond their workplace, but also ensure that development information cannot be leaked."
Radim Klásek, IT Director, Meopta-optics
EXTREME CONDITION
A condition for successful virtualization of the work environmentthat ORBIT as the project contractor paid primary attention to was quantifying the time lost by the designers. The assumption that developers can effectively use the time saved by virtualization working on other tasks.
In the virtualization process, a combination of technologies was designed and then deployed Citrix XenApp (preferred by most designers) and Citrix XenDesktop (used in specific cases). Optimal resource utilization is now provided by the virtualization platform Citrix XenServer and secure remote access mediated by technology Citrix NetScaler Gateway.
Thanks to virtualization ineffective pauses have disappearedwhich the engineers bridge by starting another virtual machine and immediately continuing work on the next calculation. The productivity of the work is thus increased by about 15 %, leading to a faster launch of final products Meopta - optics to the market. At the same time, virtualization has brought better security of intellectual property companies.
Eventually we improved the whole solution and since then we provide it to graphically demanding users under the name 3D Workplace.
