Deliver a High-Performance 3D Experience to Virtualized Desktops

There’s no doubt that virtualized desktop infrastructure can help save money and give workers the tools they need to get their jobs done. There’s a “but” in this scenario, though. Which is that, in the case of graphics-intensive applications, virtualization has negatively impacted performance.

What if it were possible to speed up design cycles by getting rid of those lengthy file uploads and downloads? Reduce the cost of endpoints? Protect intellectual property by keeping it in the data center rather than proliferating it to every desktop in the organization? What if it were possible deliver a true, 3D graphics experience and still save money?

Dassault Systèmes, the pioneer of PLM application software and services, has recently certified a powerhouse configuration from Cisco, NVIDIA, and VMware that allows design-driven enterprises to do all that with its 3DEXPERIENCE engineering and design software. (See Table 1.)

Table 1  Dassault-certified VDI Configuration for 3DEXPERIENCE Platform

Server | GPU | Hypervisor | VDI Software

Cisco UCS C240 M4 rack server with 2 Intel Xeon CPU E2600 v3 or v4 processors. Any RAM configuration.

1 or 2 NVIDIA Tesla M60 graphics processing units (GPUs)

NVIDIA Quadro Virtual Data Center Workstation (Quadro vDWS) software

VMware ESXi

VMware Horizon

This configuration offers real benefits to aerospace and automotive manufacturers, among others. Using this hardware-software line-up to run 3DEXPERIENCE Platform means companies reap the rewards of outstanding performance. Any device with the required display resolution—which includes cheaper zero and thin clients—works. This configuration makes it easier for colleagues to collaborate and keeps the security team happy, because design files don’t leave the data center. And to scale up, just add Cisco UCS with NVIDIA GPUs. The solution is straightforward, and, moreover, with Cisco UCS, it opens the door is open to offering 3DEXPERIENCE Platform as a service.

A few words about Dassault Systèmes

This leader in product lifecycle management (PLM) application software is headquartered in Velizy-Villacoublay, France and has 14,000 employees in 31+ countries.

The company serves 12 industries—including aerospace and defense, transportation and mobility, industrial equipment, life sciences, and natural resources—through direct sales, value-added resellers, and distributors.

The company has 210,000+ enterprise customers in 140 countries, with 10 million on-premises users and 25 million online users.

Its solutions legacy includes 3D design, 3D digital mock-up, and 3D PLM—culminating in 3DEXPERIENCE Platform, an interactive collaboration platform that integrates big data and applications to connect workers and deliver industry solutions based on 3D design, analysis, simulation, and intelligence software.

Testing and certifying a high-performance configuration is integral to delivering a solution that meets customer needs. In this particular context, those needs include responding to the pressure to provide better graphics rendering through a superior virtualized experience—while delivering robust security.

Increasingly, Cisco is collaborating with companies such as Dassault Systèmes, to meet the demand for approaches that solve real business problems across industry sectors. We believe that “customer-in” solutions offer the best of all possible worlds. Sales professionals get a bona fide opportunity to act as trusted advisors to customers around the world. Customers get a solution they understand and that does what they need it to do.

If you are attending COE 2018, drop by Cisco booth #302 to learn more about the joint solution from Cisco and Dassault Systèmes.