Remote and Hybrid Work Trends

At Workspot, we hold webinars regularly, and I always include a series of polling questions. It’s interesting to see over time how the answers from attendees shift, giving us a good sense of what’s top of mind for people. One of the questions I always ask the audience is “Where is your primary work location?” Of course, you can guess that during the lockdown, the vast majority of people have been primarily working from home – upwards of 80% for much of the last 18 months. In the poll last week, it was notable that the numbers of people declaring the office as their primary work location have started to increase – about 36% in our audience poll, whereas the percent of people working primarily from home has dropped to 55%. Some people have always worked from home – about 9% in this poll. It seems that a cautious shift back to the office – part time – is taking place, and yet overwhelmingly people want (are demanding in many cases) the flexibility to work anywhere. I wanted to discuss the implications of that with Barge.

What can we learn from examining “a day in the life” of a Barge power user? Here are some of my key takeaways from our conversation.

Keep Your Data Close

Back in the day, Barge provided their designers with expensive, GPU-powered workstations. These high-end workstations are really a thing of beauty, until you have to carry it around or work remotely! In some cases Barge would double up on the hardware and provide people with a workstation at home too – then they would VPN in to the data to do their work. That’s when things get really dicey. Setting aside the cost of redundant hardware, performance problems, security risks and data integrity are all problems that arise with VPNs. For CAD designers/engineers working on huge 3D files, the distance to their data is critical because latency kills performance. This was all problematic before Covid, but now that most people will be working from home at least part time, the VPN approach is obsolete.

Traditional VDI is another approach to supporting remote work, but distance-to-your-data is still a problem. Anyone who is remote from that datacenter will probably be pretty unhappy with performance. Darn those laws of physics! Latency just is.

The Barge team knew they had to address the latency and data integrity challenges, so they got started by implementing Panzura controllers in some of their branch offices. This was the first step in moving data closer to end users, and it was a smart move. When they discovered Workspot, they took the next step: They moved their workstations to Microsoft Azure alongside a Panzura instance in Azure. What’s really bold about this step is that they started with the most difficult workload – their CAD power users who used the most GPU-intensive apps. That didn’t worry us at all, but that leap of faith by the Barge team would prove to be highly valuable to the business.

Achieve a Consistent User Experience

Some of the Barge designers were quite resistant to Workspot. “I was very suspect and resistant to Workspot initially,” said power user Josh Caldwell. The IT team worked closely with the initial group of cloud workstation adoptees to address their concerns – mainly about the “unknown.” Once these power users tried their cloud workstations, they never looked back. Josh goes on to say, “Now I can’t imagine a day of work without Workspot!” At this point, the days of over-provisioning hardware, worrying about data replication, and enduring lackluster performance over a VPN are over. The rollout of Workspot continued, with some of the strongest resisters to the change becoming the most vocal with their praise for their cloud workstations.

This takes us to March 2020 when everyone had to go home to work. Barge IT Director David Ferguson said, “It was business as usual.” We’ve heard this many times from our customers, and it never fails to astonish me. During the biggest business disruption in history, Workspot customers experienced “business as usual” when they sent people home to work. From the standpoint of the technology and the user experience, the shift to remote work was a non-event, because accessing and working on your cloud workstations is exactly the same great experience – no matter where you are working or what end point you are using. This is how productivity increased at Barge during this time. When people changed locations, nothing about their compute experience changed. It is always a consistent user experience, anywhere they need to work.

Infrastructure? Just Say “No”

Many organizations have branch offices for one reason or another, and buying and maintaining server infrastructure is no picnic. Barge has many branch offices, and it was a huge resource commitment to keep up on all that infrastructure, in addition to trying to keep laptops up to date with security patches.

With Workspot, all that cost and effort is history. There’s no infrastructure to deal with – Workspot has all of that covered. The last two branch offices Barge opened were totally server-less. You only need an internet connection and then you get to work right away on your cloud workstations. Hardware refreshes are history too, and older endpoints are new again when they access a Workspot Cloud PC or workstation. The Barge team is enjoying the freedom of having a lightweight device that is portable, so they can pick up and go wherever they need to work. “We are out of the hardware business,” said David Ferguson.

Be Ready for the Next Disruption

Because they have so many branch offices, Barge has been affected by natural disasters in the past. They have been in the difficult position of losing productivity when a whole fleet of PCs and workstations had to be replaced after a tornado. Worse, before Panzura, the data those people needed to keep working was just not available at any other location. Today, if bad weather in on the way, as long as the power is on and people are safe, they can get back to work using any device at hand, because apps and data are in the cloud. That’s an amazing thing when we’re talking about designers who cannot compromise on performance! The Barge teams calls out this greater business resiliency as a major benefit of Workspot and Panzura.

Ready to learn more? Schedule a demo and we’ll show you how it works!

The post Conversations with Customers: Hybrid Work Trends and Lessons Learned appeared first on Workspot.

If you only have couple of minutes now, skip to this quick video to see how blazing fast Siemens NX runs on a Workspot high-performance cloud workstation! Otherwise, read on for more details!

Consideration 1: The TCO of do-it-yourself desktops and SaaS desktops

Across industries we are continuing to see a massive shift away from on-premises infrastructure, including moving desktop workloads to the cloud. So once the decision is made to adopt cloud desktops, the business needs to decide if they want a do-it-yourself (DIY) solution or a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution. What is the best use of IT budget and resources? Do you have the in-house skills to deploy and manage virtual desktop infrastructure? If so, then it’s time to calculate both the direct and indirect costs of applying those valuable people resources to the care and feeding of your virtual desktops, because your in-house team will be responsible for all aspects of virtual desktop management, and of course, fully accountable for the reliability, availability and performance of your cloud desktops. The budget overhead for ongoing operation of a DIY cloud desktop solution is substantial, even though the entry cost of the license might be low (or even free!). The other consideration is SLA. If your users can’t access their virtual desktop for any reason, what is the cost of that lost productivity? Nothing in life is free. Make sure you’ve discovered all the hidden costs.

We believe the better way to go is a SaaS cloud desktop solution. There are only two vendors who offer this, and only one of them is enterprise-ready and supports multi-cloud deployment: Workspot. We completely re-imagined the way virtual desktops are deployed and managed. With our 100% cloud-native SaaS solution, we take care of optimizing the platform for your specific Windows 10 image, including your security stack, MFA, and applications, globally. We handle maintenance and ongoing support; it’s all included in a flat-rate price so your budget is predictable, month in and month out. We take responsibility for the reliability and availability of your cloud desktops. When you don’t have to own the ongoing operation of your cloud desktops, the difference in total cost of ownership (TCO) is substantial.

Consideration 2: No-compromises performance for CAD/CAM/CAE, PLM and back office apps

Manufacturing firms need to support a variety of people, from task workers such as administrative and finance roles to knowledge workers, such as business development and executive roles who might also be mobile frequently, and power users who need highly performant GPU workstations. The cloud solution you select must be able to support these wide ranging needs. Task workers often only need access to a few enterprise apps, while knowledge workers may need a complete virtual Windows 10 desktop. Power users, such as CAD engineers, need the ultimate in performance – a GPU cloud workstation that looks and feels like a local machine. To compromise on performance is to slow productivity. To maintain a competitive advantage, power users need a high-performance experience so they can easily and freely collaborate on product designs that drive innovation. Best of all, your power users can now experience amazing performance on lower cost end points anywhere, whether they are at home, on the road, or at a client’s office or job site. It’s a whole new world of productivity!

Free eBook for Manufacturing IT leaders

Consideration 3: Support for multi-region cloud desktop/workstation deployment

The best way to understand the importance of multi-region support is to realize that the architectures of other virtual desktop solutions were not built for massive cloud scale. Legacy VDI was built for one, maybe two data centers. And its cloud successors are no different. They are based on the same outdated architecture, which requires you to replicate your cloud desktop infrastructure in every cloud region in which you want to deploy cloud desktops. That is just not manageable. And because it’s not manageable, you won’t deploy in multiple regions, and that means you will have many unhappy remote end users who are screaming about poor performance. It also means that your scalability is limited. Why go that route when you have tens of cloud data centers available to you via the public cloud?

The only way to take advantage of the massive cloud scale available to you today is to choose the Workspot Enterprise Desktop Cloud platform so you can deploy your cloud desktops and GPU cloud workstations across multiple cloud regions anywhere in the world. Our modern, 100% cloud-native architecture allows you to spin up tens, hundreds or thousands of cloud desktops across multiple cloud regions in a few minutes. And you monitor and manage it all, globally, from a single admin console. This way, end users are usually less than 50ms away from their cloud desktops, which live in the cloud region closest to them. IT is happy because users love the performance and desktop management is dramatically simplified. The business gets greater agility to respond to opportunities and market dynamics along with the peace-of-mind of multi-region resilience through cloud desktop backup, one-click activation of standby cloud desktops, and failover to alternative cloud regions. If your organization is large and distributed around the world, this is the end user computing innovation you need.

Consideration 4: Zero Trust Security enforcement

Protecting sensitive data and IP is critical, so you need to ask tough questions of virtual desktop vendors so you know exactly where your data goes. Workspot was designed for zero trust security. Unlike other cloud desktop options, our architecture features separation of the control and data planes, which enables us to support your zero trust security policy. As a result of this architecture innovation, your corporate data never entires the realm of our control plane. It stays completely separate and safe in your cloud instance. No one should have access to your data – not even your cloud desktop vendor, so ask them tough questions about security and compliance.

Take the Next Step

Manufacturing firms are turning to the cloud for a competitive edge, and moving to cloud desktops and workstation is a high-return strategy for gaining agility, driving growth and maintaining a competitive edge. To see Workspot cloud desktops and workstations in action on Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, schedule a quick demo and we’ll show you how it works!

The post Manufacturing at Cloud Speed with High-Performance Cloud Workstations appeared first on Workspot.

It’s All About Users!

At the AU 2018 conference, we were excited to welcome multiple customers into our booth who discussed their Workspot deployment and user experiences with other attendees. Over and over we heard them tell stories about how their CAD engineers are seeing “awesome” performance that is superior to VDI and local workstations. One company being introduced to Workspot for the first time decided to spontaneously test Workstation Cloud using their own 3D models so they could really see for themselves how it works. Sure, why not!?! They used the Workspot Client to connect to a high-speed Workspot Workstation on Microsoft Azure, launched Autodesk Revit, logged into their BIM 360 account and downloaded their own model into the virtual workstation in Azure. They were so blown away by the performance of opening and manipulating the file they wondered aloud why they had not already bought our solution!

For power users in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry, having a virtual desktop with mind-blowing performance is life-changing; it means these power users are finally free from being tethered to their physical workstations. They can work anywhere and collaborate across project teams in real-time – even on the Exhibit Hall floor at the Autodesk University 2018 event!

No Compromises Computing

The performance stories our customers shared at AU 2018 really illustrates the importance of providing an end user experience without compromises to all kinds of users. It just cannot be overstated. We can save companies money and simplify IT infrastructure all day long, but if users can’t be more productive, it means that new opportunities are not being created and you’re not growing your business. The fact that CAD & BIM experts who visited our booth last week accessed and worked on their own 3D models on-the-fly and saw performance that is better than their local workstations speaks volumes about the kind of experience any type of user will have with Workspot Desktop Cloud and Workspot Workstation Cloud solutions.

DaaS Goes Mainstream

The focus the tech industry has on great user experiences (and therefore helping companies improve business productivity) was illustrated again this week with Microsoft’s exciting acquisition of FSLogix. Congratulations to our friends in both companies! The move underscores what we’ve been living and breathing for a couple of years now: Companies of all sizes are looking to desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) solutions on public clouds to take them into the future. As we have discussed, the decision criteria for selecting a solution begins with performance; that fact is not lost on Microsoft. FSLogix products should help deliver improved Office 365 performance to the recently announced Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) solution when it becomes available in 2019. As the leading provider of PC in the Cloud solutions on Azure and a Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider (CSP), our Workspot turnkey solution integrates the latest Microsoft RDP technology that also underpins WVD. Think of Workspot as the “Uber” of cloud virtual desktop solutions – a proven, turnkey, planet-scale, virtual desktop service that’s available across the 54+ regions of Azure today!

The value Workspot brings to organizations of all sizes includes dramatically simplifying IT so you can make better use of those resources, helping IT teams make the shift from CapEx to OpEx and reducing infrastructure costs. However, at the very heart of customer success for Workspot is the “ridiculous speed” end users experience with Workspot solutions when they need to get their jobs done. That mind-blowing performance people saw at AU 2018 last week ultimately improves business agility and customer satisfaction. Agility and happy customers create new opportunities, and new opportunities drive your organization’s growth. That’s a major win for everyone, and that’s why user experience is everything!

Want to see Workspot in action? All it takes is a 15-minute demo; just schedule it here. Then be sure to visit our resources page to access our latest video journey.

Hear what engineering firm Mead & Hunt’s CAD experts think about the performance of Workspot Workstation Cloud in this brief video.

The post User Experience is Everything! appeared first on Workspot.

Performance is Hot!

That’s right. It’s time to get real about virtual desktop performance. Now you can have far more meaningful conversations at all those end of summer barbecues. “VDI is passe’”, you can say to your friends with a flippant wave of your hand. Endless debates about whose VDI solution is better are all for naught. What’s hot? Aside from that spicy sauce on your Impossible Burger, Cloud PCs are hot. That’s a great conversation to have! Getting better-than-physical-PC performance is hot! Achieving that has never before been possible – now it is, and it can’t happen with traditional VDI.

Customer Experience is All That Matters

So what’s the formula for finally realizing all the benefits of virtual desktops? In a previous blog our CEO, Amitabh Sinha shared his thinking around the “New Math of VDI Performance – Better Than a PC!” It’s a great primer for the customer story I want to share with you now. Imagine that you’re a CAD Manager at a large engineering and architecture firm and you’re responsible for a team of engineers who design world-class airports, highways, bridges and buildings. Your company is growing fast, but your IT infrastructure can’t keep up. So you try on-premises virtual workstations and the performance makes your engineers less productive. Then you try a cloud workstation solution, and the performance is dismal. What do you do? If you’re Mead & Hunt, you stay with your cloud convictions. This is where perseverance pays off. Despite their previous disappointments, the team decided to try Workspot Cloud Workstations , and they were blown away by the results. When design engineers are working on a 3D model, they can’t wait around for their changes to render – it needs to happen immediately. Before becoming Mead & Hunt’s CAD Manager, Rebecca Yu was a user during six years of legacy VDI and cloud workstation solution evaluations. “You would do a command, and you would wait, and wait, and wait, and then eventually you would get a response,” says Yu. So when it came time to test Workspot, the real test was not comparing Workspot performance to the VDI solutions they had tried, because “good enough” was not going to cut it. The real test was conducting a side by side comparison of Workspot and a local, physical workstation. “We were really surprised by the fact that performance wasn’t just the same – Workspot was better,” said Rebecca. “I was totally blown away.”

 Measuring the Milliseconds

In an article series on Cadalyst entitled “Harnessing the Cloud for CAD: The Case for Virtual Workstations”, Alex Herrera discusses the prospect of moving workstations to the cloud. “For extended graphical work, most user experiences will suffer when latency pushes beyond 150 ms, and many would set 100 ms as a safer limit… but much beyond that, and the prospect of remote computing, virtual workstation or otherwise, won’t be worth the aggravation,” says Herrera. After the successful performance comparison to the local workstation, Mead & Hunt deployed Workspot CloudWorkstations. CIO Andy Knauf said, “Workspot cloud workstations on top of Azure are able to provide that exact same experience, and a lot of times a better experience than we’d have locally because all of our data is in the cloud next to the workstation.” How does Mead & Hunt’s experience with Workspot cloud workstations compare to Herrera’s threshold? In most cases, Workspot customers are seeing under 25 ms latency, and one customer reports 12 ms. That’s not even detectible by humans. That is a phenomenal achievement for our customers!

The Formula for Cloud PC Success

Finally, the performance concerns that plague legacy VDI have been overcome, and we’re thrilled to share the formula with you: Workspot’s cloud-native virtual desktop control plane + Azure coverage in 60+ regions worldwide + data center-class hardware in Azure = unmatched cloud workstation performance that makes even the most demanding design engineers happy. Wow! Now, putting your PCs and workstations in the cloud is not only the best financial and security choice, but it’s also the best performance choice. Are you surprised?

You can learn more about Mead & Hunt’s journey to the cloud here, and be sure to watch the video to hear from Rebecca Yu, CAD Manager at Mead & Hunt, about her experience with Workspot.

Mead & Hunt’s CAD Manager, Rebecca Yu, has been deeply involved in evaluating virtual workstations. Watch the video to hear about her experience.

The post VDI Discussions Are So 2010. Let’s Get Real About Cloud PC Performance! appeared first on Workspot.

Time to Shatter Performance Barriers

Here’s the backstory. In theory, virtual desktops make good sense for organizations of all sizes, but customers have always complained about performance, among other things. Some users can get by with a solution that makes them 20% less effective (on a good day), but people in architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) firms simply cannot compromise on performance. For CAD pros and BIM experts, the performance of their apps, such as AutoCAD, Revit, and SOLIDWORKS is everything. Can you imagine trying to design a highly complex building structure or a medical device and waiting one minute or two minutes for it to render each time you make a change? This is why these highly valuable professionals have always been tethered to their office desks – that’s where their $10,000 liquid cooled workstations live, and it has been the only way to get decent performance out of these apps. Until now. Andy Knauf, CIO of engineering firm Mead & Hunt has auditioned VDI solutions – old and new – so he brings a plethora of lessons learned to share with his industry colleagues. After these unsuccessful forays into virtual workstations, Andy and the team were skeptical of Workspot to say the least. Here’s what happened when he took the well-educated risk of trying virtual workstations  – again.

Physical Workstations Out. Cloud Workstations Take Center Stage!

“Workspot-provisioned workstations on top of Azure are able to provide the same experience, and more often a better experience than we get locally, because the data is in the cloud next to the workstation.”  Workspot Workstation Cloud blew past the other solutions they had tested and exceeded all expectations. That’s why Andy plans to stop investing in physical workstations going forward; he’ll avoid the significant costs associated with replacing them every 3 years. “Seeing the simplicity of Workspot – I was totally blown away,” says Rebecca Yu, CAD Manager at Mead & Hunt. “It was the first time that we finally had something where we could use these sorts of tools and have them work flawlessly.” For Mead & Hunt users, Workspot changes everything. They are finally free to work remotely for the first time, whether at home, a hotel, at a customer site, or a project location.

Business Agility – Now Able to Reach a Global Audience

When you watch the videos and read the case study you’ll see that beyond their desire to accommodate a mobile work style for engineers, Mead & Hunt has specific corporate growth objectives that required a completely different approach to IT. With all the IT changes they tested and validated over the years, including the recent Workspot implementation, their guiding principle was to prove business value. Through their persistence in seeking new technology that continually improves efficiency and collaboration, Mead & Hunt has achieved a new level of business agility that enables them to pursue projects anywhere in the world.

Enjoy the show!

The post GPU Workstations Make a Grand Entrance to the Cloud appeared first on Workspot.

The post GPU Cloud Workstations on Azure Are a Big Deal for BIM in AEC Firms appeared first on Workspot.