arena solutions

arena solutions / bom.com / google docs / on demand — View Comments
4
May 08

On-Demand Applications in the CAE Industry – Part I

I think “on-demand” software has its place in the future in the CAE industry. Not sure if “on-demand” is the correct way to categorize it all, but I think it explains it fairly well. I am referring to applications that reside on a remote server and are accessed via the web, rather than run locally from the desktop.

It already exists in certain aspects. It was about 10 years ago that I came across “bom.com”. It was a company that positioned handling all of the data management, bill of materials etc via the web. At the time, I thought it was a very cool idea, but they were the days when we were paying for AOL by the minute. As cool as I thought the concept was, I thought the name of their company was even cooler. I never imagined that the web would evolve into what it is today. Obviously the guys at bom.com did, as they have evolved into Arena Solutions. I snagged the above image off their site. They can explain what they do way better than I, go check them out.
Today, all of the CAD companies each have their own flavor of on-demand PDM and project management tools. I recently used Autodesk Streamline while working with a client in California. We used it to share files for a project. Sure beats the security nightmares of ftp sites.
I have recently become completely obsessed with on-demand solutions. I am using Google docs daily. I find its a great way to keep my files in order, available wherever I am, plus it allows me to share the files with members of our team. There are numerous other on-demand applications that I am looking into. Stay tuned, a bunch more to come on this topic.
amazon / arena solutions / asp / web services — View Comments
27
Apr 08

Will Amazon enter the CAE industry?

I really enjoy listening to Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon. He thinks out of the box and it has been proven time and again that he knows how to make things happen. I have to admit that I only understand a small portion of what he is saying regarding the scalability of Amazon etc.
But I stumbled on an article in this month’s Wired magazine on Amazon Web Services (AWS). There was a reference to “cloud computing”. Essentially it allows start-ups, developers etc. to develop the next best thing while utilizing the massive computation and hardware resources of Amazon. They have dumped close to $2B into the IT infrastructure. Yeah, B=billion!!!

So, this seems like a variation of ASP’s (Application Service Providers) or something that could rival Google Apps. This idea has been around for quite some time, but until recently broadband accessibility was in its infancy. This is changing rapidly. It will not be in the distant future that we will be connected all the time, everywhere we go.

Web based computing for engineers is not too far behind. Some companies already offer this service for a small select % of their users. However, the process is too clunky, model sizes are too large and the amount of user interaction is too high. I firmly believe that this will evolve in the near future, drastically. It is already happening on the PDM/PLM side of the world. Take Arena Solutions, for example. They coin their technology, “on demand”.

I am looking forward to the day when Upfront CFD is available as an online app. The computing can be done “in the clouds”. Allows for really large models to run really fast. Would be kind of odd to do your engineering design via Amazon? But, I think it will only be a matter of time before one of the big boys gets involved in CAE. Whether it be Amazon, Microsoft, Apple – whoever. Personally, I hope to never have to deal with these monster companies. But, I would love to leverage some of their technology to make our lives a bit easier.