Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/977547
e d i t i o n 1 , 2 0 1 8 | c g w 3 7 are testing VR (from qualitative interviews). Technical decision-makers indicated more interest in VR than average, while business decision-makers expressed more interest in cloud rendering/processing. Likewise, M&E, manufacturing, and construction firms stated they had more interest in VR than average, while AEC firms were more interested in cloud rendering/ processing than average. China and North America showed more interest in VR than average, while the US and China have a higher interest in 4 k. One of the misunderstandings the gener- al press and others make is when they see the terms "VR" and "workstation" together; they think of a user wearing a head-mount- ed display (HMD). However, the major role for a workstation in VR is content creation as opposed to content enjoyment. However, VR can be a partial supplement for a CAVE or can augment one. A CAVE, or Cave automatic virtual environment, is a virtual- reality system that uses projectors to display images on three or four walls and the floor. By creating a VR walk-through of the proposed facility in the very early stages, manufacturers can engage with equip- ment suppliers and vendors, which allows them to better plan how operations will be conducted in the facility. Workloads in the Cloud According to the survey, there is a strong progression to the cloud. The respon- dents indicated they are actively moving both storage and computation to the cloud in the near term. Less-regulated firms in the US and UK will see the largest jump to the cloud, while firms already in the cloud have not seen a drop-off in workstation CPU needs. AEC, M&E, and manufacturing see more movement to the cloud in both areas than average, while finance and health care/ biotech are more resistant to moving to the cloud. China expects computation to stay more local, while the US and UK are more open to the cloud. The survey results correlated well with our findings for JPR's CAD in the Cloud study (see "CAD in the Cloud," CGW, July.August 2017). There really isn't one "CAD market," there are several CAD markets. CAD is such a universal tool; it is used in dozens of other markets. CAD usage in one field can look quite different from CAD usage in another field. However, there are a cou- ple of segments that dominate the use of CAD: AEC and manufacturing. Those two segments compose about 70 percent of the market, and for the purposes of analyzing the data, the rest is categorized as "other." Similar levels of current and planned implementation are seen across the main industry sectors. There are higher levels of ongoing evaluation in manufacturing and AEC than "other" sectors, of which almost half have not investigated CAD-in-the- cloud solutions at all. CAD is not the only engineering ap- plication to move to the cloud: Finite- element analysis (FEA), computational fluid dynamics (CFD), and subterranean geophysical exploration modeling are some other applications that need the distribution and storage capability of the cloud to allow secure collaboration world- wide. It's a constant trade-off between local processing and storage, versus cloud storage and local processing, and cloud storage and processing. And even within a company, on a given project, all three ar- rangements will be employed. There is no single answer (one size does not fit all), and it's the flexibility that remote com- puting and storage offer that has helped propel the productivity gains in the face of increases in dataset sizes. Product Introductions and Buy Cycles Generally speaking, the workstation suppli- ers are introducing new products every two years on average to keep up with expanding workloads and soware upgrades. Survey respondents reported that they try to look at the workload soware upgrade specifi- cations a year before they buy and plan their refresh around those requirements. Large companies are moving toward two-year leases to automatically stock the best workstations. For AEC firms with users not involved in rendering, workstations are replaced every three to four years. Manu- facturing, M&E, and energy/oil and gas are refreshing faster than the average. In the past, large organizations would use a purchasing agent or IT manager to choose which workstation would be given to the company's engineers. These buyers' motivations were different from engineering: IT was looking for stability and communally for ease of maintenance and support, while engineering was looking for maximum performance. Typically, the engineers needing maximum perfor- mance were the minority and didn't have a voice in the decision process. Today, that's totally reversed because large and small organizations have learned that with the demands of time to market, product differentiation, traceability, and quality control, it's the engineers who need to be driving the selection of which type of workstation they use. Germany and France's refresh cycles are longer than the average. The US and UK have shorter refresh cycles than the average. Refresh cycles also are different for every organization, usually driven by budget cycles, and many tiers are out of sync with the realities of the market. For years, accountants and financial planning departments didn't factor in the upgrade schedules of ISVs and hardware suppli- ers, leaving their engineers with outdated workstations and applications. In the past few years, though, planning departments have learned to include a fudge factor in their budget to allow for surprises – the ISVs don't always have predictable or reliable update schedules. A general rule of thumb has been to plan for a refresh of hardware and update of FUTURE INTERESTS 39% 4K Video 17% Virtual Reality 18% Cloud Rendering (or processing) 24% Augmented Reality 2% None of the above THE FUTURE INTERESTS OF WORKSTATION USERS.