Friday, November 19, 2010

Cloud Computing - Advance 2000 Cloud 2.0

I heard about this company last May while attending the Revit Technology Conference in Sydney. I promptly forgot to mention them because I was told that their focus on Revit wasn't that public, or at least that what I remember.


In their own words...snip
Advance 2000, Inc. is a full-service information technology firm dedicated to providing you with endless technology solutions your company requires to continue to grow to its fullest potential. Our unique process of Technology Teaming joins together your company's existing qualified team with our skilled professionals to assist you with every aspect of your technologies. Our four step process of Strategic IT Audit, Architectural Design, Implementation, and Management lets you focus on your business goals while we take care of the rest!
...snip

For a project that needs to collaborate across geographical and business boundaries this concept of Cloud computing starts to really resonate. With Advance 2000 they serve up the software to you through thin client workstations, which according to a Video I just watched cost about $500. The purpose of the video is to demonstrate how much better their approach is compared with standard cloud (the video doesn't exactly explain what standard is though). Pretty impressive performance difference even if the video doesn't really explain the underlying differences.

Something to consider as your firm wrestles with big projects and managing the data across various consulting firms and locations.


3 comments:

seandburke said...

Seems like there's a local video card in that magic box. Wonder what the required bandwidth is?

Chris France said...

In that configuration there is a local video card and we like to see 500kb up/down per user hitting the remote workstation. Private Cloud Computing is here, even for architects. I will be at the RTC conference in June 2011 and hope to get to talk with all of you about Advance2000's private cloud offering. There is more detail at our website under the AEC industry (e.g. Cloud 2.0 webinar)

- Chris France
President Advance2000 NC

http://www.linkedin.com/in/christopherfrance

Anonymous said...

While this technology is the way of the future we found out the hard way with a similar company that Autodesk will not allow their software to be on the cloud. I am glad I did see that Advanced 2000 did put that in their FAQs so cudos to them for being honest about it, some IT companies are not so upfront about it, as we found out the hard way with Autodesk.

“Can all applications be installed in a private cloud?
Technically yes, legally no. You will have to consult your software application provider to determine if they will allow you to run their application on a remote, cloud computer. For example, Autodesk allows you to run a networked seat of Revit but not a standalone seat in the cloud. But even if 1% of your applications can’t run in a cloud, you still see great benefit running the 99% that do.”