Aras Serves Up PLM Licensing Program for OEMs

Aras has a long history of innovation in the PLM space. It was the first to embrace an open source model for its Aras PLM platform, it was among the frontrunners to release a hosted version in the cloud, and now it’s rolling out an OEM strategy that is bound to set it apart from competitors.

Under its new OEM licensing program, independent software vendors can license the entire Aras PLM product suite or just a subset of the underlying technology. The idea is to give ISVs a way to get their hands on advanced PLM technology without having to go through a laborious development cycle to build out the capabilities on their own.

“Instead of taking years to build enterprise application functionality from scratch or acquiring outdated technologies, ISVs have a new option: OEM with Aras,” explained Peter Schroer, Aras president.

Aras has already signed on some well-known enterprise software players and a couple of niche engineering providers. Infor, for example, a leading ERP provider, has licensed the Aras PLM suite with plans to introduce it under its own brand, Infor PLM Innovator. CAE, a global leader in integrated operational and training solutions, has embedded Aras technology to deliver configuration management capabilities and secure federated integration functionality, connecting the ESRI GIS mapping package and six other applications to create an Integrated Emergency Management System (IEMS).

Infor PLM Innovator, powered by Aras, is a full-featured, highly scalable PLM solution. Image Courtesy of Aras

The third announced OEM is PACE Aerospace Engineering and Information Technology, which markets a 3D CAD tool for aircraft cabin interior design. PACE is embedding the Aras functionality into its solution to handle complex configuration structures, revision & versioning, lifecycle management, and file vaulting.

The idea for the OEM strategy came in response to requests from customers and partners, all looking for similar capabilities in short order, without having to develop the technology on their own, Schroer said. “The Aras mindset is to think very openly about how to leverage technology in interesting places so we were very open to the idea when PACE came to talk to us,” he explained.

Aras’ five-year plan calls for OEM licensing to become a much larger part of its business—perhaps as much as 25%, Schroer said. “Strategically, it’s a great way to reach into markets where we don’t have domain expertise today,” he explains. “It’s a key part of our growth strategy.”

In separate news, Aras also released new testing results that point up the scalability of the Aras PLM platform and its ability to handle extremely large workloads with with top performance. Logic 20/20, an independent IT consulting firm, tested the scalability of Aras Innovator 10 running the newly-released Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Enterprise Edition. The scalability enhancements in the new SQL Server release helped Aras Innovator 10 scale to 1,000,000 named users and 250,000 concurrent users with what the independent consultant called “exceptionally fast and consistent performance.”

The testing, what Aras officials claim is the largest of its kind, showcase a high water mark in PLM scalability and performance. In particular, the testing points up Aras’ advantages, including being optimized exclusively for Microsoft SQL Server and its model-based service-oriented architecture.

“Microsoft has done a lot to optimize SQL Server for big data and high workloads,” Schroer said. “We had 1 million users working on a 25 million part record and we were able to support 250,00 users making queries concurrently. I can’t imagine anyone needing that kind of PLM performance so it’s good to know there’s headroom.”

Check out this video to hear more about Aras’ unique approach to the PLM market.