Stick Your Head in the Cloud

By Jon Hirschtick

Editor’s note: This commentary was sponsored as part of DE’s Visionary Voices section in the magazine’s15th anniversary issue.

Every technology shift in the last 30 years has erased one or more of the limits on CAD. Cloud computing is a similar movement that removes many limits, from cost to processing power, features, functionality, time or space.

  Mainframe-based CAD freed designers from paper and pencils. UNIX workstations made 3D CAD available to design teams everywhere. And Windows-based 32-bit computing made 3D CAD completely democratic, allowing anyone with a PC to design in three dimensions.

  Now,  we’re in the middle of another major technology shift, where applications are moving from the desktop to the Internet, making it possible (in theory, at least) to design in 3D on any device with an Internet connection. Moving applications online means the eventual end to limits on processing power; of being limited to whatever features and functions you happen to have on your local hard drive; of sweating out the next virus, crash or data loss. It means collaborating with anyone, anywhere, at any time. It means using smart phones,  tablets, and other mobile devices to access your designs directly from the job site or shop floor. 

  No Limits
This new shift is different than the ones that came before though—the Internet-as-platform model won’t eliminate the desktop. It will make the desktop better. The computer at your desk becomes a gateway to more processing power, functionality, and collaborative reach than it could possibly provide on its own. By using the Internet, almost every hardware limitation that we deal with every day is removed.

  Moving to an online computing model means we’ll have to change our preconceptions and expectations about computing, at least in the short run. If you live in an area with an under-developed Internet infrastructure, you might have to live with some amount of latency before your local broadband provider catches up. But when you consider how many people (myself included) are already streaming live video and playing graphically intense games online, it’s easy to envision bandwidth not being an issue for too long.

  Safe and Secure
A lot of people also worry about the security of data stored on the Internet—specifically, a perceived lack of security. I don’t buy it. We already entrust our money, credit ratings and personal information to online businesses because we trust that they have enough precautions in place to keep our information safe. Thousands of businesses already store sensitive customer data on Salesforce.com, and internal threats to data—primarily by employees inside the company firewall—are a bigger risk than things that can happen in a well-managed data center with layers of protection and backup.

  Compared to the gains, the risks are minimal. When CAD moves online, you’ll have access to computing power that will make your models rebuild faster. Complex simulations will be available on demand. You’ll have access to rendering capabilities far beyond anything available for a desktop computer. Going online does away with the rigidity of packaged software. Forget about fixed cycles for upgrades. Do you need fluid flow analysis, but only once or twice a month to run one test? Rent it for a few hours instead of buying it and paying for it to sit on your hard drive 360 out of 365 days per year.  

  When we’re running full crash simulations through our online desktops, or renting an expensive feature for an afternoon instead of buying it, we’re going to laugh about how we used to be stuck on a box in the good old days of 2010.

Jon Hirshtick is a co-founder of Concord, MA-based DS SolidWorks.