PRODUCT FOCUS
Virtual Desktops
by: Brian Smith and Andrell Laniewicz
Virtual Desktops ➲W
e’ve heard it many times: Virtual Desktops (VD) are going to be the future. Those of us who use Revit enjoy laughing at that statement. We’ve tested them and had countless problems with Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). Or, ran into limitations with Revit as Revit only utilizes one core of a GPU, so why pay for a VD that can handle heavy work loads when it would be underutilized. We’ve also had some less-thanfun interactions with Remote Desktop Connections (RDCs) and Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). While Revit still only uses one core, the rest of the industry has made leaps and bounds in progress. It is worth a look now.
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www.augi.com
WHAT IS VDI? If you are – or were – anything like me, those series of words and acronyms would send me running. My eyes would glaze over, and I would think ‘this is for IT’. Well, if you are – or were – also like me, you’ve experienced how BIM and IT have a sordid history. Since I know where you’re coming from, I’ll make the following as painless as I can! VDI is the concept of taking a localized computer system, or resources, and putting them on a server. This server can be local to a company or cloud based and hosted around the country, or even world. VDI has been around for a while – so long that it has a connotation in our head usually around an old server in our IT person’s closet office. December 2020
