Combined with MacStadium’s Mac cloud solutions, Teradici CAS will offer AEC firms GPU-accelerated access to MacOS CAD tools
Teradici has teamed up with MacStadium to develop a cloud solution that enables Mac users to remotely access Apple hardware as if they were on a local machine.
The service uses MacStadium’s cloud-hosted Apple Mac infrastructure to ‘streamline and accelerate’ the delivery of Teradici Cloud Access Software (CAS) to Mac customers across the globe.
Teradici CAS uses the PCoIP protocol, which places a big emphasis on high-fidelity ‘lossless’ image quality when remotely accessing graphics-intensive applications like 3D CAD, visualisation and visual effects (learn more in this AEC Magazine article).
Firms adopting the service could equip users with entry-level MacBooks and tap into more powerful Mac Pros in the cloud.
What AEC Magazine thinks
“Companies that want to leverage Mac hardware in the cloud choose MacStadium for our expertise and long history of building innovative Mac solutions,” said Chris Chapman, MacStadium’s chief product officer. “We are excited for this partnership, and we know that combining Teradici CAS technology for macOS with our cloud-hosted Mac infrastructure will provide users with the remote working experience that they have been waiting for.”
The cloud service will support Macs running either macOS Catalina or macOS Big Sur. Customers can then choose to remote in from a wide range of PCoIP endpoints, including macOS clients, Windows clients, Linux clients, PCoIP Zero Clients, and PCoIP thin clients.
Teradici and MacStadium anticipate Teradici CAS support on MacStadium will be available in mid-2021.
What AEC Magazine thinks
MacOS isn’t anywhere near as popular as Windows in the AEC sector, which relies heavily on Windows-only tools like Revit. However, there are still several AEC applications that run on the operating system including Graphisoft Archicad, Vectorworks, SketchUp, Rhino, Bricscad BIM and Twinmotion.
The new collaboration should give AEC firms all the benefits of any cloud workstation – that is data security, data centralisation, easier manageability, and the ability to work from anywhere.
Many of these benefits have proved extremely useful during the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly the ability to centralise data. Moving large datasets across the internet when working from home can be very challenging in terms of workflow and version control.
While Mac users often have a strong connection to their machines [says the editor writing this story on his favourite MacBook Pro], it doesn’t mean they would have to give up their personal Mac hardware altogether. Firms adopting the service could equip users with entry-level MacBooks and tap into more powerful Mac Pros in the cloud. This would be particularly beneficial when using real-time viz tools like Twinmotion which benefit greatly from more powerful GPUs.
