Client Overview:
A mid-sized engineering firm specializing in CAD (Computer-Aided Design) and high-performance design simulations. The firm’s design teams rely heavily on resource-intensive workstations to run their design software. Traditionally, they’ve used virtualized environments to deliver remote access to these workstations, but the overhead and complexity of traditional virtualization solutions have introduced performance bottlenecks and increased costs.
Challenges:
High demand for computing resources to support complex simulations and design work.
Traditional virtualization solutions (VM-based) resulted in performance degradation due to overhead.
Maintenance and scalability of the virtualized infrastructure were becoming increasingly difficult as the company grew.
Need for remote access to high-performance workstations for geographically distributed teams.
Solution: QBO’s Containerized Workstation Virtualization
By leveraging QBO’s container-based platform, the firm was able to virtualize its high-performance workstations without the overhead associated with traditional virtual machines. Instead of relying on full VMs for each workstation, QBO uses lightweight, resource-efficient containerization to deliver bare-metal performance with significantly reduced overhead.
Advantages of Using QBO for Workstation Virtualization:
- Bare-Metal Performance Without Virtualization Overhead:
QBO allows workstations to run within containers instead of virtual machines, enabling the firm to achieve near bare-metal performance. This eliminated the typical performance degradation caused by hypervisors in traditional VM setups, resulting in faster processing of CAD simulations and smoother design work.
- Cost Efficiency:
By eliminating the need for VM-level virtualization, the firm reduced its infrastructure and maintenance costs. Containers are lightweight, and more instances could be run on the same hardware, optimizing resource utilization and lowering the firm’s compute expenses.
- Scalability and Flexibility:
QBO’s platform allowed the company to easily scale their workstation environment. Whether the firm needed to add more workstations for new projects or scale down during off-peak times, QBO’s containerized approach provided instant scalability. The firm could spin up new containerized workstations on demand without complex configuration or resource allocation.
- Simplified Management and Maintenance:
With QBO’s centralized management, the firm’s IT team could deploy, monitor, and manage all workstation environments through a single interface. There was no need for complex hypervisor management, and updates to workstations were rolled out seamlessly without interrupting ongoing work.
- Improved Security and Isolation:
Each containerized workstation was isolated from others, ensuring that data and applications within one container remained secure. The firm benefited from the security of **containerized environments, reducing concerns about potential vulnerabilities in shared infrastructure.
- Remote Access for Distributed Teams:
QBO enabled distributed design teams to access their high-performance workstation environments remotely without sacrificing performance. Unlike traditional VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) solutions that often introduce latency, QBO’s containerized approach ensured that remote engineers could access their workstations with minimal latency and high responsiveness.
- Integration with Existing Workflows:
QBO’s platform seamlessly integrated with the firm’s existing cloud infrastructure and workflows, ensuring a smooth transition from traditional VMs to containerized workstations. The firm could also leverage QBO’s multi-cloud support, allowing them to run their containerized workstations in different environments as needed.
Outcome:
By switching to QBO’s container-based virtualization platform, the firm experienced a 25% reduction in infrastructure costs and a 30% improvement in workstation performance. This resulted in faster project completion times and improved productivity for the design teams. Additionally, the IT team spent less time on workstation maintenance and scaling, allowing them to focus on more strategic initiatives.
Conclusion:
QBO offers a powerful solution for companies that rely on high-performance workstations but want to avoid the overhead and complexity of traditional virtualization. By leveraging containers, QBO delivers near bare-metal performance, cost efficiency, and scalability, making it the ideal choice for businesses needing robust workstation virtualization without the limitations of VMs.
