Cloud Computing Assisted Engineering design

With the advance of "four synchronization" strategy and the quickening pace of intelligent city construction, engineering design informatization is in the ascendant, especially the cloud computing brings new opportunity for engineering design. Reporter from the recently held Bentley company 2013 users of the annual meeting learned that Bentley company will release Bentley Connect products, through cloud computing technology, for the design of information management to bring new ideas and means. Malcolm Walter, chief operating officer of Bentley, said that emerging information technologies, such as cloud computing and large data, provide new ways of doing engineering and management. Bentley, president of Greater China, Liu Desheng stressed that information management (IM) for engineering design to bring a third revolution, and cloud computing, large data is undoubtedly the main driving force for the third revolution.

Experts believe that the third revolution in engineering design is actually "forced out," by the market force, by technology force. "The emergence and integration of new technologies, such as the Internet, tablet computers and sensing devices, has brought unprecedented capabilities to engineering, construction and operation," Walter said. Information Modeling (BIM), integrated project Synergy and information mobility are becoming industry trends. We don't have to press the Print button anymore, we can do everything in the digital world. We can create an engineering digital model, which is exactly the same as physical assets, and data can be conveniently delivered and handed over. With a tablet computer, you can record the operational data of an asset and analyze its performance. And a few years ago, it was just a dream. ”

The East China Survey and Design Research institute has both the market force factor and the initiative strategic considerations. Wang Jinfeng, Deputy chief engineer of the East China Institute of Surveying and Design, said: "We need to provide good, differentiated services and higher efficiency, and the core is technical means in order to differentiate from other surveying and designing institutes in the market competition and to occupy competitive advantages. Therefore, we put three-dimensional collaborative design and digital services as an important part of the strategic promotion of the whole hospital. This is not only the reason for the market, but also based on the company's management of the entire industry and engineering technology development direction of grasp. The South China Institute of Surveying and Design felt the impetus of the owners. Liang Hui, director of the Institute's Digital Engineering Center, said: "Different types of owners and construction parties, although the requirements are different, but they are no longer satisfied with the design institute to provide drawings and services." Three Gorges Company and other large owners need a wealth of engineering information to carry out the operation of assets management and maintenance; medium-scale owners, in the design, construction phase will require us to provide the corresponding three-dimensional drawings; completed owners often encounter the change of units, substitutions, changing the issue, the new people to be familiar with the information, they need not only a blueprint, Would like to get more key engineering information. ”

Reporter learned that the current Bentley company in the engineering design industry occupies a dominant position, benefiting from the application of emerging information technology. According to the introduction, at present, often a project has a number of design or construction party participation, these participants are using projectwise software to manage their engineering information. This brings up the question of who is using the projectwise as their main platform and whose projectwise is outside the firewall. Bentley Connect is a Microsoft-based Azure Cloud Server product that allows all users to put their project information on a very neutral platform with equal access rights. This quickly allows all participants in the project to focus on one platform, regardless of where they are located.

Bentley Company vice president Ken Adamson in an interview, said, in fact, large data has been widely used in Bentley products, especially in the log of user usage, through the cloud technology to put large data into the projectwise to manage. It is understood that recently Bentley with Microsoft, by Microsoft to provide collaborative work of the cloud server platform. At the same time, Bentley users are using private clouds to manage their projects. It is understood that at present Bentley has invested a lot of research and development effort in cloud computing, cloud services and so on to ensure that no matter the project team members are anywhere, they can access the project information. That is, through cloud services, all project members are focused on accessing the project's resources. Of course, the user is now more concerned about the security of data access issues. In this respect, Bentley said, through cooperation with Microsoft, from the technical level can guarantee the integrity and security of data.