This is a guest blog post by George Watkins, Product Marketing Manager, AMD.

In the ever-shifting world of enterprise IT, certain trends stand out. The cloud overshadows all others, transforming the way many enterprises work today.

The benefits of cloud have been felt, in particular, over the last couple of years, supporting businesses through the global pandemic.

For many industries, the cloud helped ensure employees could work from home, while continuing to collaborate effectively and maintaining business continuity. For many firms, the cloud was used either as an extension of existing on-premises VDI infrastructure or was quickly rolled out as a new virtualized deployment.

Cloud service providers like Microsoft Azure deliver a range of services from the cloud, including infrastructure, storage, desktops as a service (DaaS), and workstation as a service (WaaS). Ultimately, these cloud services deliver greater flexibility for enterprise IT, whether that’s scaling up resources on demand, reducing heavy investment with on-premises equipment and IT expertise, or deploying virtual machines regardless of location. Besides, the combination of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service and Microsoft Azure makes it possible to spin up new Citrix virtual resources with greater agility and elasticity, adjusting usage as requirements change.

And because these are subscription services, IT managers benefit from a more flexible OPEX model instead of having rigid, annual CAPEX spend.

Modernizing Product Design and Manufacturing

Product design and manufacturing, as an industry, has benefited greatly from cloud services. New technologies, manufacturing processes, and innovative software have helped improve design efficiencies, streamline supply chain management, and bring down costs. For this industry, ensuring designers and engineers can run their demanding 3D applications wherever they may be, and have access to key data and IP, is critical for productivity and process.

Traditionally, designers and engineers in this industry require large, bulky, powerful, desktop workstations to model, visualize, and simulate their designs. These users have the most demanding set of IT requirements that must be met — and in some cases exceeded — to embrace a virtualized cloud infrastructure. With Citrix and Microsoft Azure, this is now a viable option.

The Workstation-Class Experience

Citrix Cloud services, combined with AMD-based Microsoft Azure NVv4 instances, can deliver a true workstation-class experience from the cloud, regardless of the designer’s location. With 15 Azure datacenters across five continents, it is a truly global service. Together with the powerful and secure Citrix HDX protocol, users get an incredible, dynamic experience, even in low-bandwidth and high-latency regions.

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service, a Citrix Cloud service, helps simplify the delivery and management of virtual machines and infrastructure based on Microsoft Azure. Firms can rapidly deploy secure digital workspace, while placing sensitive data, key ISV workstation applications, and desktop / workstation resources on Microsoft Azure. In fact, Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Standard for Azure is the simplest, fastest way to deliver Windows apps and desktops from Microsoft Azure. This service offers cloud-based management, provisioning, and managed capacity for delivering virtual apps and desktops to any device.

Microsoft Azure NVv4 is a GPU-accelerated virtual machine designed to tackle graphics-intensive workloads. It features second-generation Gen AMD EPYCTM processors to make light work of multi-threaded workloads and delivers the first fractional GPU capabilities with AMD Radeon Instinct GPUs to help IT managers better match GPU resources to their intended enterprise workflows.

Together with support for the latest enterprise graphics drivers and workstation ISV certifications, NVv4 virtual machines deliver a powerful and reliable workstation-class experience for product designers and engineers, all powered by the Azure cloud. Microsoft Azure also guarantees a 99.5 percent service level agreement, ensuring business continuity when it’s needed most.

Siemens NX: Validated and Certified, Delivered from the Cloud

Manufacturing firms that want to implement a cloud strategy need to be confident that their chosen computer aided design (CAD) or product lifecycle management (PLM) apps can run and work optimally in the cloud.

Siemens, one of the leading CAD and PLM software developers, has certified its NX CAD software for Microsoft Azure and validated it to be Citrix Ready with Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service. This gives design and manufacturing firms the confidence to shift critical, resource-intensive engineering workflows with Siemens NX to Citrix Cloud and take full advantage of the enhanced collaboration and work-from-anywhere flexibility made possible by cloud virtualization. Manufacturing firms can continue to use their preferred desktop applications while still gaining the benefits of a cloud-based IT deployment.

Explore how you can boost the user experience with a combination of AMD-powered Azure NvV4 instance, Citrix Cloud services, and Siemens NX.

Powering Innovative 3D Design in AEC

Read about how TBI deployed AMD-powered Microsoft Azure NVv4 instances with Citrix Cloud services to optimize its Building Information Modeling platform for its designers and provide a more affordable VDI solution but with the same capabilities as its previous cloud deployment. And watch our TBI webinar to learn how they use GPU-enabled virtual desktops for Azure customers.