About the Cloud for PLM

About the Cloud for PLM
You must not blame me if I do talk to the clouds." - Henry David Thoreau

A Cloud is an aerosol comprising a visible mass of liquid droplets or frozen crystals made of water or various chemicals.  Some examples are stratus, cumulus, and cirrus.

Wait wrong cloud....I went a bit Cliff Clavin on you there.....

Lets talk about THE CLOUD.  Specifically, Lets talk about PLM in the Cloud.  I would like to review with you how Aras Innovator and The Cloud  are both compatible and complimentary.

Why? Because there still seems to be some misconceptions about both The Cloud and Aras Innovator in The Cloud.  When I joined Aras, I received more than one congratulatory note in which the respondent noted something to the effect of "PLM in the cloud is the future."  I found those comments curious.  Even as a new employee I knew Aras Innovator was not just a cloud solution.  It IS a resilient, adaptable, and scalable Enterprise PLM system that can run anywhere.

I'm going to take the scenic route to provide some background info.  Firstly, if your not all that familiar with the cloud, no worries, I'm not going to get too deep.  To help, the Harvard Business Review published a nice article titled, What Every CEO Needs to Know About the Cloud, that helps to explain how the cloud helps a firm.  In the article Mr. McAfee states:

How important is cloud computing? I would argue that it’s a sea change—a deep and permanent shift in how computing power is generated and consumed. It’s as inevitable and irreversible as the shift from steam to electric power in manufacturing, which was gaining momentum in America about a century ago. And just as that transition brought many benefits and opened up new possibilities to factory owners, so too will the cloud confer advantages on its adopters.

That is a profound statement.  Let us simplify a bit.  Think about the impact to business when the internet and email were introduced.  (Thanks to Al Gore, of course.)  Those new computing capabilities significantly changed how we communicate, market, and sell.  The cloud was created and grown as we have added computers, hosting providers, datacenters, etc. to the internet.  The cloud now allows us to leverage the collective computing power of the internet to provide additional value to our firm.  This can range from simple web and email hosting to complex Finite Element Analysis and data storage/management.  Back to that in a minute.

cloud-architectureLet us briefly review infrastructure.  Here is a quick and very simplified view of the various options that are available today.  Ill give each method a quick explanation

    • The Onsite and Offsite Datacenters are the most familiar to all of us so I will skip over this option.
    • The Private Cloud is a dedicated segment of hosted computing power at a remote facility.  The unique aspect is that there is no admin.  There is on-demand automation in place to allow your admin to click a button to install software, increase processing power, storage or even create a new server.  This makes your admin much more nimble.
    • The Public Cloud is a shared hosting solution that has the same kind of on-demand capabilities as a private cloud.  However this shared solution is not dedicated.  This is similar to how you host your personal website on wordpress.com - you share computing resources with the other customers.  Security is not point to point - but is still robust with modern encryption and application security.
    • Youtube is where you spend your lunch hour watching fantastic PLM content that quenches your thirst for knowledge and enriches your soul.  Or you can just watch the Star Wars trailer over and over....
  • There is also a Hybrid Cloud which is a combination of each option.  In this situation, a firm's IT team will determine how their strategy can best be met with the available solutions and utilize the appropriate option.  For example - email is handled with a public cloud (gmail), marketing and accounting software is obtained from a private could provider, and PLM, ERP and CAD data are stored in an onsite datacenter.

How does all this apply to Aras Innovator?  It is very easy for me to say that Aras covers it all, which is true.  However, I realize that really does not help you much.  Lets jump in.

From a technology perspective, the Aras Innovator platform was built with the web in mind - no matter where or how you install.  Aras has built a complete line of web services and APIs as well as connections with XML/SOAP or WSDL.  While this sounds like Aras Innovator was built as a cloud solution, that is not accurate.  Aras was built to be a fast, nimble, and scalable Enterprise PLM system.  The side benefit of these characteristics is that they are exactly the same as those needed for cloud based solutions.

aras-plm-cloud-deployment-optionsCloud discussions relative to PLM tends to be more about deployment.  Due to our technology we can deploy Aras Innovator to any of the options I discussed above.  From the user's perspective, all deployments would look identical as Aras Innovator uses a browser based interface.  (Again I am skipping the familiar datacenter option)

A cloud deployment would have Aras Innovator running at a remote facility with the automated management that differentiates the cloud.  This could be either private or public - the difference being a dedicated segment vs a shared.  With this model all of the data that is created and managed in PLM would reside in the cloud and as such security is a concern.  However, if you think about incentives, a cloud provider is very incentiveized to provide a secure environment.  Their livelihood depends on it!  We have hosting partners that provide services in addition we are a certified partner available on Microsoft Azure.  Check out our Cloud Technology page for more information.

What would the hybrid cloud look like?  It really is a combination based on your businesses strategy.  Here is an example use case that may apply.  Your company has significant market advantage in its use of CAD for modeling and decision making - so you have a significant concern about your IP.  However, you are a lean company and need to keep your costs low.  A hybrid option could be to leverage Aras Innovator hosted on the cloud to keep your overhead costs down by paying for only what you use.  Your entire team can manage their products, schedules, BOMs, etc. in a cost effective and high performance option.  Pair this with a small on-site vault server that contains all of your CAD data that you are worried about.  When your team opens a BOM in Aras Innovator and decides it is time to open the CAD model(s) that action is directed to your local vault server to access the data you need.  You have a hybrid solution that meets your financial, performance and security needs.

I'm going to halt here because I dont want to put you to sleep.  In fact I hope you will return for more.  I hinted at some of the benefits of utilizing cloud options including a hybrid solution example for a use case that is likely familiar.  Ill follow up with another blog that dives into the the benefits of utilizing cloud options.  I think you will be surprised that there are more benefits than just saving some money on server costs.

Thanks for reading!

-Dave