The Built Environment
The Big Shift To The Cloud
- Business critical application hosting
- Work productively wherever you are
- Reduced expenditure on high-spec PCs
- Reduced carbon footprint
- Secure and recoverable data solutions
- Cyber-attack protection
Cloud Application Hosting
Construction and engineering firms need to access modelling, surveying, mapping and project management software, often on-the-go.
These applications require a lot of graphics and processing power and have highly complex server requirements. Historically this has meant companies investing considerable time and money on very expensive desktop machines and on-premise server infrastructure in order to run the solutions their employees need.
Often such applications are only accessible in the office or on specific devices and collaborating with external partners can be extremely tricky. By hosting in the cloud (Azure), Atlas Cloud can make even legacy applications highly accessible and performant, from anywhere and on any device.
Benefits
Public Cloud App Hosting
Atlas Cloud host our customer’s applications in Microsoft Azure public cloud which offers the following benefits:
- Slow - Complex hardware and software requirements to satisfy. Procurement pains, particularly with graphics cards
- Time Sapping - Heavy time commitment for your internal IT team
- Expensive - Significant hardware outlay / capital expenditure (CapEx)
- Fast - Readily available Azure services quickly satisfy complex requirements. Enterprise graphic card options built-in
- Time Freeing - Managed by Atlas Cloud engineers, freeing up your IT resources
- Cost Efficient - "Rent" only the hardware you need / operational expenditure (OpEx)
- Poor Accessibility - Access often restricted to certain devices or locations (often office only)
- Inconsistent Experience - User experience dependent on location and processing power of the device you're using
- Hard To Collaborate - Siloed environment means project collaboration with external parties extremely difficult
- Concurrency Restrictions - Many app setups allow only one user to be logged in at a time
- Regular Sync Issues - Data can be corrupted by simultaneous user sessions
- Access Anywhere - Use on any device, any time, and in any location (office, home, on-site)
- Consistent Experience - Cloud access and processing power means a consistent experience regardless of device and location
- Collaboration Made Easy - Centralised environment ideal for cross-business collaboration on projects
- Concurrency Freedom - Centralised hosting can allow for multiple users at the same time
- Less Sync Issues - Centralised access can help lessen data sync issues
- Maintenance Heavy - IT team required to maintain hardware, software, DB services
- Internal Support - Buck stops with your internal IT team for issues with your hosted environment
- Inflexible - Time consuming and expensive to upgrade or scale up users and resources
- Maintenance Light - Maintained by Microsoft / Atlas Cloud engineers
- Delegated Support - Atlas Cloud offers dedicated, world class service desk support for your hosted environment
- Flexible - Quickly scale users or resources up or down and upgrade with ease
- Full Ownership - Your hardware and software to do as you please
- Sunk Costs - Costs are largely upfront and expensive and assets are depreciating
- No Vendor Lock-In - Azure resources are yours to keep. No lock-in with vendor / MSP
- Pay For Usage - Pay for only what you use each month, services turned off when not in use
The ALternativE
Private Cloud App Hosting
While the vast majority of apps can be hosted in Azure there may be some legacy apps and systems that are not supported. Equally, customers may wish to retain greater control of their data, be it for regulatory reasons or simply because they are wary of public cloud services.
Our App Hosting Prowess
We’ve a lot of experience hosting applications for customers with high-powered, graphics-heavy apps that use 3D virtualisation. Our recent work on the HS2 Project allowed design teams to access hardware-intensive software from Ares and Nomitech anywhere within the 330-mile project area.
If you’re using any of the apps below and would like to virtualise them then please get in touch with us today. If your software isn’t listed don’t worry, we’ve yet to come across an app we couldn’t host:
Modelling, Surveying, Mapping & Architect Apps – AutoDesk Revit, AutoDesk Vault, Autodesk AutoCAD, N4ce, Plangrid, Buildertrend, ArcGIS, NBS Building, Causeway, BricsCAD, SmartDraw, ActCAD, Graphisoft ArchiCAD, SketchUp, Primavera P6, Tekla BIMsight, CostOS, and Photoshop.
Project Management & Estimating Apps – Elecosoft PowerProject, Smartsheet, Wrike, Procore, Citrix Podio, Epicor, NBS Landscape, Planswift, McCormick Estimating Software, Pegasus, AutoDesk BIM 360 and Esti-mate.
Elecosoft Preferred Hosting Partner
Atlas Cloud is Elecosoft’s preferred hosting partner for their popular Powerproject project management application.
We host Powerproject for our customers so that they can benefit from:
- Rapid deployment - quicker time to market for your construction / engineering projects
- Simplified collaboration - Easier and more secure to give external parties access to project portals
- Reduced capital expenditure - No need to buy expensive servers, graphics cards, or PCs
- Pay per use model - Pay only while you're using the system, otherwise just switch it off
Go "Full Cloud"
Given the benefits of hosting your construction and engineering-specific apps in the cloud you may want to consider going “full cloud”. By that we mean bringing your Microsoft 365 and all other business-critical applications together into one of our hosted desktops (otherwise known as Desktop-as-as-Service or DaaS for short), which provide users with a familiar Windows environment on a virtual machine. Again we offer options for both private cloud and public cloud desktops (Azure Virtual Desktops). With everything in the cloud you can switch to using Thin Clients or cheap portable devices which reduce costs and your carbon footprint.
In the past, poor connectivity while working on-the-go between sites has held back productivity, but with greater 4G and 5G coverage you can use our hosted desktops to access everything you need anywhere. If you’ve experienced connectivity issues in the past, we also offer a range of network connectivity services to help improve output and collaboration.
Private Cloud DaaS
Some firms will prefer to stay with what they know and trust, or perhaps their project management software is dictating their choice. Atlas Cloud understands this and that’s why our private cloud datacentre isn’t going anywhere. We remain committed to provisioning and servicing highly performant Private Cloud Virtual Desktops for our construction and engineering firm customers.
Azure Virtual Desktops
This emerging technology can dramatically reduce the cost of ownership of IT and its ability to scale quickly and easily will help accelerate your construction and engineering projects. Azure’s uptime provides greater business continuity – keeping those critical projects running so that they can be delivered on time.
Secure and Recoverable
As your projects will require sensitive and confidential data, you need to keep it secure. By choosing Atlas Cloud your data will be stored in our ISO 27001 certified datacentre or one of Microsoft’s Azure locations in the UK (depending on whether you go for private or public cloud). As a company we’re also ISO 27001 and BS10012 certified and fully GDPR compliant.
Cyber attacks are an unfortunate part of today’s world so we offer a range of cyber security, cyber resilience and email monitoring (using Mimecast) services to protect you from both external and internal threats. We also partner with Zerto to offer an industry leading disaster recovery solution which will get your projects back up and running rapidly. Additionally, with our hosted desktops all your data is constantly synced so in the event of a crash your work is backed up.
As time is money in the construction and engineering sector we aim to minimise the impact that a cyber-attack can have on your company. We also have a number of device management options to secure your data regardless of the devices your employees and contractors are using.
TRUSTED BY CONSTRUCTION AND ENGINEERING COMPANIES OF ALL SIZES
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