Cornell University Uses Splashtop to Deliver 2D/3D Applications using Amazon Hybrid Cloud
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Cornell University's College of Architecture, Art and Planning implemented Splashtop Enterprise to manage and deliver specialized software applications for 1,000 students and faculty, significantly reducing the administrative burden on IT. This solution allows students to access applications like Rhino, AutoCAD, and Adobe Creative Suite from their own laptops using a hybrid Amazon cloud setup, facilitating easier collaboration and reducing costs associated with software licensing. The successful deployment of Splashtop has not only improved performance and flexibility for the college but has also garnered interest from other colleges at Cornell for similar implementations.
![Delivering Adobe Creative Suite, AutoCad, Maxwell,
Rhino, andV-ray to Students
Hafner explains that the College of AAP at Cornell encompasses at least three quite
different disciplines. The architecture students create and work with large 3D models that
show texture, materials, and multiple types of lighting. Students need the ability to rotate
models in all dimensions and zoom in on details. The city and regional planning students
work with large data sets, but do not typically require 3D modeling. The art students use
programs that require both 2D and 3D applications, depending upon the specific course
content. IT Hafner needed a solution to support all these use cases, and more.
Splashtop Performance and Flexibility Surpassed
that of Other VDI Solutions
Hafner ran a trial of other VDI solutions alongside Splashtop Enterprise. He found that
AutoCAD and Rhino performance (in 2-D/3-D mode) on the test instance was no match for
Splashtop streaming 3-D AutoCAD from a desktop computer to a student’s laptop.
How Splashtop Helps Cuts Costs by Recycling
Lab Hardware
Hafner repurposed more than two dozen older desktop computers to run Splashtop Streamer
and serve the 3D apps. These desktop computers are connected to Splashtop Center hosted
in Amazon (AWS) via a high-speed 10Gbps connection. The only hardware cost for this setup
was adding nVidia Geforce 650 video cards for the desktop computers. Making good use of
the outdated computers was a real bonus. Hafner said, “I was tired of recycling 4 year old
machines that had plenty of life left in them.”
“We are an architecture school, an
art school, and a planning school.”
“Performance was the main thing
we were looking for. I needed an
application that would give
[students] an almost real-time
experience, with very little latency.”
“I was tired of recycling 4 year old
machines that had plenty of life left
in them.”](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/cornellusessplashtopwithamazonaws-170307191924/85/Cornell-University-Uses-Splashtop-to-Deliver-2D-3D-Applications-using-Amazon-Hybrid-Cloud-2-320.jpg)
Cornell University Uses Splashtop to Deliver 2D/3D Applications using Amazon Hybrid Cloud
- 1. Delivering 2D/3D Applications Using A Hybrid‘Amazon Cloud’ Cornell University’s 14 colleges, schools, and other academic units offer more than 4,000 courses, 70 undergraduate majors, 93 graduate fields of study, undergraduate and advanced degrees, and continuing education and outreach programs. The College of Architecture, Art and Planning (AAP) is regarded as one of the oldest and most respected architecture colleges in the United States. SAt Cornell University, students in the College of Architecture, Art and Planning tudents uses a diverse set of specialized (and often expensive) software. Their coursework and projects typically require 3-D modeling, use of extensive databases, and rendering, among other processor-intensive activities. To accomplish these projects, students use various applications such as Implan, Rhino, AutoCad, and Adobe Creative Suite. and Students are encouraged to provide their own laptops to facilitate collaborative work in a variety of locations. However, m, but not all of them need or can afford to own all the programs they will usebut most do not use the specialized appsapplications on a regular basis , relying instead on the college to make them apps available when needed. For Andre Hafner, IT Director of the AAP College, delivering and managing the required apps applications created a significant burden: installing software on individual students’laptops, assuring licensing compliance, and managing the removal of leased software when students left the college. With as many as 800 students and staff on campus and another 200 off campus, the administrative burden was overwhelming. Might want to pull the citrix xendesktop challenge in here .. Hafner went looking for an easier way to deploy and manage the required software programs. The Challenge The IT Director of the College of Architecture, Art and Planning needed an easily administered, cost-effective way to deliver and manage licensed software programs for 1,000 students and faculty. While students provide their own laptops, most do not need (and cannot afford) to own all the specialized software they use for 3-D modeling, rendering, and other activities nor purchase expensive laptops to support these applications. The Solution To meet his demanding needs, the top priority, by far, was performance, followed by cost, scalability and ease of installation and maintenance. After evaluating other solutions, including Citrix XenDesktop, Hafner concluded that Splashtop Enterprise was the only choice. No other product came close to delivering the required performance, scalability, flexibility, functionality and affordability while also reducing overall costs that they needed. Case Study - Higher Education Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art and Planning uses Splashtop Enterprise to deliver Rhino, Revit, V-Ray, Adobe CS6, and AutoDesk applications to students using a hybrid ‘Amazon Cloud.’ Delivering 2D/3D Applications Using a Hybrid‘Amazon Cloud’ Cornell University’s 14 colleges, schools, and other academic units offer more than 4,000 courses, 70 undergraduate majors, 93 graduate fields of study, undergraduate and advanced degrees, and continuing education and outreach programs. The College of Architecture, Art and Planning (AAP) is regarded as one of the oldest and most respected architecture colleges in the United States. Students uses a diverse set of specialized (and often expensive) software. Their coursework and projects typically require 3-D modeling, use of extensive databases, and rendering, among other processor-intensive activities. To accomplish these projects, students use various applications such as Adobe Creative Suite, AutoCad, Maxwell, Rhino, and V-ray. Students are encouraged to provide their own laptops to facilitate collaborative work in a variety of locations. However, not all of them need or can afford to own all the programs they will use on a regular basis , relying instead on the college to make the apps available when needed. For Andre Hafner, IT Director of the AAP College, delivering and managing the required apps applications created a significant burden: installing software on individual students’laptops, assuring licensing compliance, and managing the removal of leased software when students left the college. With as many as 800 students and staff on campus and another 200 off campus, the administrative burden was overwhelming. Hafner went looking for an easier way to deploy and manage the required software programs. The Challenge The IT Director of the College of Architecture, Art and Planning needed an easily administered, cost-effective way to deliver and manage licensed software programs for 1,000 students and faculty. While students provide their own laptops, most do not need (and cannot afford) to own all the specialized software they use for 3-D modeling, rendering, and other activities nor purchase expensive laptops to support these applications. The Solution To meet his demanding needs, the top priority, by far, was performance, followed by cost, scalability and ease of installation and maintenance. After evaluating other solutions, Hafner concluded that Splashtop Enterprise was the only choice. No other product came close to delivering the required performance, scalability, flexibility, functionality and affordability while also keeping costs low. Case Study - Higher Education Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art and Planning uses Splashtop Enterprise to deliver Adobe Creative Suite, AutoCad, Maxwell, Rhino, and V-ray applications to students using a hybrid ‘Amazon Cloud’.
- 2. Delivering Adobe Creative Suite, AutoCad, Maxwell, Rhino, andV-ray to Students Hafner explains that the College of AAP at Cornell encompasses at least three quite different disciplines. The architecture students create and work with large 3D models that show texture, materials, and multiple types of lighting. Students need the ability to rotate models in all dimensions and zoom in on details. The city and regional planning students work with large data sets, but do not typically require 3D modeling. The art students use programs that require both 2D and 3D applications, depending upon the specific course content. IT Hafner needed a solution to support all these use cases, and more. Splashtop Performance and Flexibility Surpassed that of Other VDI Solutions Hafner ran a trial of other VDI solutions alongside Splashtop Enterprise. He found that AutoCAD and Rhino performance (in 2-D/3-D mode) on the test instance was no match for Splashtop streaming 3-D AutoCAD from a desktop computer to a student’s laptop. How Splashtop Helps Cuts Costs by Recycling Lab Hardware Hafner repurposed more than two dozen older desktop computers to run Splashtop Streamer and serve the 3D apps. These desktop computers are connected to Splashtop Center hosted in Amazon (AWS) via a high-speed 10Gbps connection. The only hardware cost for this setup was adding nVidia Geforce 650 video cards for the desktop computers. Making good use of the outdated computers was a real bonus. Hafner said, “I was tired of recycling 4 year old machines that had plenty of life left in them.” “We are an architecture school, an art school, and a planning school.” “Performance was the main thing we were looking for. I needed an application that would give [students] an almost real-time experience, with very little latency.” “I was tired of recycling 4 year old machines that had plenty of life left in them.”
- 3. Using Amazon AWS as a 24x7 Lab Hafner has installed Splashtop Center on Amazon Elastic Compute (EC2) cloud servers. These servers authenticate users and deliver the 2-D applications. Besides the initial cost savings, Hafner explains how the savings will continue into the future: The advantage of this setup is that in four years I’m not stuck with a $100,000 piece of hardware. Instead, I just spin down my EC2 instance and … push my image to a new piece of hardware on Amazon. It doesn’t cost me any more money and is available 24x7. Of course, there will be a continuing supply of outdated Dell computers to be repurposed for application delivery with Splashtop.. Student Self Service Reduces Staff Expenses Staff expenses are also reduced with the Splashtop implementation. Hafner described the Splashtop implementation this way: Using Amazon AWS as a Render Farm Hafner installed Splashtop Center on Amazon Elastic Compute (EC2) cloud servers. These servers authenticate users and deliver the 2-D applications. Besides the initial cost savings, Hafner explains how the savings will continue into the future: “The advantage of this setup is that in four years I’m not stuck with a $100,000 piece of hardware. Instead, I just spin down my EC2 instance and … push my image to a new piece of hardware on Amazon. It doesn’t cost me any more money and is available 24x7. Of course, there will be a continuing supply of outdated lab computers to be repurposed for application delivery with Splashtop..”, said Hafner Student Self Service Reduces Staff Expenses Staff expenses are also reduced with the Splashtop implementation. Hafner described the Splashtop implementation this way: “The amount of setup time was ridiculously small as I had the whole thing up and ready to go in less than an hour!” With the Splashtop implementation, providing student access to applications requires much less time and staff. Instead of tracking license usage for each student, or installing software on each student’s CORNELL/SPLASHTOP ARCHITECTURE: Splashtop Center AWS cc2.8xlarge Splashtop Center 2D app server AD Controller AWS t1.micro Local Active Directory Controller 1 to 1 Render AWS cc2.8xlarge running Rhino, vray, Maxwell used for pure rendering, assigned via Splashtop Center permissions Render Nodes AWS c1.xlarge running vray spawner simply boot up from a phone or web. When Rhino is running on the main Splashtop Center it will connect when needed 1 to 1 Towers Towers from the lab refresh cycle were updated with SSD HD’s and Nvidia Geforce 650 Video cards running Splasthop Stream- er. All lab apps are installed here and are referenced as the 3D accelerated stream. Classroom Mac Mini’s Mac mini’s installed in classrooms with large 70”LCD’s running splashtop Streamer for SmartBoard use User BYOD Student, Faculty, Staff Laptops/Desktops/ iOS/Android Render Nodes 1 to 1 Render 1 to 1 Render AD Controller 1 to 1 Dell Towers Classroom Mac Mini’s User BYOD Splashtop Center AWS Render Farm On-Premise Render Farm
- 4. laptop, Hafner simply adds the student to the Active Directory Domain, creates a shared folder for them, and sends the student an email with instructions for installing Splashtop and connecting to the applications. Application deployment is virtually“self-service”for students. When a student leaves, Hafner removes their name from the Active Directory and clears out their folder. Reduced Software Licensing Expense For applications that typically require a license for each user, Hafner has a cost effective solution. He installs the program (licensed to Cornell University) on a single university-owned computer, and students use Splashtop to access the application from their own laptops. The result is a savings of license fees, IT staff time, and management complexity. Students Save Money, Too Some of the applications that students use while studying at Cornell are expensive, even when student discounts are available. And students use some of those applications only a few times throughout their time at the college. Splashtop software allows students to use the applications when needed, rather than purchase them, resulting in a significant cost savings. Additionally, the students don’t need to purchase expensive laptops to run these demanding applications – saving money. Splashtop Benefits Students, Faculty, and IT Staff The Splashtop implementation has benefits for everyone at the College. For students, there is fast, easy access to the applications they need, on their own schedule. Before Splashtop, student access to many of the complex apps required a visit to the computer lab, and was limited to the hours the computer lab was open. Now, with Splashtop, students can access programs whenever they need to, from any location, including their dorm rooms. Faculty members have immediate access to the applications they need for teaching. With Splashtops whiteboard tools, they can be more efficient and productive in the classroom and with their instruction. Hafner now supports the faculty and students with minimal staff and expense. Expanding Splashtop Deployment at Cornell Other colleges at Cornell have approached Hafner to learn more about using Splashtop. For example, professors can be more mobile in lectures by accessing their Mac and SmartBoard from anywhere in the room. Students could be allowed to access their computers from anywhere on the campus – accessing their applications or typing notes directly into their computer. He is happy to show them why he recommends Splashtop, and summarizes the many benefits of Splashtop this way:“The advantage is, it is very fast, nimble and cost effective. It just works really well!” Splashtop, Inc. 1054 S. De Anza Blvd., Ste. 200 San Jose, CA 95129 USA 408-861-1088 www.splashtop.com © 2014, Splashtop, Inc. All rights reserved. Delivering 2D/3D Applications Using A Hybrid‘Amazon Cloud’ Case Study - Higher Education Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art and Planning uses Splashtop Enterprise to deliver Rhino, Revit, V-Ray, Adobe CS6, and AutoDesk applications to students using a hybrid ‘Amazon Cloud.’ “The advantage of this setup is that in four years I’m not stuck with a $100,000 piece of hardware. Instead, I just spin down my EC2 instance and push my image (AMI) to a new piece of hardware on Amazon. It doesn’t cost me any more money and is available 24x7.” “The amount of setup time was ridiculously small...I had that whole thing up and ready to go in less than an hour!” “The advantage is that it’s a very fast, nimble, and cost effective system. It just works really well.”