CATI SOLIDWORKS Virtual Desktop Solution

Due to changes in work environments brought on by the COVID-19 virus, we have seen many businesses move engineers from office work to home.  For some businesses, this is not practical, as they use high-end engineering workstations in their office.  These workstations and their infrastructure are not portable, meaning the engineers are forced to work in the office or shut down engineering productivity.  Due to increased demand, CATI has created a monthly CATI SOLIDWORKS Virtual Desktop solution.  The purpose of this solution is to provide a complete, ready-to-go, month-by-month virtual office that can be accessed by any number of employees and provides everything your employees need to work from a remote location.

Minimal Hardware Requirements

To use this solution, an employee simply needs a computer (Windows, Mac, iOS, Linux, Chrome and Android) and an Internet connection.  It requires minimal Internet bandwidth, so if they can stream a movie successfully, this solution should work.

Complete Mobility

Mobility and flexibility are critical. With this solution, your entire staff can access their work from anywhere at any time.

1. Cloud Virtual Desktop Computers (VDI)

   1. We will provide a High-end Graphics Workstation.
   2. This will provide the most flexibility for your organization.  When required, we will quickly add as many virtual computers (VDI) as needed.  They are cloned from the Master Template in the type and quantities needed.
   3. Your monthly cost is based on the number of virtual desktops you require.  Although we typically do not have month-to-month contracts, we are making exceptions due to the circumstances.
   4. Depending on your needs, we can help install SOLIDWORKS and make sure the workstation is ready for use.
   5. You may need VPN to connect to your local server network shares or PDM environment.

2. Workstation Infrastructure

   1. This is the infrastructure required to run the virtual desktops and hold your data.
   2. The Base Support Infrastructure comes with 250 GB of storage. However, we can provide any amount of storage to meet your needs.
   3. The Base Infrastructure can support hundreds of virtual desktop computers (VDIs) and an unlimited amount of file storage.
   4. Additionally, we may be able to move your PDM server to the cloud. This is an option we have available.

3. Backup

   1. We back up your data each day and keep that data for 30 days.  You can restore any file from up to 30 days ago.
   2. We keep all deleted or overwritten data for 30 days. However, after 30 days it will not be available to restore.  This means if you delete a file today, you have 30 days to restore it.
   3. Please let use know if you need more than 30 days of backups. We can accommodate any backup requirement you have.

4. Support

   1. CATI support can help with license activation on the virtual workstations.
   2. Support includes a 24/7/365 Helpdesk.

5. Data Connectivity

   1. 3 MBPS connectivity to our data center is required to use your cloud infrastructure from a remote location over the Internet.  We can help provide testing tools so your users can test their bandwidth to our data center.