BIM in cloud - a myth or reality? : VIDEO

BIM in cloud - a myth or reality?

source graphisoft.com

by CW Guest Columnist on Jul 14, 2016 

BIM in Cloud – a myth or reality? Imran Mohammad, BIM manager, AEB clarifies a sometimes confusing topic.

Over the last decade the IT Cloud solution has gained considerable popularity and the term has been widely used by various categories of IT users. Though the technology itself is as old as internet, the term ‘Cloud’ found its way in the main-stream IT literature only in the last decade. Currently ‘Cloud Computing’ and ‘Cloud Storage’ are the two technologies generally known and used by IT and non-IT professionals. Both these technologies are so common that most of us use these everyday through our Personal Digital Assistant (PDAs) and on internet.

All social and professional networking websites such as Facebook and LinkedIn are examples of Cloud Computing while Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud are examples of Cloud Storage.

How BIM works with Cloud Technology

When rest of the world was integrating itself with Cloud Storage and computing, the construction industry wasn’t left behind and several cloud based-solutions for BIM and document management have surfaced. For the Architectural, Engineering, Construction and Owner (AECO) industry, the highest priority is increased efficiency and collaboration, both of which are the by-products of Building Information Management and Modeling (BIMM). BIM as it has evolved through the last decade has its bigger chunk of success embedded in Information Technology and more precisely, in the network-based work-sharing environment. There are generally three types of technologies which support work-sharing, the descriptions follow.

Type 1 – LAN and WAN-based organisational network

This is the most commonly adopted setup promoted by software developers such as Autodesk and Bentley. A work-sharing environment is established over Local Area Network (LAN), where users collaborate among each other using a central server. When the business expands to other physically separated office, the two local work-sharing environments are connected using Wide Area Network (WAN). This enables simultaneous working on a same project file from two different locations. This establishes a private cloud for an organisation which increases efficiency and productivity. As every system has some benefits, they also come with limitations. In this case the limitation is distance. WAN-based setups work best within 500 kilometre radius. More than this, users will face bandwidth latency issues and jitters.

Type 2 – BIM data on the Cloud

This is a relatively new technology where geographically separated AEC offices connect with each other using cloud storage. At the centre of this system lies a high configuration console which provides large cache memory ranging from 1-1.5 TB and runs on most sophisticated servers such as Xeon and Power8.

constructionweekonline

kcontents