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how does cloud compute work with onshape?

JPC204JPC204 Member, Developers Posts: 8
loved the webinar that jon did last week regarding the history of cad and vision of onshape.

one thing i'm trying to wrap my head around is how cloud compute helps onshape. we hear all the time that most cad tool feature are single threaded and can only be processed by a single core. has onshape been written to do this differently and process features using multiple cores for all types of features/actions or is there something inherent about vCores or cloud compute that let a single thread be distributed among multiple cores?

thanks!

Answers

  • john_f_carrjohn_f_carr Onshape Employees Posts: 74
    The cloud makes remote CPU power as useful as local CPU power.  We don't advise you to buy the fastest computer on the market.  You can use a phone, a tablet, or a Chromebook.  It doesn't have to have an x86 CPU.

    Sometimes Onshape does have to do a slow, single-threaded, full regeneration of a model.  That regeneration "in the cloud" will perform comparably to a desktop with a high end CPU.    We work hard to keep the number of such regenerations to a minimum.
  • JPC204JPC204 Member, Developers Posts: 8
    So what is the benefit of cloud compute for onshape?
  • pete_yodispete_yodis OS Professional, Mentor Posts: 666 ✭✭✭
    @JPC204 There are many benefits... You can CAD on low end devices, for one, and have a good level of performance.  This is not possible on current gen CAD systems.  This lowers the barriers to many would be users that don't or can't purchase higher end hardware, and casts a wider net to would be users.  This also allows native viewing of design information by those surrounding design.  No install necessary and all on low end hardware, no different separate viewing software, etc...  There will be enormous benefits to massive cloud compute power to both CAD functions and related design activities.  Let your mind wander a bit about what could be possible with massive compute capability.
  • rbaekrbaek Moderator, Onshape Employees, Developers Posts: 77
    "Pete Yodis", the cloud also allows for simultaneous collaboration (so as not having to wait for a check-in/check-out for a simple fix), allows for smoother version control, and allows for the entire history of a document to be accessible to the user at given time.
  • JPC204JPC204 Member, Developers Posts: 8
    ok, but i think in general, cloud compute isn't necessarily improving the overall performance of the tool.

    but i hugely agree that it opens the doors to more users and opportunities for improved workflows.

    and the future of cloud based simulation or rendering vs end-point based.
  • pete_yodispete_yodis OS Professional, Mentor Posts: 666 ✭✭✭
    @JPC204 Cloud compute will improve the overall performance of the tool.  :)
  • john_f_carrjohn_f_carr Onshape Employees Posts: 74
    Our marketing material can explain the convenience benefits of cloud computing better than I can.  My specialty is performance, so I took the original question to be about performance and Amdahl's law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl's_law).

    If you look at the system end to end, there's a lot going on at once.   Although regenerating a single part studio from a feature list has a large serial component, we can regenerate thousands of part studios at the same time.  If your assembly imports several part studios, we can regenerate them simultaneously instead of sequentially.  A lot of the modeling server, including database access, is parallel.

    After we send the result back to your browser, the server is still working on others' models.  Meanwhile, your browser can rotate, zoom, and select entities for the next operation.

    How often is your car moving, and how often is it parked?  Odds are, it's parked 90% of the time.  Similarly, a fancy computer for CAD design is not being stressed 90% of the time.  Your bought it for peak performance.

    The cloud is like a car-sharing service.  We don't need 100 computers to support 100 designers, because they will not all be active at the same time.   We probably don't even need 10.

  • pete_yodispete_yodis OS Professional, Mentor Posts: 666 ✭✭✭
    @John_F_Car Thanks.  To further your point about regenerating thousands of part studios... @JPC204 A desktop system like SolidWorks would never have the ability to handle large assemblies as near as well as Onshape will when geometry needs to be regenerated, for the reason he states.  That is what I meant by it will improve the overall performance of the tool.  Exciting stuff...
  • jon_hirschtickjon_hirschtick Onshape Employees Posts: 91
    @Pete_Yodis Correct.  We have a lot of ideas about how to use the cloud in all sorts of ways to improve speed. 
  • 3dcad3dcad Member, OS Professional, Mentor Posts: 2,472 PRO
    edited April 2015
    @Jon Hirschtick  Could it be possible to gather the features of computer specs which are actually important for OnS power-user? 

    Today people have multiple computers and often designers 'own' one of them to cad purpose with 3d mouse and other features. It would be nice to know where to put the money if you wan't to optimize pc for OnShape.
    What I have understood in other threads - you can easily spend $1500 to pc not knowing that you could get same performance for OnS with $500 and maybe use some of left overs to speed up connection to net.
    //rami
  • pete_yodispete_yodis OS Professional, Mentor Posts: 666 ✭✭✭
    3dcad said:
    @Jon Hirschtick  Could it be possible to gather the features of computer specs which are actually important for OnS power-user? 

    Today people have multiple computers and often designers 'own' one of them to cad purpose with 3d mouse and other features. It would be nice to know where to put the money if you wan't to optimize pc for OnShape.
    What I have understood in other threads - you can easily spend $1500 to pc not knowing that you could get same performance for OnS with $500 and maybe use some of left overs to speed up connection to net.
    @3dcad This would be a fast changing endeavor on Onshape's part.  It's probably best left to the community of users to comment and help each other out.  I think within the next couple of years we might even be speaking of what phone we are using Onshape on.  The trend will continue with mobile devices being more of the tools we use all the time.  The difference will be what accessories they will be connected to as we use them.  A set of very large screens in the office (thank you USB-C) coupled with a Bluetooth keyboard and a 3D motion controller.  I would not be surprised to see phones running native browser access to Onshape within 3-5 years.  We'll see how mobile performance trends along with mobile browser support for WebGL.
  • andrew_troupandrew_troup Member, Mentor Posts: 1,584 ✭✭✭✭✭
    One not-so-obvious benefit of the cloud is dedicated computational resources.
    These do not have any of the admin challenges and incompatible software issues, nor do they suffer from the computational dilutions and complications and distractions, of the desktop CPU. 

    Furthermore, they offer hot (or at least warm) swapping of a thread across to a new resource if the current CPU encounters a problem.
    This is presumably why, even at this beta phase, it's almost unheard of to lose more than the last feature (at most) when there's a glitch.
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