Managing a Global IT Infrastructure for CAE

Global markets have led to a trend of global cooperation within companies who do product development and engineering . Computer aided engineering (CAE) is no exception to this rule since crash, CFD, NVH or thermodynamic simulations are important steps in the product development process. Leading automotive OEMs and suppliers have established CAE teams around the world, which now have to collaborate. This business strategy has a deep impact on the underlying CAE IT infrastructure, which usually consists of high-end workstations, compute servers, and storage systems. The IT infrastructure has to be transformed from locally administrated systems to globally managed systems. Changing technology or business trends like cloud computing, increased focus on data security, or communication with partners have an additional impact. GNS Systems has operated highly complex CAE IT infrastructures for its customers since 1997 and has followed these trends. Today, GNS Systems cost-efficiently manages CAE IT infrastructures which are geographically distributed around the world. The presentation at the Dynamore users conference will show how the management of globally distributed systems can be established, which steps have to be taken, and which organizational and technical adaptions are usually needed.The presentation will also show where standardization is required and where local business needs should be respected. The presentation will be based on an actual project performed by GNS Systems. A short summary on business benefits and costs savings will sum up the presentation.