Published first in MCADCafe: https://www10.mcadcafe.com/blogs/jeffrowe/2019/01/07/mcadcafe-industry-predictions-for-2019-the-uber-cloud/
Many industry predictions for 2019 are talking about the wider and growing acceptance of Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Industry 4.0, Digital Twins, 3D Printing, and Cloud Computing; no surprise, as this is a continuation of 2018. But behind all these trends and ‘techniques’ is one big common trend fueled by the engineers’ desire to make their complex and demanding tools and techniques more applicable, economical, user-friendly, intuitive, and automatic, to be finally used by every engineer. This broader trend is now well-known as Democratization, Appification, Revolution in Simulation, Containerization, and more. In our CAE community, we see this trend greatly supported by NAFEMS, COFES, ASSESS, Rev-Sim, UberCloud and others, and by many outstanding individuals and groups.
To support this prediction, we are looking closer at two examples: cloud computing and containerization of engineering applications, i.e. two ‘tools’ so far not widely applied by the engineering community. But these tools are absolutely necessary for engineers who are looking for designing their products faster and cheaper, and with higher quality, driving innovation and improving competitiveness. More computing resources (in the cloud) make simulations run faster, and more simulations (on more powerful cloud resources) lead to better-quality products. In addition, novel application containers, sitting on powerful cloud resources and hosting (“containing”) the engineer’s complex simulation workflow and data, enable engineers seamless, intuitive, and on-demand access to all software and hardware resources they need. No need to learn anything new, no need to wait, just login with your password and have all the resources you need, at your fingertips! A true step towards democratization of CAE.
