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PERFORMANCE BRIEF
Autodesk AutoCAD 2010
Riverbed Steelhead Products Accelerate Autodesk AutoCAD 2010
and prior versions
AutoCAD provides state-of-the-art software used by leading architecture, engineering, and
manufacturing firms across a wide range of industries. Firms use AutoCAD to design drawings
and products and convey them visually to clients and collaborating parties. While the
application provides an outstanding tool for organizations to standardize on for design
purposes, the size of the drawing files often exceed hundreds of megabytes in size on larger
projects and can impact employees ability to collaborate effectively.
For firms with distributed offices or a
global presence, sharing and
collaborating on large CAD
documents can often lead to
significant delays in accessing
drawings during normal file open and
save operations. Many firms estimate
that design engineers can spend onequarter to one full hour a day on remote file operations, dramatically reducing the available
working time per person. These delays impact productivity and overall time-to-market for
customers, and ultimately, delivery to the client.
Our files and data now move more than
70 times faster between offices, giving us
the ability to complete projects more
quickly. Bruce Bartolf, CTO, Gensler
Steelhead-Enhanced AutoCAD 2010
Deploying Riverbed Steelhead products along with AutoCAD 2010 software can greatly
reduce the amount of time required to open, save and transfer CAD documents across the
wide area network (WAN). As a result, organizations can achieve LAN-like access speeds of
centralized design documents and improve the collaboration and productivity of their design
specialists. This gives firms the opportunity to source people on projects regardless of their
location and enables real-time collaboration on designs across distributed teams.
The Riverbed Optimization System
(RiOS) utilizes industry-leading data
streamlining, transport streamlining, and
application streamlining to provide data
de-duplication, compression, transport
layer and application protocol
optimization. These optimizations can cut
AutoCAD traffic on the WAN by as much
as 99% and accelerate access times by
up to 22x.
When we tried using Steelhead products,
the results were dramatic. Transfers for
an edited file took about two minutes
the same amount of time that it takes us
to access the file on a LAN. Chris Pinckney,
CIO, Psomas
Test Summary
Bandwidth utilization is reduced
by up to 99%
AutoCAD 2010 network
operations are 22 times faster
TESTING PARAMETERS
AutoCAD operations were tested using the 2010
DWG format and the AUGI (AutoCAD User Group
International) Gauge Benchmarks Net test. This
kit is an independently-created test tool that
executes the most common operations that the
typical AutoCAD user would perform over the
WAN, including opens, saves, and file edits. For
more information, visit www.augi.com.
The test environment to obtain the results
described in this brief consisted of a WAN with a
T1 connection, and 100 milliseconds of delay
between locations. This scenario would be typical
of a WAN link between Los Angeles and New York
offices. This test was performed using Windows
XP Professional as the client, Windows 2003
server, and AutoCAD 2010.
NOTE: The 2007 DWG format used by some
recent versions of AutoCAD and Civil3D
scrambles the file data during save operations
even if no changes have been made to a drawing.
As a result, all data de-duplication technologies
are unable to recognize the newly reorganized
bytes of data. Customers using Autodesk products
that use the 2007 DWG format will see
deteriorated performance from the test results
presented in this brief. The tests results described
were obtained through testing with the 2010 DWG
format. AutoCAD 2010 has resolved these issues,
giving the strong results shown.
PERFORMANCE BRIEF: Autodesk AutoCAD 2010
DEPLOYMENT BENEFITS
Deploying Riverbed in conjunction with
AutoCAD 2010 provides multiple benefits,
including:
Productivity gains. By dramatically
reducing the amount of time needed to
complete basic CAD file operations,
engineers can save an hour per day or
more.
Reduced bandwidth utilization.
Steelhead products reduce bandwidth
utilization from remote offices that rely on
accessing CAD documents located on
networked file servers in other offices,
reducing IT costs.
Performance Improvements
Riverbed Steelhead products accelerate AutoCAD 2010 tasks in the AUGI Gauge
Benchmark Net test (see sidebar) by 22x. Steelhead products can accelerate tasks up to
100x in certain scenarios see the reverse side for more detail. Simultaneously,
bandwidth utilization was reduced by 99%, implying 99% of the data previously
traversing the WAN was redundant information that was eliminated by Riverbeds scalable data referencing techniques.
Riverbed Optimization System (RiOS) Features
Better, faster collaboration. By
reducing the time to transfer AutoCAD files
by an order or magnitude or more,
Steelhead products enable users in multiple
offices to work collaboratively on large
design documents. Work can be shifted to
offices with downtime, or the right person
can work on a task regardless of their
location.
Remote office server consolidation.
LAN-like WAN performance means that
server consolidation becomes a reality, and
remote IT infrastructure can be reduced or
eliminated. IT maintenance costs can be
reduced, and the tasks of upgrading and
patching servers can be greatly simplified.
RiOS software combines patent-pending data reduction, TCP optimization, applicationlevel latency optimizations, and remote office file and management functionality.
Together, these technologies provide a comprehensive solution for enterprise wide-area
data services, scaling across a range of applications and network topologies to
accelerate applications from 5 to 50 times, and sometimes up to 100x. RiOS consists of four key components:
Data Streamlining RiOS data streamlining works across all TCP applications to reduce bandwidth consumption by 60% to 95%.
Data streamlining works across Windows file sharing, Microsoft Office, Email (including MS Exchange and Lotus Notes), SSLencrypted applications, CAD, ERP, databases, and all other applications that use TCP, to ensure the same data is never sent more
than once over the WAN. Data Streamlining also supports rules-based policy administration of optimization classes and packet
marking for QoS and route control.
Transport Streamlining RiOS transport streamlining reduces the number of TCP packets required to transfer data by 65% to 98%.
Transport streamlining overcomes TCP limitations by adapting transmission characteristics such as window scale, loss handling,
congestion notification, and more. Transport streamlining also allows SSL-encrypted applications to be accelerated as well. RiOS
Transport streamlining also enables greater utilization of high bandwidth, high latency connections with High-Speed TCP and MX-TCP.
Application Streamlining RiOS application streamlining provides additional order-of-magnitude application performance
improvements by reducing application protocol chattiness up to 98% and minimizing application overhead. By minimizing application
demands on the network such as application protocol round trips and required network connections, RiOS can provide massive throughput
increases to applications including Windows file sharing (CIFS), Exchange (MAPI), Web (HTTP and HTTPS), and Database (MS-SQL).
RiOS also includes important features for maximizing branch office productivity, such as file server capabilities and transparent prepopulation of popular data.
PERFORMANCE BRIEF: Autodesk AutoCAD 2010
About Riverbed
Riverbed is the IT performance company. WAN optimization solutions from Riverbed liberate businesses from common IT constraints by
increasing application performance, enabling consolidation, and providing enterprise-wide network and application visibility all while
eliminating the need to increase bandwidth, storage or servers.
Riverbed Technology,
Inc.
199 Fremont Street
San Francisco, CA 94105
Tel: (415) 247-8800
www.riverbed.com
Riverbed Technology Ltd.
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Binfield
Bracknell. Berks RG42 4EU
Tel: +44 1344 354910
Riverbed Technology Pte. Ltd.
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Tel: +65 6508-7400
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Tel: +81 3 5419 1990
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