Microsoft and Dassault Systèmes Form Strategic Alliance

As many of you may know by now, on November 17th, Microsoft Corporation and Dassault Systèmes announced a multiyear, global strategic alliance to deliver Dassault Systèmes’ product lifecycle management (V5 PLM) and 3D design solutions to companies of all sizes taking advantage of the Microsoft^® software platform.

By capitalizing on the Microsoft platform, the two companies intend to deliver greater customer value through solutions that are easy to use, deploy and maintain with reduced ownership and integration costs. This alliance enables a far broader set of customers to realize the benefits of 3D collaboration and PLM.

The alliance brings together Dassault Systèmes’ strength in 3D software with Microsoft’s platform, which includes Web services development via Microsoft .NET, real-time collaboration, and both the Windows^® client and Windows Server^™ operating systems. Dassault Systèmes’ V5 PLM and 3D collaborative solutions, which currently run on both the Windows client and Windows Server platforms, will leverage the Microsoft platform across a broad range of current and future Microsoft products.

“Microsoft and Dassault Systèmes share a common vision of democratizing 3D and making PLM more pervasive,” said Bernard Charlès, president and CEO of Dassault Systèmes. “This alliance focuses on innovation to deliver an easy-to-use 3D global collaborative environment to create, simulate, manufacture and service any physical goods.”

The alliance will result in the integration of Dassault Systèmes’ industry-leading PLM solutions CATIA, DELMIA, ENOVIA, SMARTEAM; and its 3D design solutions including the SolidWorks product line, with Microsoft .NET, SQL Server^™, BizTalk^® Server, SharePoint^® Portal Server, Windows “Longhorn” and Windows XP 64-bit Edition.

“We are delighted to bring together the full power and reach of the Microsoft platform with Dassault Systèmes’ collaborative solutions,” said Bill Gates, chairman and chief software architect at Microsoft. “The winning combination of Microsoft .NET and Dassault Systèmes promises to make product lifecycle management accessible and affordable to a whole new set of customers in the manufacturing value chain.”

Microsoft and Dassault Systèmes have also agreed to explore opportunities to work together to encourage broad market adoption of XML for 3D applications across the design and graphics industry. The two companies will work with industry associations, other PLM software vendors, and 3D graphics technology companies to advance interoperability using common XML-based technologies.

The companies will also explore opportunities to work toward delivering fully integrated products in the field of automation.

A rebroadcast of the press conference to be held in Paris is available for viewing on Dassault Systèmes’ web site at http://www.3ds.com/news-events/announcement/microsoft.

The 64-bit Tipping Point

Optimizing Performance, Flexibility, and Value with Intel^® Itanium^® Architecture and Intel^® Extended Memory 64 Technology (Intel^® EM64T)

Visit the 64-bit Resource Center:
http://www.intel.com/business/bss/products/server/64-bit/resource_center/64-bit.htm

With the launch of the new Intel Xeon^™ processor with Intel Extended Memory 64 Technology (Intel EM64T), the industry is poised for a large-scale migration to 64-bit computing. Intel EM64T delivers dramatic benefits for some applications, while others are better suited for 32-bit computing, and still others for the more robust 64-bit capabilities of Intel Itanium architecture. With leading support for all three options, Intel processor based platforms offer unparalleled flexibility for optimizing capacity, performance, and business value across the full range of enterprise and technical computing environments.

For more than a decade, 64-bit architectures have played an important role at the high-end of enterprise and technical computing. Intel Itanium architecture shifted the market dynamics in that space, lowering the cost of entry and challenging high-end RISC-based systems in scalability, capacity, performance, and RAS (reliability, availability, serviceability). The new Intel Xeon processor with Intel Extended Memory Technology (Intel EM64T) will trigger a broader shift toward 64-bit solutions. Servers and workstations based on this new processor offer reliable and exceptionally cost effective 64-bit support, while simultaneously providing leading performance for existing 32-bit applications. They deliver a valuable addition to the high-end capabilities of Itanium architecture, and will help reduce 64-bit migration costs for a wide variety of general-purpose enterprise and technical applications.

The move toward 64-bit computing for mainstream applications will initially focus on applications that are already constrained by 32-bit memory limitations. The challenge for IT organizations is to determine the best architecture for specific solutions, while taking into account total cost and value within the broader IT and business environments. Itanium architecture remains the platform of choice for the most demanding, business-critical data tier applications, such as high-end database and business intelligence solutions. Platforms based on the Intel Xeon processor with Intel EM64T are preferable for general purpose applications, such as Web and mail infrastructure, digital content creation, mechanical computer aided design, and electronic design automation; and for mixed environments in which optimized 32-bit performance remains critical. For some mid-tier enterprise applications, the best choice may not be obvious, and will require a close look at software availability, business drivers, and workloads.

This paper explores the increasing importance of 64-bit capable platforms, and offers guidelines for planning a cost-effective transition. It also discusses the importance of platform and software synergy, and describes Intel’s industry-wide efforts to assist software developers in tuning their software for best performance on Intel architecture. These efforts will be increasingly important as Intel EM64T and future architectural innovations (such as multi-core processors) become prominent in the marketplace, providing IT organizations with additional options for increasing the business value of their IT investments.

Advantages of 64-bit Solutions
There are two key advantages to platforms with 64-bit capabilities. First, a 64-bit processor transcends the 4GB memory limit encountered with 32-bit processors, and can directly access virtually unlimited physical memory. 1 This allows an application to store vast amounts of data in main memory, which is several orders of magnitude faster than today’s fastest mass-storage subsystems. Large, memory intensive applications that can take advantage of this extra capacity can see dramatic performance increases. Secondly, a 64-bit processor can manipulate data and execute instructions in chunks that are twice as large (64-bits versus 32 bits). This can be a key advantage for complex calculations that require a high-level of precision.

Although most existing 32-bit applications have no immediate need for additional memory, many scientific, engineering, and design applications will benefit. So will an increasing percentage of enterprise business solutions, such as security applications and real-time transactional systems that rely on large data sets. The availability of highly affordable 64-bit platforms will simplify migration for many of these applications, and fuel the development of additional 64-bit software solutions.

Over the next few years, a variety of additional factors will accelerate the move toward 64-bit computing. The most important is the ongoing explosion in data storage and access requirements, along with the growing need for near real-time processes to improve customer service, productivity, regulatory compliance, and business transparency. The rise of Web Services and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is accelerating these developments, by simplifying integration across businesses and supply chains. High volume business transactions are increasingly taking place interactively and in real-time, requiring both high security and fast server response times.

The impact of these trends is magnified by the ongoing proliferation of high-performance client devices, including smart phones, wireless-enabled notebooks, and PDAs. Non-user end-points, such as radio frequency identification (RFID) tags and point of sale devices, are causing a quantum leap in processing, capacity, and data requirements that may ultimately dwarf the end-user-related workloads we know today. As these trends converge, 64-bit computing capabilities will become increasingly important for a growing number of mainstream enterprise applications.

The Value of Choice for 64-bit Migration
All 64-bit applications and workloads are not the same. Data, processing, and RAS requirements can vary dramatically. For example, a complex engineering application may access terabytes of data and consume vast processing resources. Yet response times are typically not critical and an isolated system failure may not be catastrophic. An enterprise resource planning (ERP) application, on the other hand, may require less total compute and data resources, yet failure or slow response times may impact thousands of users and cost millions of dollars per minute. In any implementation, it is therefore vital to clearly determine workload and business needs, and to craft a best-fit solution that balances reliability, cost, and performance.

Intel offers two complementary architectural choices that cover the full range of 64-bit requirements. One is Intel Itanium architecture, which is designed for the most demanding and business-critical enterprise and technical applications. The other is the family of Intel Xeon processor based systems with Intel EM64T. Though not equivalent to Itanium architecture in terms of capacity, performance, and RAS, these platforms enable a more gradual migration to 64-bit solutions, since they provide native support for existing, legacy 32 bit applications. In most enterprise computing environments, both platforms will be needed.

To read the rest of this document, please visit the Intel website:
http://www.intel.com/business/bss/products/server/64-bit_tipping_point.pdf

IBM and Dassault Systèmes Announce Availability of 64-bit Applications for AIX

New functionality supports large assembly mock-up and analysis

Dassault Systèmes and IBM today announced the first release of its 64-bit enabled Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) applications for the IBM AIX 5L operating system.

The applications are designed to provide 64-bit architecture capabilities for AIX Version 5 Release 14 (V5R14), which enables customers using ENOVIA DMU applications to perform digital mock-ups of full product configurations with a high level of detail and enables customers using CATIA V5 Structural Analysis to perform rapid finite element analysis on large assemblies.

Powered by IBM eServer pSeries systems, the 64-bit capability brings significant performance enhancement to users of CATIA Structural Analysis, ENOVIA DMU Navigator, ENOVIA Real Time Rendering and ENOVIA DMU Space Analysis for AIX 5.1 MIL 4.

Initial benchmarks indicate that for memory-intensive operations such as structural analysis of large models, overall performance is up to three times faster than the 32-bit version of the same application. In addition, the 64-bit capability enables users to analyze models three to four times larger.

“This achievement is a great illustration of how IBM advanced technology combined with leading-edge software developed by Dassault Systèmes contributes to protecting PLM customers’ investments,” said Per Larsen, vice president of IBM eServer pSeries Marketing, Systems and Technology Group.

"Customers already on IBM pSeries platforms will immediately benefit from this new version of CATIA and ENOVIA V5 with no additional investment,” said Florence Hu-Aubigny, director, research and development, open architecture, Dassault Systèmes. "For those who need to perform finite element analysis or design reviews on large assemblies, the availability of a 64-bit version of CATIA and ENOVIA V5 will streamline this process, improving their engineering efficiency."

Christopher P. Sciacca
Strategic Communications, Manager
IBM Product Lifecycle Management