Slowly but surely, the cloud has brought innovation, scalability, and cost optimization to all businesses, including architectural firms. The transition from local infrastructure to the cloud has been more challenging for the architectural industry due to the high computing demands in the sector, as well as the difficulties posed by the nature of the projects, requiring synchronized management of a wide range of roles, responsibilities, and workload types. A lot has changed since the advent of the cloud fuelled the digital transformation for a number of architectural start-ups and design enterprises. Cloud adoption did not only prove to be plausible for them but also greatly beneficial.

Contrary to what many of you may think, architectural companies these days are relying on the cloud for more than just storage and basic office-based tools. Many firms have turned to cloud desktop solutions such as DaaS (Desktop-as-a-Service) as a way to streamline the efficiency of their key desktop operations such as schematic design and Building Information Modeling. This has largely eliminated the need for architectural firms to outsource processes like rendering and analysis of energy performance from a range of providers at higher costs. Buying and installing costly server infrastructure to provision their own horsepower for high-consuming CPU applications has also been entirely eliminated.

What can you do with architectural software on the cloud?

 

By choosing a cloud desktop for your architectural software, you are bound to benefit from the latest advances in technology and communication. This is a virtual desktop solution that allows urban planners and architects to implement their designs on the cloud by making use of both high bandwidth for their applications and excellent graphical performance regardless of the software requirements. Applications such as AutoCAD, Lumion, and Enscape are fully transferrable to the cloud and users can access their virtual desktops to perform their core design duties, requiring more GPU than standard remote office suites.

How does the cloud enable more simplified operations?

 

Another key benefit of cloud desktops for architectural firms is the simplified IT management you get with one centralized solution. DaaS allows companies to save from investing time and capital resources into SAN storage or on-premise servers to make remote working possible. Because of how well cloud desktops work with the home networks, your employees needn’t be provided with corporate laptops to support the applications from physical devices, other than their own ones. Architects, builders, engineers, and core staff will be deployed with desktops that are standardized and customized to their individual software and functionality needs. On top of that, there will be no need for third-party providers, different from your cloud providers, to maintain your service and do routine configurations, updates, and patching.

How do architectural firms achieve better project management on the cloud?

 

Software solutions like BIM are one of the most common tools that architects, engineers, and builders use for their project design work and collaboration. This application can easily be moved to the cloud where all authorized users will have rights and credentials to work on projects as part of a team. There are plenty of other architectural project tools such as Timble Connect which professionals in this sector use for file management, messaging, and viewing of ready-made models. Cloud desktops these and more thanks to the cutting-edge deployment capabilities of the technology, allowing various software solutions to run seamlessly on the cloud. This gives architects, urban designers, and clerical employees to exchange information in a fast, secure, and more effective way than what local servers could allow in the past.

Final words

 

Even though the digital transformation journey for the architectural sector tool longer to make into a progressive industry trend, today we see a lot of small and mid-sized companies adopting cloud solutions eagerly, and without concerns. The obstacles which architectural software and management processes were overcome by the cloud and many of those firms streamline their operations a lot further, finding bigger and better benefits from solutions like DaaS, than what was previously imaginable.