I have certainly seen a lot of posts in LinkedIn about whether cloud computing is a viable solution for PDM and PLM and for all of the questions being asked, they just stop at the high level question. I would like to take the time to dig deeper and get some quantitative answers to see just how well it works. To make the exercise worthwhile, I am seeking input from the community. Given that Zero Wait-State does a lot of Agile Engineering Collaboration and DesignState integration activities, using it as a platform seems reasonable but we need to make sure that the tests we perform will stand up to a reasonable volume of object creation within Agile such as design objects, parts, change orders and attachments.

My Concerns

1. Cloud computing does not offer enough security around your intellectual property
2. The bandwidth will be too restrictive for large data payloads rendering it impractical for real world use
3. The pricing will be too expensive

My Proposal

1. Look three methods of hosting
   1. Local VMware cluster
   2. The Amazon Cloud
   3. A VMware Hosting Environment
2. The environment: I would look to reuse the development VM I built in the "Going Virtual with Agile PLM" blog series. This was built on Windows 2008 SP 1, 64 bit, 4 GB Ram

The Test

1. Write API code to create 10 assemblies with 50 parts each represented in both Items and Design Objects
2. Each Item will have a PDF attached and each Design Object will have a Pro/Engineer part attached. Size TBD.
3. A reference will be created between each Design Object and each Item (Part)

Metrics Gathered/Reporting

1. 3 test runs at different times of day for each environment
2. Report average object creation time for each object type, for each run, in each environment
3. Report the cummulative run time, for each run, in each environment
4. Report pricing on the tests performed

Based on feedback we receive on the blog and internal discussions we will formalize our test case and document the testing process here on the blog. We are open to collaborate with other partners to broaden the results for other PLM platforms.

Please let me know your opinion on whether this would be a useful benchmark for cloud computing and PLM. If the test case needs modification, comment and share your thoughts.