TBI, is a dutch BIM customer, I have been working together with a couple of years designing their on-prem which is now a hybrid platform. They are the first official customer case study using AMD NVv4 instances in Azure together with Citrix Cloud. They have been using VDI for several years and been one of the leading innovators using high end graphics for VDI for their BIM users. Microsoft, Autodesk, Citrix uses them as reference customer through the years.
Microsoft Azure is moving really fast and 29 datacenters around the world is now online. I was in Japan some weeks ago (week 14) and did a presentation at E2EVC on NV series and how easy it is to build Virtual machines with NV-series. At that time I demonstrated live heavy graphics application such as Autodesk Revit, Navisworks running from Azure SE Asia (Singapore) with RDP10 to my Microsoft Surfacebook in Japan on hotel wifi and it worked actually really good. Some weeks later I was home in Denmark, I was preparing my speech for Azure Bootcamp in Aarhus, Denmark. I noticed that a new datacenter in Japan West (Osaka) and Japan East (Tokyo, Saitama) have gone “Operational” and more specific Japan East (Tokyo, Saitama) now was live with Azure NV6, NV12, NV24. This is really awesome and I had to try it out.
HPE have released new server cartridges m510 and m710x for HPE Moonshot and Edgeline. These new server cartridges are the first units that have built-in HPE iLO, so customers can easy manage each server cartridge.
Moonshot cartridge building blocks for Citrix workloads
Below chart describes what HPE Moonshot/Edgeline current strategy is for GPU enabled apps and desktops with Citrix XenDesktop and XenApp.
HPE Moonshot have been around for some time now, and I have been very lucky working together with HPE and testing their server cartridges that are compatible with Citrix solutions. Last year, at HPE Discover in London, I wrote an article about how Citrix internally are using HPE moonshot and which server cartridges were available at that time and how financial customers are benefiting from these solutions.
Earlier this year I have seen several customers having issues with AutoCAD in Citrix not defaulting to the primary display adapter, so the GPU wouldn be fully functioning and Autodesk AutoCAD 2016/2017 would turn off hardware acceleration. This issue have been seen on NVIDIA Gpus such as GRID, NVIDIA also have a official KB on this http://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/4092/ and issue is also seen with INTEL gpu such as Iris Pro Graphics more specific on solutions with HPE Moonshot 710p and 710x.
Issue is identified on both Citrix XenApp 7.x (Windows Server OSs) and Citrix XenDesktop 7.x (Workstation OSs)
“The primary display adapter is not shown as the default in a Citrix environment.”
I am happy to share that Autodesk have finally fixed this “bug” with Citrix and now the GPUs will work correctly with Autodesk AutoCAD 2016 and Autodesk AutoCAD 2017 when you apply below hot fix for the product you have.
Accumulated hotfix 4 for AutoCAD 2016 based applies to:
This hotfix for citrix applies to the following releases with the AutoCAD 2016 Service Pack 1 already installed:
Autodesk AutoCAD 2016
Autodesk AutoCAD Architecture 2016
Autodesk AutoCAD Civil 3D 2016
Autodesk AutoCAD Electrical 2016
Autodesk AutoCAD Map 3D 2016
Autodesk AutoCAD Mechanical 2016
Autodesk AutoCAD MEP 2016
Autodesk AutoCAD P&ID 2016
Autodesk AutoCAD Plant 3D 2016
Autodesk AutoCAD Utility Design 2016
Issues Resolved by This Hotfix for citrix
There is a security vulnerability with ATIL image files within a drawing.
The primary display adapter is not shown as the default in a Citrix environment.
Opening an Excel hyperlink resizes the AutoCAD application window to match the Excel sheet size.
Locked objects can be edited by Matchprop command.
Publish borders are cut off with certain sheet sizes.
Background masks are not ignoring the Xrefoverride setting.
Can crash when panning transparently in multiple viewports.
Performance problem opening files containing specific objects in AutoCAD 2016 may appear as if files cannot be opened.
Use of the LISP (command) function within the (mapcar) function results in VVC Internal Error.
Grip stretch doesn’t work correctly when DYNMODE equals value other than 2 or 3.
acedCallBackOnCancel is not detected for Lispcallable Functions.
Certain VBA Macros throw an execution error.
DWG file fails to insert into another DWG file.
Can crash when Copy/Paste a block by Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V.
Can crash when opening AutoCAD in Windows 10.
AcSettingSync.exe launched when running OPTIONS command.
Annotations in Architectural units format are changing to Decimal format.
Accumulated hotfix 4 for AutoCAD LT 2016 applies to:
this hotfix for citrix applies to the following release:
Autodesk AutoCAD LT 2016 with the AutoCAD LT Service Pack 1 already installed
Issues Resolved by This Hotfix for citrix
There is a security vulnerability with ATIL image files within a drawing.
The primary display adapter is not shown as the default in a Citrix environment.
Opening an Excel hyperlink resizes the AutoCAD LT application window to match the Excel sheet size.
Locked objects can be edited by Matchprop command.
Publish borders are cut off with certain sheet sizes.
Background masks are not ignoring the Xrefoverride setting.
May crash when panning transparently in multiple viewports.
Performance problem opening files containing specific objects in AutoCAD LT 2016 may appear as if files cannot be opened.
Grip stretch doesn’t work correctly when DYNMODE equals value other than 2 or 3.
DWG file fails to insert into another DWG file.
Can crash when Copy/Paste a block by Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V.
Can crash when opening AutoCAD LT in Windows 10.
AcSettingSync.exe launched when running OPTIONS command.
Annotations in Architectural units format are changing to Decimal format.
Who Should Install This Service Pack for AutoCAD 2017?
Apply this Service Pack to the following Autodesk products running on all supported operating systems and languages. Be sure to install the correct Service Pack.
This Service Pack can be applied to AutoCAD 2017 installed as a standalone application, AutoCAD-based Vertical products, and the Autodesk Design Suites listed below.
AutoCAD and Verticals Products:
AutoCAD 2017
AutoCAD LT 2017
AutoCAD Architecture 2017
AutoCAD Civil 3D 2017
AutoCAD Electrical 2017
AutoCAD Map 3D 2017
AutoCAD Mechanical 2017
AutoCAD MEP 2017
AutoCAD P&ID 2017
AutoCAD Plant 3D 2017
AutoCAD Utility Design 2017
Autodesk Design Suites:
Autodesk AutoCAD Design Suite 2017
Autodesk AutoCAD Inventor LT Suite 2017
Autodesk AutoCAD Revit LT Suite 2017
Autodesk AutoCAD with Advance Steel 2017
Autodesk Building Design Suite 2017
Autodesk Factory Design Suite 2017
Autodesk Infrastructure Design Suite 2017
Autodesk Plant Design Suite 2017
Autodesk Product Design Suite 2017
Autodesk Revit Collaboration Suite 2017
Issues Resolved by This Service Pack
Display
Xrefs on a frozen viewport layer would still be plotted
AutoCAD in Citrix might not default to the primary display adapter.
Open and Save
Opening a drawing file using an Excel hyperlink was repositioning the AutoCAD application window.
PDF Import
Importing a PDF Underlay that was attached with relative path could fail.
Xref
The Xref status incorrectly displays the “Needs reloading” message when the dataset is opened from a UNC path to a shared folder.
General
When opening drawings created with AutoCAD Architecture, AutoCAD might crash if the drawing was saved again.
Plotting with certain visual styles might produce incorrect results.
