Architecture firm SimpsonHaugh is using virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to build the foundations for digital transformation.
The practice is spending £1.21m on its technological platform, which includes Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktop, Citrix NetScaler, VMware vSphere Hypervisor, Dell Servers with vSAN storage, Nvidia vGPUs and ControlUp's DEX platform, which provides VDI performance analytics and remediation.
As part of a continued focus on digital transformation, Dave Moyes, partner, information and digital systems at SimpsonHaugh, explained to diginomica how the practice, which has worked on award-winning schemes such as Deansgate Square in Manchester, One Blackfriars in London and Circus West Village at Battersea Power Station, is using its IT platform to explore emerging technologies, such as private AI implementations:
It's difficult to say, 'Oh, we'll bring in VDI, and it'll solve all our problems.' VDI is just one piece of a very complex jigsaw with many interdependencies. And the introduction of any technology can't be done in isolation. It must be done as part of a strategic refresh of IT systems across the business.
Moyes says the firm first explored VDI in 2018. However, the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 made remote working a necessity. As a first step, his team scaled up the Citrix solution they'd implemented in 2019, allowing more people to work remotely. During the pandemic, Moyes' team also centralized some regional offices in Manchester to create a single data center. With further business growth, it was clear more machines were needed:
So, it was a case of, 'Do we go with VDI or traditional tin?' There was an additional cost to VDI, but there were more business benefits from choosing the technology. So, we engaged ebb3 around choosing the VDI solution, and we got that solution built.
Specialist service provider ebb3 supported the rollout in early 2022 and helped manage the VDI environment, providing second and third-line support:
They are an extension of the IT team as well, in terms of managing Citrix and the real nuances in ControlUp and the VDI environment.
The firm suffered from technical issues when it deployed its VDI solution, and it was difficult to get reliable metrics on what was causing the problems. Moyes says ebb3 suggested using the ControlUp DEX platform. He says ebb3 explained how ControlUp provided real-time insights to help diagnose bottlenecks and fine-tune the environment:
The alerting in ControlUp is really good. It tells us if something is going wrong on the back end of the environment. It sits in the background and provides monitoring data and notifications when things aren't right.
The IT organization at SimpsonHaugh manages a disparate range of devices and connections. Some users connect using company-provided kit; others connect through Citrix using their hardware. Some employees connect from abroad. Staff also use many ISPs with varying quality of provision. Across all these variables, it was difficult to provide metrics and feedback on connection difficulties. Now, with ControlUp DEX, diagnostics is much easier:
DEX puts the agent on the machine. You can see the real-time latency figures and potential issues, such as how far they are from the Wi-Fi router, the latency to the router and their ISP. You get information you can present to the user. You can say, 'Actually, talk to your ISP and ask them whether they put a block on the port.' That insight makes a massive difference because the staff can do something about it.
Moyes says the technology has led to big cuts in maintenance requirements and supported productivity increases. Introducing VDI has led to a big reduction in IT downtime, equating to approximately 17% of SimpsonHaugh's 2023 turnover, or £1.79 million lost earnings saved. He advises other business and digital leaders to explore how tools like ControlUp can support real-time performance analysis:
The monitoring is great. You can do a lot of reporting and alerting and everything else, but that intangible benefit of being able to go to a user and say, 'This is the problem, this is why it's going wrong, and this is what we need to do to fix it,' is worth its weight in gold for the end user who wants to get on with their work.
Moyes plans to buy additional VDI hosts next year as workstations across the business reach the end-of-life stage. As part of that refresh plan, the organization will invest in IT hardware to run private AI internally and allow the firm's talented architects to flesh out powerful solutions to design challenges from any location:
That investment is a mixture of things. It's about bolstering the network, buying the physical tin to host and run AI, with the graphics cards and everything else, and changing the storage solution.
The firm's mix of hardware will allow architects to use AI models and tools safely and securely. The practice's use of emerging technology concentrates on three areas: word AI, image AI, and generative AI. Word AI focuses on task automation, such as creating minutes of meetings and developing site reports. Image AI, meanwhile, uses specialist tools, such as ComfyUI, to produce detailed images of early-stage proposals for design pitches:
We train the models on pre-existing SimpsonHaugh typologies, so the output feels like one of our renders or images. Image generation has given us the ability to enhance our sales pitch. Our architects can bang in the prompts and say, 'Give me a bedroom overlooking the beach.' The process takes minutes rather than hours.
Finally, Moyes says the practice uses generative AI to support the production of parametric designs. He gives the example of a building layout. SimpsonHaugh can use tools, such as Autodesk Forma and the Grasshopper visual programming interface in Rhino, to make suggestions as to how space is used and designed:
