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Business Needs
Help AspenTech customers mass-deploy new software versions faster, minimize deployment overhead, and improve user collaboration.
Solution
Benefits
- Rapid aspenONE Engineering cloud-based deployment accelerates time to value and enables customers to take immediate advantage of the most advanced innovations.
- Real time collaboration enables multiple engineers to work together on a project at the same time.
- Scalable, flexible solution can grow and evolve to support future initiatives.
Challenge
A leader in asset optimization software solutions, Aspen Technology serves a variety of markets, including oil and gas, chemical, pharmaceutical, engineering and construction, and many others. Designed for complex industrial environments, its aspenONE Engineering solutions help organizations gain insight to design, operate, and maintain assets faster, safer, longer, and greener.
Solution
AspenTech chose Xi Frame because it offered the flexibility as well as easy deployment and management to enable its customers to access the latest aspenONE Engineering software anytime and anywhere.
“We chose Xi Frame because it offered such a wide variety of deployment options,” says Lingard. “The Xi Frame Platform was a great fit for us because it is cloud agnostic and includes services to configure and support the cloud environment.”
Delivering Sophisticated Optimization Software in the Cloud
To test the suitability of Xi Frame for its applications, AspenTech hosted a six-month pilot program with six top customers. Participants included heavyweights like ConocoPhillips, Burns & McDonnell Engineering, and others.
After a successful trial, AspenTech chose to certify Xi Frame for Business as a supported platform to enable customers to deploy the aspenONE Engineering Suite in the cloud with minimal overhead.
“Xi Frame is cloud agnostic, which makes it an ideal solution for a customer that has already committed to a cloud offering like AWS or Azure,” says Lingard. “We are positioning Xi Frame as a platform to enable our customers to roll out our applications in the cloud in the fastest possible time.”
Delivering Sophisticated Optimization Software in the Cloud
Xi Frame makes it easy for customers to take advantage of AspenTech’s most advanced engineering software optimization solutions, while moving forward with their strategic cloud initiatives.
“Xi Frame offers a variety of potential benefits for our customers,” says Sandeep Mohan, Senior Product Marketing Specialist at Aspen Technology. “For an IT manager, deployment is now much easier, as it can be done centrally; while process engineers benefit from anytime, anywhere access.”
AspenTech’s customers can fully test software upgrades and patches within the Xi Frame platform, to minimize deployment risk.
“Xi Frame’s sandbox feature lets our customers perform testing prior to publishing a new version of an application, without impacting production users,” says Lingard. “They can install an update on the sandbox, test it, compare old and new versions, then publish it for use by end users.”
Xi Frame offers a variety of potential benefits for our customers using aspenONE Engineering. For an IT manager, deployment is now much easier, as it can be done centrally; while process engineers benefit from anytime, anywhere access.
Sandeep Mohan, Senior Product Marketing Specialist, Aspen Technology
BENEFITS
Utilizing Xi Frame to support innovative delivery models, AspenTech can meet its customers’ increasing expectations for cloud access to its software. Participants in the AspenTech pilot were very enthusiastic about the potential of Xi Frame as a platform for delivering their most critical applications.
“After we concluded our trial with six companies, we surveyed participants about their experience, and nearly 100% of them agreed that Xi Frame is a viable cloud platform for using AspenTech engineering products,” says Lingard.
Improved Performance and New Capabilities
Participants in the AspenTech trial were pleased to report that Xi Frame worked as well as the desktop yet was accessible anytime, anywhere.
A representative from Burns & McDonnell said, “I was impressed by the performance of aspenONE Engineering in the cloud. No latency issues, and the Aspen Capital Cost Estimator report ran in 1-2 seconds versus about 20 seconds on my laptop.”
The Nutanix solution also enables customers to work together in new ways that were not always possible with previous versions of AspenTech solutions. Using the shared session feature on Xi Frame, multiple users can now work on a file at the same time, on any device, to enhance collaboration between engineering teams.
NEXT STEPS
Xi Frame provides a true foundation for further innovation at AspenTech, and the firm’s developers are excited to offer customers new ways to consume their software optimization solutions.
“We are completing the certification of Xi Frame for Business now” says Lingard. “We are also developing our processes to guide end-customers through the adoption of the new platform, for smooth and easy deployment.”
AspenTech is looking forward to building on Xi Frame to continue to extend the reach of its solutions to more customers across more industries in the years to come.