Check us out at this year’s NVIDIA GPU Technology Conference. See below for details!
Geographic information system (GIS) mapping is the go-to, data-driven approach that organizations across the globe use for informed analysis on everything from real estate and transportation systems to management of natural resources and assessing terrorist threats.
Products like ESRI ArcGIS Pro provide the platform to create, edit, analyze and share 
information, turning 2D data into 3D visual models for powerful visualization. GPU virtualization has made its way into so many use cases in the enterprise and public sector, spanning everything from airplane designs and cardiology imaging to three-dimensional blueprints for the world’s most popular sporting venues. Recently, I had the opportunity to discuss first-hand how one government agency is using this technology in the area of GIS mapping.
Serving over 20 million constituents, the Southwest Florida Water Management District describes their mission as managing the water and related natural resources to ensure its continued availability, while maximizing benefits to the public. Leigh Vershowske, GIS Database and Server Analyst for the district, shared how 3D visual models are core to executing that mission:
“Predictive models are an important tool for understanding how water flows through ground and surface systems as well as how these systems respond to changes in rainfall, surface water runoff and pumping.
“Surface water flow models, for example, are used to identify flood prone areas and 3-D visualizations help demonstrate flooding scenarios to policy makers and homeowners.
“All of this information is used to ensure that there are adequate water supplies for a rapidly growing population and to protect the quality of natural water bodies that are important economic drivers.”
To support this mission, the district turned to the powerful combination of VMware 
Horizon with NVIDIA GRID vGPU to run their virtualized instances of ESRI ArcGIS Pro for their engineers and modelers. In doing so, the district overcame the lack of resources on the average user’s PC that were not sized for heavy 3D graphics. Now, the district can spin up 3D-powered virtual desktops with Horizon and NVIDIA GRID on demand and rapidly take on special projects that require ArcGIS Pro.
Horizon proved to be the best platform for these high-end virtual desktops, because of its:
- Automated provisioning process;
- Ease of modifying system resources;
- Ease of securing and managing user access; and
- Centralized image management for multiple template configurations.
This virtualized ecosystem was built on a high-performance platform using Horizon, NVIDIA GRID and Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS). With this architecture in place, the district experienced unprecedented speed of scale and access, with up to ten Horizon virtual desktops running a heavy 3D project at the same time, while an eleventh user performed normal pan/zoom functions on a single Cisco UCS C-Series Server installed with two NVIDIA GRID cards.
The district also enabled its engineers and modelers with easy access to a large, accessible pool of high-powered graphics desktops to create 3D visual models rapidly, aiding scientists in their analyses and in sharing information with the public.
If you missed our special webcast, “Southwest Florida Water Management District Deploys ArcGIS Pro on VMware Horizon with NVIDIA GRID vGPU,” you can still access the replay here—check it out!
An Appliance Solution Purpose-built for Virtualized ArcGIS Pro, Built on Horizon, NVIDIA GRID and Dell
Want to learn more about how to quickly get started with deploying virtualized ESRI ArcGIS Pro in your environment? Read more about this turnkey solution offer from VMware, Dell and NVIDIA.
Are You Heading to NVIDIA GTC 2016?
Want to hear more about virtualized GIS Mapping with ESRI ArcGIS Pro and other great customer use cases? Connect with VMware and NVIDIA at GTC in Silicon Valley on April 4-7. Check out all the sessions VMware and NVIDIA are offering by visiting the schedule builder page here.
For conference registration and a 20% discount, please visit: gputechconf.com.
For more information on VMware Horizon 7, visit vmware.com/go/horizon.
To join the NVIDIA/VMware Community, visit nvidia.com/nvc.
