Partner Spotlight: Autodesk

Autodesk, the doyen of computer-aided design, was founded in 1982 which was also the year AutoCAD® was first released. AutoCAD was designed to run on 8-bit and 16-bit microcomputers, machines we would recognize today as “PCs”. In the next four years, AutoCAD would become the default CAD software around the world, setting roots for Autodesk’s highly successful business.

Headquartered in San Rafael, California, Autodesk, Inc. currently has over 10,300 employees worldwide. Its main products include AutoCAD, BIM 360®, Civil 3D®, Fusion 360™, InfraWorks®, Inventor®, Maya®, PlanGrid, Revit®, Shotgun™, and 3ds Max®.

Not limited to just design, Autodesk makes software for people who conceptualize all types of things. They are a global leader in creation and design software for architecture, engineering, construction, media and entertainment, and manufacturing industries. If you’ve ever driven a high-performance car, admired a towering skyscraper, used a smartphone, or watched a great film, chances are you’ve experienced what millions of Autodesk customers have built with their software.

Autodesk software is highly specialized and relies on high-performance workstations, servers and storage networks to accomplish its tasks. The performance requirements are where ATTO and Autodesk come together.

ATTO network and storage solutions such as ATTO Celerity Fibre Channel HBAs, ATTO FastFrame Smart Ethernet NICs, ATTO ThunderLink® Thunderbolt™ adapters and ATTO ExpressSAS SAS HBAs are purpose-made to provide the fastest, more reliable storage connectivity in the industry. Recognizing this, ATTO and Autodesk have worked together over the past two decades to help Autodesk customers architect the best platforms for Autodesk software and workflows.

In 2007, Autodesk entered into an agreement with ATTO to integrate ATTO Celerity Fibre Channel HBAs as part of Autodesk visual effects and editing/finishing solutions. Celerity FC-44ES HBAs were utilized to achieve high-performance data transfers between workstations and storage systems accessed by Autodesk Inferno®, Autodesk Flame® and Autodesk® Flint visual effects systems, as well as the Autodesk Fire® and Autodesk Smoke® editing/finishing systems.

In 2010, ATTO Celerity 8Gb Fibre Channel HBAs were certified by Autodesk to meet the most extreme storage bandwidth requirements for Smoke environments and users could expand their storage connectivity options with proven interoperability from ATTO ExpressSAS HBAs.

Since then, between promoting each other at NAB Shows, ATTO and Autodesk have worked together to certify ATTO Celerity™ 16Gb Fibre Channel HBAs and ATTO FastFrame NQ42 40GbE Smart NICs for Autodesk Flame.

Most recently, ATTO announced that ATTO FastFrame™ N352 50GbE Smart Ethernet Adapters have been certified for use with Autodesk Flame® on HP Z8 and Dell 7920 platforms. Complete details and instructions are available on the list of certified hardware for Autodesk Flame 2021.

Finally, the collaboration continues with a custom Autodesk profile in the latest release of ATTO 360 Tuning, Monitoring and Analytics software.

We’re looking forward to continuing our work with Autodesk to help bring to life whatever the world’s designers and creators can imagine!