Bentley Systems embraces Microsoft’s Cloud to advance the world’s infrastructure

Digital transformation isn’t business as usual. It’s about a new way of doing business, and a new way of advancing infrastructure. Every day, you see infrastructure around you, from roads and bridges to buildings, wind farms and water-treatment plants. Better infrastructure is directly related to a better quality of life. This is where Bentley comes in, providing the software solutions that enable our users to design, construct and operate infrastructure assets around the world, from the smallest to the most iconic.

The CONNECT Edition, Bentley’s next generation software solution, is built on the Microsoft Azure Cloud platform in order to enable this digital transformation. By embracing Azure for reliable, scalable and more secure cloud services and infrastructure, the CONNECT Edition is able to make the design, construction and operation of infrastructure assets easier for owners, consulting firms, and their supply chains around the world.

Crossrail is a great example. Bentley recently and successfully upgraded Crossrail’s Common Data Environment for asset information through Bentley’s AssetWise managed services to a hybrid cloud-computing platform powered by Azure. The largest construction project in Europe, Crossrail has been designed in a virtual environment for 3D, 4D and 5D BIM building information management powered by Bentley’s comprehensive modeling software.

The new railway line will run over 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Reading and Heathrow in the west, through new tunnels under London to Shenfield and Abbey in the east. Using Bentley’s ProjectWise and AssetWise collaboration and information management platforms, their system stores, shares and manages information for approximately 1 million assets at more than 40 sites, connecting over 10,000 project participants.

The AssetWise portion of the CONNECT Edition – comprising the main information and process services – was migrated to Azure earlier this year. This system has been running 24/7 for over six years and was moved seamlessly to Azure as part of a performance improvement and cost reduction initiative that now enables the system to scale easily for the remainder of the project.

Now that the service is managed and maintained by Bentley using Azure, it is possible for the future operators of Crossrail to have easy access to the plethora of information used during design and construction to improve performance, reliability, and safety during operations.

Since introducing the CONNECT Edition, Bentley’s CONNECTED users have grown by approximately 50 percent globally month over month. So far, there are over 400,000 Bentley users across the world connecting every month through Bentley’s Azure cloud services, and this is only the beginning as we continue to migrate users to CONNECT Edition.

Follow our story on bentley.com to learn more about how we are working to enable digital transformation around the world.

Bhupinder Singh is the chief product officer for Bentley Systems.

Top photo courtesy of Consolidated Contractors Company (on behalf of TCA-JV)