Revit Server in a virtual world - feasible or not?

[Jason_S]

I have been testing a Revit Central Server and a Revit Local Server in virtual machines.  In our testing network they ran pretty well.  The central server was on one VM and the local was on another.  Both testing VM's shared the same Processors (quad core) and RAM (16 Gigs).  All seemed to run fine.

So we moved the VM's onto our production VM boxes and the servers are slow.  Could having other VM's running do this?  I think I know the answer just need outside confirmation.

Would having a dedicated box at each location be best or is VM good as long as other resources are kept to a minimum?

So far our models are 200 megs in size but some could be larger in the future.

Thanks for the help and input on this subject.

[alan.quinn]

I asked our Revit Server lead tech to weigh in on this one. I will let you know what he says.

Thanks for posting.

[sburke]

How many users are accessing a single model concurrently? VMs are our current setup, and I would like to know as well. The number of cores, proc speed, and RAM are within specifications - and we don't yet have physical servers to dedicate to this.

We have noticed a performance hit when there is more than 10 users on a single model, which doesn't show up as stress on the server, but is definitely visible in the Revit client application.

[Anonymous]

what virtualizing infrastructure are you using, what type of servers and what type of storage?

[Anonymous]

Hi Alan,

We are about to deploy a new Server and run VM's that will have file server for our office and main revit server all in separte VM's.

We intend to allow consultants (mech, se, hyd, ele etc) to connect to VM - Revit server and colaborate ona single project. SBS 2011 is OS we are going for.

Can you tell me if this is going to be an issue and also any prefered spec for the server?

Thanks In Advance.

[DarrenP]

i believe revit server only supports windows server 2008

[sburke]

There isn't any support for connecting multiple firms to the same models using Revit Server. It can be done, but be very cautious, and most that have done it successfully have placed accellleratorsnin each location. Saving to a sever that isn't in the same place as your Revit application will negatively affect the entire team