Content Center Deployment - Multiple Sites

[guyh]

Hi,

I am new to this area of the forums but hope to gain knowledge and participate more as I have recently been appointed CAD Manager for my company. 

We have multiple International sites with Inventor and ACAD seats (approx 200).  The current deployment of the Content Centers is working Ok but limiting in some ways.  It is still based on an Inventor 2008 deployment and Project file.  We have a central server location for all the created ipt files and there are 3 manually synchronized Vault servers with a single custom library of approved screws, fixings etc.

The reason for the 3 manually synchronized Vault servers is for speed issues accessing the database.  The Vault servers are located in our main sites (accessed via local network) with other smaller sites logging in over the internet to their closest server.

We are to be using Inventor 2011 very soon so this is an opportunity to move to somewhat modern configurations!  If we were to create the 'correct' setup for the content center then I expect this would require Vault Collaboration at the minimum to allow us to have local Vaults with a synchronized Content Center?  We currently have a PLM Database system which is storing all the user created files so the cost implication of using Vault Colab for just the Content Center is very hard to justify?  Can anybody give me an idea of costs for a company of our size?

Finally with 2011 brings the use of the Frame Generator.  This creates another issue as it's a great tool for our business but it would require us to manage the published Frame profiles outside of the PLM Database.  If all our users have access then a frame member which is published and then revised could be used elsewhere and cause problems.  The best solution in this situation is to have access on a workgroup only basis allowing them to publish the Frame Profiles only for their area.  Is this easy to do with user access rights in the ADMS console?

All help is much appreciated.

Thanks,

Guy