Inventor Network Config

[Anonymous]

Guys,
We are moving the design dept here, and have a chance to setup a new files
system and knowing how fussy Inv can be I thought a few questions may be
prudent here. We have some crashes here which we feel are network related as
we are running thru about 3 switches onto the same congested server that
gets used for everything else in the company.
Our suggestion was to setup a dedicated CAD server just for storing our
files with gigabit ethernet. The network guy here complains that we would
bring the network to its kness by having a gigabit network connection and
leeching all the avaliable network traffic. Also the cost of a new server is
always an issue.

I sorta felt that an INV server probably could just be a mid range desktop
machine with a couple of 10k Western dig IDE drives in a raid0 config. If it
is just a file server it wont need fast garphics or CPU or lots of ram etc,
is this correct? (was thinkng of a P4 with 512meg ram and onboard graphics
would do it?) Also we could run gigabit between our CAD stations and the
server then run 100mbit for the CAD server onto the network to solve the
leeching problem.
Does anyone have a bit more knowledge or experience to share here?

Some ammo to go back with would be great

Brian Corbin

[Anonymous]

Put all of the memory you can in your server. Microsoft developed the
"/3GB" option for servers. On a server, memory is used to provide multiple
users faster access to their files. The server tries to read ahead and
anticipate the file access by the clients.

I also recommend
A server OS
If you use EIDE disk drives go for big fast ones, and a motherboard that
supports them.
Talk with the professionals at Dell or somewhere as to a good configuration.

Please do not run Inventor on your server. Inventor is designed to use 100%
CPU cycles. This gives file sharing second (and last) priority. The
connections then time out.

John Elliott

"Brian Corbin" wrote in message
news:91D83D20D9D94A84A23F8F72ACD246D4@in.WebX.maYIadrTaRb...
>
> Guys,
> We are moving the design dept here, and have a chance to setup a new files
> system and knowing how fussy Inv can be I thought a few questions may be
> prudent here. We have some crashes here which we feel are network related
as
> we are running thru about 3 switches onto the same congested server that
> gets used for everything else in the company.
> Our suggestion was to setup a dedicated CAD server just for storing our
> files with gigabit ethernet. The network guy here complains that we would
> bring the network to its kness by having a gigabit network connection and
> leeching all the avaliable network traffic. Also the cost of a new server
is
> always an issue.
>
> I sorta felt that an INV server probably could just be a mid range desktop
> machine with a couple of 10k Western dig IDE drives in a raid0 config. If
it
> is just a file server it wont need fast garphics or CPU or lots of ram
etc,
> is this correct? (was thinkng of a P4 with 512meg ram and onboard graphics
> would do it?) Also we could run gigabit between our CAD stations and the
> server then run 100mbit for the CAD server onto the network to solve the
> leeching problem.
> Does anyone have a bit more knowledge or experience to share here?
>
> Some ammo to go back with would be great
>
> Brian Corbin
>
>