Revit Server Problem

[Anonymous]

I have a Revit problem that seems at least for the moment to have given
pause to the technical people at my Autodesk reseller. I will describe
it here, and hopefully one of the readers of this newsgroup can offer
me relief. I run a company, called Archline CAD Services, Ltd. For the
last 13 years we have used AutoCAD to produce architectural working
drawings for architects. We have present and past architect-clients in
26 states and the US Virgin Islands. We are an internationally
dispersed wide area network of CAD collaborators who come together on
an as needed basis over the Internet. We use an FTP server to collect
and distribute work product. It works very well for us. Now we are
seriously considering a switch to Revit, and I am having some
coordination and management problems. I am being told by my Autodesk
reseller and other Revit users that our CAD collaborators must do their
work in real time directly on a centrally located Revit server. Most of
our CAD collaborators have various levels of limited bandwidth, which
would make the real time telecommunications links difficult to
impossible. I use PCAnywhere on a 7 mps connection to my company's
remotely colocated server, and as fast as it is and even when I am
online to the server all by myself the speeds sometimes are
compromised. The whole idea of real time networking collaboration seems
to me to be a formula for laggard productivity. Even at 100 mps on
local area networks I have seen significant slow downs in transmission
speeds, when a lot of connections are active all at the same time. And
if the central server goes down or is compromised in any way, then the
entire production team is compromised. If the server hard drive crashes
then the whole operation crashes too. I have also seen a tendency in
organizations for the IT person to exercise more or less arbitrary
control over the network activities, often to the detriment of the
company. If our company is going to use Revit productively according to
the opportunities and constraints inherent in our business model, we
need to be able to slice and dice the Revit model and parcel out work
assignments indiscriminately to as many remotely located CAD
collaborators as we deem appropriate for the respective tasks. And we
damned well do not intend to use Buzzsaw, which is too complicated, too
slow and entirely too expensive. We are currently paying $100 per month
to keep one of our 120 gig hard drive computers at a cohost facility,
where we are hooked up to a 100mps Internet backbone, and we are using
FTP server freeware. If it is necessary to use a project web server,
then we will get our own software and set up our own project web
server. But I cannot see now how such a server could allow each of our
CAD collaborators to download sliced and diced Revit data so that each
of them could do their respective work assignments and then upload
their completed work back to the project web server in such a manner
that everyone could keep from walking all over each other's dirt (an
old ditchdigger's advice). If any members of this newsgroup know of a
simple and practical and inexpensive way to solve this problem, then I
would really appreciate hearing about it.

[melarch]

It would appear that many of the people you have already discussed the issues associated with BIM, specifically Revit Building or Structure or Systems has given you accurate advice. You are not going to be able to utilize a Revit BIM model without requiring all of the team players who need to work on the model getting a decent band-width provider. I am not saying DSL or Cable will not suffice, but whatever provider they use should be capable of providing band-width over 768.

The second part of this equation to effectively work with Revit solutions over the web is to setup a web-site that can host as many users with appropriate band-width as need to work on the project concurrently. If in the past your project teams have been 5-8 users, then anticipate two thirds will be required for an equivalent production delivery. Thus you will be able to reduce the number of users and the required band-width will not be as demanding.

Last, their is some truth in your team working live or interactively, but I suspect your users are not all working in the same time zones or online with their work portions interactively now. Although there is some overlap in the team being available for meetings and coordination of the deliverable product. Revit worksets, which is how you would parse (parcel) out various parts of the building model for users to work on, is managed through a Central Server file which will reside on your web server. Worksets setup on each local users workstation a local file from which each user works from and only when they are ready to commit there portion of the work to the Central Server file is there real or interactive communication with the Central Server file. Now it is true that they have to be connected to the Central Server file while working in their Local file, because Revit exchanges various types of information interactively between the Central Server file and the users Local file, but this exchange is not mega band-width demanding. The basic nature of the interactive exchange is to manage who and what elements of the building model are being accessed or assigned by worksets and to provide a messaging system to alert and request other users who are actively working on their Local files.

So it maybe within the realm of your current server systems to host limited Revit user participation sessions or certainly develop a hardware infrastructure and setup a methodology to create an interactive workflow by which your users could interactively work on a Revit project.

If you want further assistance on developing a solution and establishing a workflow process and training, contact me at offline:

Mel Persin, AIA
AEC Technology Consultant
Professional Services Group

MasterGraphics, Inc.
3701 Algonguin Road, Suite 120
Rolling Meadows, IL 60008

847.398.5232 X2782 Direct
800.873.7238 Toll Free
847.398.3975 Fax
847.826.2409 Cell
mel.persin@masterg.com
melarch@covad.net
www.masterg.com

[Anonymous]

Hi Mel, Thanks for your thoughtful reply. Our company has a colocated computer, which has Web-FTP-Email server capabilities. It has a 120 gig hard drive. We can keep as much data on that computer as we want. We are not billed per data size. Our remotely located team leaders have good band width. However, some of our CAD drafters have less band width. Here is an idea. Have our team leaders use web server software to access our colocated computer to define various worksets in copied project data, which is kept in separate folders for the CAD drafters. Using FTP access, have the CAD drafters download files from their respectively assigned folders, do their work and upload. Then have our team leaders recouncil the CAD drafters' files against the Central Server files. When the recounciling process is over then turn the project files over to the architect in Revit format, or for those architects still using AutoCAD or ADT, turn the project files over in the format preferred by the architect-client. This would require folder and file redundancies on the server computer, but since we are not billed per data size and since we have plenty of storage capacity, data size would not necessarily be an issue. The big question is, would this work? Thanks and I will look forward to your reply.

[Anonymous]

take a look at the Riverbed solution. very efficient. Not sure on your
definition of "inexpensive" but what you are looking to do can be very
demanding. You should have a solid solution, especially if it will be the
essence of your business.

http://www.riverbed.com/?mtcPromotion=AdWords%3ERiverbed%3EName%3EGeneric%3ERiverbed%20phrase

http://aec.cadalyst.com/aec/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=353654&searchString=riverbed

let us know how it turns out!
--
Brian Earsley
www.arete3.com
708.342.1250 x.225

New to DWF? Check it out!
http://www.arete3.com/services/communication.html
select "ARCHITECTURE" - "File Formats"

wrote in message news:5413309@discussion.autodesk.com...
Hi Mel, Thanks for your thoughtful reply. Our company has a colocated
computer, which has Web-FTP-Email server capabilities. It has a 120 gig hard
drive. We can keep as much data on that computer as we want. We are not
billed per data size. Our remotely located team leaders have good band
width. However, some of our CAD drafters have less band width. Here is an
idea. Have our team leaders use web server software to access our colocated
computer to define various worksets in copied project data, which is kept in
separate folders for the CAD drafters. Using FTP access, have the CAD
drafters download files from their respectively assigned folders, do their
work and upload. Then have our team leaders recouncil the CAD drafters'
files against the Central Server files. When the recounciling process is
over then turn the project files over to the architect in Revit format, or
for those architects still using AutoCAD or ADT, turn the project files over
in the format preferred by the architect-client. This would require folder
and file redundancies on the server computer, but since we are not billed
per data size and since we have plenty of storage capacity, data size would
not necessarily be an issue. The big question is, would this work? Thanks
and I will look forward to your reply.

[Anonymous]

I don't see this business model working with Revit at the present.

wrote in message news:5413309@discussion.autodesk.com...
Hi Mel, Thanks for your thoughtful reply. Our company has a colocated
computer, which has Web-FTP-Email server capabilities. It has a 120 gig hard
drive. We can keep as much data on that computer as we want. We are not
billed per data size. Our remotely located team leaders have good band
width. However, some of our CAD drafters have less band width. Here is an
idea. Have our team leaders use web server software to access our colocated
computer to define various worksets in copied project data, which is kept in
separate folders for the CAD drafters. Using FTP access, have the CAD
drafters download files from their respectively assigned folders, do their
work and upload. Then have our team leaders recouncil the CAD drafters'
files against the Central Server files. When the recounciling process is
over then turn the project files over to the architect in Revit format, or
for those architects still using AutoCAD or ADT, turn the project files over
in the format preferred by the architect-client. This would require folder
and file redundancies on the server computer, but since we are not billed
per data size and since we have plenty of storage capacity, data size would
not necessarily be an issue. The big question is, would this work? Thanks
and I will look forward to your reply.