Revit Server hosting site

[haydenwse]

I need to collaborate on a Revit project with a remote site using Revit Server but by email connection will not enable me to set up a central server at this location.  Are there any server hosting sites that I can use as a central server?

[jjs]

did you ever get an answer? I'd like to do the same, but unfortunately all of my servers are still running 2003. A virtual or cloud server running 2008 would probably do the trick.

[haydenwse]

I did a Google search for  "Revit Hosting small business" and found a site under "collaboration products" that offers a hosting service for small businesses.  The setup was easy and the system works great.  

So far it is working out very well.

[Anonymous]

So, we could also spin our wheels trying to find the site, or you could post a link. 🙂

[haydenwse]

http://civilsystemsgroup.com/revit_hosting_sb.htm

There are probably other but this is the one that is working for me.

[Anonymous]

Excellent, I appreciate the link and the feeback. 

M.

[jjs]

I've been using the same company for a week now. seems to be working great. We had to make some modifications to our cisco firewall to get it to work, but this company was very helpfull in getting everything set up and working with our IT consultants (hired, not in house) to get the firewall configed properly. We're moving along well now and the company in the link provides a good product.

[haydenwse]

This setup has been very helpful for me.  I have been able to collaborate with a drafting service 300 miles away with very little slow down.

[Anonymous]

I note that VPN connections are being suggested by the hosting site. We have been informed by Autodesk that attempting to use a VPN connection when running Revit Server will create problems. We have experienced this ourselves and have had to insure that no user attempte to access the models over a VPN connection.

Does this not present a problem with a hosting service? What happens when the VPN connection fails? Will all models and connections be protected?

D Darling.

[jjs]

the hosting service that we're using does not use revit server. They simply set up a VPN with their computer and host your central file. The hosting service uses WAN acceleration equipment, and each user must lease a software license for the equipment if you don't physically have the equipment on your end. Then you map their server as a drive and use it as if it were a local drive. I have tired doing this without the acceleration hardware and it does not practically work. everything is way too slow. With the hardware on one end and the software on the other, it works pretty well, but don't get me wrong, it's not without incident. Sync's are fairly slow, but still very much workable. And Sync errors do occasionally happen. I'd imagine you'd have some issues if the VPN goes down, but it's been stable for us.  This setup has allowed us to work on one model across the internet without setting up our own revit server. I feel that it's a decent fix that will work for us until revit server has a little more time to mature.

[haydenwse]

My experience is similar to jjs.  My understanding is that the Revit server is only suitable for use within the same firm because it needs to be within the same firewall.  Using the hosting service your central file is held on the VPN and protected by their firewall. 

I did have one incidence of a failed VPN connection.  I was able to keep working on my local file until the connection was restored and it resynced without problems.  The lost connection was due to me working at 3:00 am while they were doing network maintenance.  They told me that if I would let them know when I needed to work all night, they would reschedule the maintenance.

All-in-all the system worked very well.