topic Re: Revit Cloud Backup in Revit Cloud Worksharing Forum

Revit Cloud Backup

Anonymous — Fri, 04 Jan 2019 06:56:06 GMT

Hi there,

Revit on tbr cloud does not create local files and automatically does not create backups from the live Revit folder as any of companies server does.

In your own company backups of your server is done often to avoid lose information which allow to come back on time.

As the client who rent/buy a Autodesk little space in Cloud server to use BIM360 seems we cannot do that anymore.

I could not find a way to create automatic backup from the host. The only solution I found is to publish manually the files to have a new version stored in the website.

Surely it must be a smarter way to do so, can it be shared with me please?

Thank you very much.

Re: Revit Cloud Backup

AdamPeter — Tue, 08 Jan 2019 15:34:21 GMT

Hello @Anonymous and thank you for the post!

There are a couple of approaches you can take with regard to backup. First, if you have a model open, you can do a saveas and keep that local. Not automated, I know, but it's one approach. Second, you can now schedule publishes from the Project Admin page. This can at least help automate getting SWC versions on the web site. I know there is Forge API available to automate downloading files from the project locally as well so I know it can be done with some programming effort.

There is also a local cache kept when you open files (C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Autodesk\Revit\]Revit Version]\CollaborationCache), but this can get a little cumbersome to look through because it names the folders and files by their project and model GUIDs used behind the scenes. It can be discovered with a little investigation into the journal files, but the point is if you are disconnected from the cloud or something else happens where you need a local file, they can be recovered.

I understand this may not be the fully automated approach you are looking for and I would like to better understand exactly what you need. Perhaps you could expand on the workflow you were hoping to see? Perhaps the ability to download a previous SWC version or something along those lines? You can also look through the shared Ideas or create one that can get voted on and perhaps implemented as well.

thanks again for reaching out!

Re: Revit Cloud Backup

Anonymous — Tue, 08 Jan 2019 16:32:45 GMT

Hi,

Thank you for you answer.

Could you please kindly send me link or location where a can schedule publish models in BIM doc? It would be great.

I cannot find it in Project Admin I am afraid.

Thank you very much.

Re: Revit Cloud Backup

AdamPeter — Tue, 08 Jan 2019 21:03:11 GMT

Here is a link to the help file that describes how to use the new functionality.

https://help.autodesk.com/view/BIM360D/ENU/?guid=BIM360D_Design_Collaboration_to_schedule_regular_publishing_of_a_package_html

thanks,

Re: Revit Cloud Backup

adrian_worboys — Wed, 09 Jan 2019 22:50:35 GMT

Following this topic. It would be great if we can backup direct from C4R area rather than having to do this scheduled publish.

Re: Revit Cloud Backup

KyleB_Autodesk — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 14:43:27 GMT

@@adrian.worboy wrote:

Following this topic. It would be great if we can backup direct from C4R area rather than having to do this scheduled publish.

First off, every SWC version of a model is automatically backed up in Revit Cloud Worksharing, and available for restore in a disaster recovery scenario (corruption, unwanted modifications, etc). That's been part of the service for years, and nothing you need to do to enable it.

We also know that many companies want to locally backup data for various reasons, and Adam has illuminated a number of workflows to accomplish this.

@adrian_worboys can you elaborate a bit on what you are trying to accomplish with your request to "backup direct to from the C4R area"? What versions do you want to backup, and where do you want them backed up?

A technical context for this is that RCW services don't actually contain .RVT files for live models. For performance reasons, binary chunks called Element Streams are actually stored for the Live Models. Those are what make their way across the interwebs (256-bit encrypted) between Revit and RCW services. If you want a .RVT from RCW, you need to ask it to "Publish" the Model Version, which will assemble the Element Streams into an RVT, and then declare that up on BIM 360 for viewing.

Cheers,

Kyle

Re: Revit Cloud Backup

adrian_worboys — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 22:10:32 GMT

Thanks for responding @KyleB_Autodesk.

We had been using the Revit Server for many years, and have recently switched to BIM360/C4R. When we had been using the RS, our IT department had set it up so that a backup was automatically created/stored on a different local server depending on the location. So I am assuming the 'element streams' are the same for RS and C4R.

I have been told that the revit model lives on the locked skyscraper API prior to publishing. Once the model is published is moves to the 'unlocked' BIM360 area.

Rather than relying on the cloud to keep backups, we would like to keep a copy on our local server. Hence my comment. It would be good to be able to backup from the skyscraper space rather than relying on the BIM360 cloud (and the new publish feature) as the backup location.

Also, sometimes when you 'restore' a model, you want to actually check it before it becomes a new working model. Currently your help file says:

Important: When you restore a previous version of the model, that version becomes the current version, and all of the more recent versions are deleted. When you use the Restore action to delete versions of the model, there is no way to undo that action.

Being able to make a copy of this model for review before you make it the current version would be helpful.

Regards,
Adrian

Re: Revit Cloud Backup

KyleB_Autodesk — Fri, 11 Jan 2019 18:50:26 GMT

"So I am assuming the 'element streams' are the same for RS and C4R."

Indeed they are.

"It would be good to be able to backup from the skyscraper space rather than relying on the BIM360 cloud (and the new publish feature) as the backup location."

Using the Publish API and then the Forge DM API is the most effective way to do this in an automated way, and is effectively what you're asking for here. There isn't really a location within Cloud Worksharing where the actual RVT file lives, just the Element Streams, so the BIM 360 data space + the Forge DM APIs that access it are way to go.

"Being able to make a copy of this model for review before you make it the current version would be helpful."

We agree. It's in the backlog.

-Kyle

Re: Revit Cloud Backup

Anonymous — Sat, 12 Jan 2019 19:09:47 GMT

Thank you for that.

I was looking more as at least one per day. Weekly is not good enough.

I mean I can do manually updating latest through the website or just from a Revit file however I was expecting something better??

I guess everyone agree we are missing a feature here??

Thanks

Re: Revit Cloud Backup

adrian_worboys — Sun, 13 Jan 2019 22:53:52 GMT

I agree, a daily option would be good.

Thanks

Re: Revit Cloud Backup

markus_briglmeir — Tue, 15 Jan 2019 07:24:08 GMT

@Anonymous and @adrian_worboys, your last comments refer to Scheduled Publish it sounds. We are thinking about changing the publish options, so I want to understand your comment of 'at least once per day' better.

What is the goal of that workflow, and why is that important to your projects?

Thanks for clarification,

Markus

Re: Revit Cloud Backup

adrian_worboys — Tue, 15 Jan 2019 07:37:18 GMT

hi @markus_briglmeir.

The main reason is potential loss of work. Say you had 5 people working on a project for a full day, times by 5 days in the week, then you have a crash, or someone modelled something incorrectly and you want to go back, then you have potentially 25 working days lost (worst case). Often this is happening over large geographical regions. So ease of recovery is paramount.

Yes, I understand that I have painted a slightly incorrect picture in that you can recover some items for the users collaborationcache area, but the naming of those files is unusable.

Regards,

Adrian

Re: Revit Cloud Backup

Anonymous — Tue, 15 Jan 2019 09:10:24 GMT

Totally agreed with Adrian.

Same reasons.

Ragards

Re: Revit Cloud Backup

KyleB_Autodesk — Tue, 15 Jan 2019 17:02:34 GMT

@adrian_worboys wrote:

hi @markus_briglmeir.

The main reason is potential loss of work. Say you had 5 people working on a project for a full day, times by 5 days in the week, then you have a crash, or someone modelled something incorrectly and you want to go back, then you have potentially 25 working days lost (worst case). Often this is happening over large geographical regions. So ease of recovery is paramount.

Yes, I understand that I have painted a slightly incorrect picture in that you can recover some items for the users collaborationcache area, but the naming of those files is unusable.

Regards,

Adrian

It seems like all that's missing here is the ability to open a previous version of a model as "detached" from Revit Cloud Worksharing. All the extra publishing seems extraneous if you just want access to previous versions of your models, which RCW already provides (albeit with limitations you'd want us to resolve).

Am I missing anything?

-Kyle

Re: Revit Cloud Backup

adrian_worboys — Tue, 15 Jan 2019 22:35:49 GMT

@KyleB_Autodesk

That sounds about right. If we can access the RCW side before it goes across to BIM360, and be able to grab older versions of a model (without permanently rolling back) that would be ideal.

Probably better than publishing as it would remove the publish step.

Thanks

Re: Revit Cloud Backup

andrew.cocke — Mon, 28 Jan 2019 17:06:57 GMT

Just joining this discussion. Our firm is just starting to use BIM 360 in earnest. Now that we have about five major projects running in BIM 360 Design, we're starting to realize some of these critical limitations. The fact that we cannot restore a detached copy is probably our most critical problem followed closely by the inability to automate backups to local servers. I've had a number of people come to me in the last week, looking to restore objects that were inadvertently deleted from the project file. On Revit Server projects, we would simply restore a detached copy from our 3x-daily server backup (assuming no local copies exist for the time period we needed). I understand that Autodesk has built a backup system, but it is almost useless unless there is also some way to restore detached copies. And like others in this thread, I agree that BIM 360's backup systems in no way obviates our need to have locally stored backups at defined (daily, or multiple times daily) intervals.

Re: Revit Cloud Backup

JPrashaw1 — Tue, 17 Dec 2019 15:53:44 GMT

Hi All -

Bringing life again to an old thread. Was there ever a resolution on this? We too are looking for a way to create locally stored backups at defined intervals.

Thanks so much!

Re: Revit Cloud Backup

fluke0 — Thu, 18 Jun 2020 19:24:14 GMT

One other issue to think about. If data was lost on the BIM 360 platform (ie something was not retrievable for BIM 360) is Autodesk liable? Does Autodesk guarantee the safety of our data? I would like to mitigated the risk of Autodesk failing at protecting our data. I have no control over how Autodesk protects my data, I would like to automatically bring my data down from the cloud as a extra "insurance policy" on data loss. If I bring it down locally I have some control over it. I really don't understand why Autodesk doesn't see the need for this. Autodesk has full access to our data, all we are asking is the same control.

Re: Revit Cloud Backup

fluke0 — Thu, 18 Jun 2020 19:27:13 GMT

Re: Revit Cloud Backup

Anonymous — Sun, 15 Aug 2021 03:17:46 GMT

I want to 'ditto' this post.

Is there any update on how all of this can work?

It seems that the ability to access old data from old files is much more onerous than it used to be.

Thank you