In-house server or the cloud, how does your organisation handle Civil 3D drawings?

[m_kingdon]

Hi all,

It is server replacement time at my employer. We are undecided whether to replace the server with a new unit and keep everything in-house, or start using the cloud for all our Civil 3D projects.

I am unsure whether the Construction Cloud is suitable as a server replacement. The marketing seems to push the collaboration benefits of the cloud workflow, but we use only Civil 3D for the majority of our projects as they are land development. The architects usually come in later when lots become available to purchase.

I am also concerned about the BIM Collaborate Pro license and whether everyone in the organisation will need the Pro License in order to use drefs.

Does your organisation use the cloud for all Civil 3D projects, both small and large?  

I have used the cloud myself for several projects and I am quite familiar with BIM, the workflow, and the benefits etc.  I am just not sure if I can recommend it as a server replacement.

[Cadguru42]

---

@bjacob1991 wrote:

This is the exact forum conversation I have been looking for. My firm is in a similar place as the OP and I am wondering if ACC is right. Currently we operate in a hybrid capacity with 1-2 days a week in the office and the rest as WFH.  We also have about 10% of our users as geographically remote and are therefore full time WFH. We have an in-house server that we access via VPN when WFH. 50% of staff uses RDP to access their office workstation and 50% have dedicated CAD workstations at home. We are entirely Civil 3D based. All users with dedicated home workstation are currently experiencing latency when opening and savings files over VPN. This ranges from 3-30 mins to open a file depending on complexity, # of xrefs & drefs, etc. RDP users have no latency issues even though they also use the VPN to access their workstations. Our conclusion is that VPN just can't handle the bandwidth demands.

Currently our firm is contemplating more office workstations and RDP, better VPN services, or going with the Cloud and transferring to ACC. I am curious if other firms in the AEC realm are in the same dilemma. From what I've read about latest Desktop Connector is that it handles drefs well but it seems actual experiences are different. I am not familiar with ProjectWise or Engyte so i'll have to take a look at that those as well. Very curious where people fall on this subject as I know Autodesk is pushing ACC hard but that certainly doesn't mean it is the best option. 

---

Almost everyone at my company is remote work. I've been working from home for four years now. We have a few offices, but since the lockdowns we downgraded the offices and removed some completely. We used to have a VPN, but as you've found out, there are latency issues with using it. We switched to Egnyte a few years ago and it's been great. We're a consulting firm, so a lot of the projects are driven by the client. The majority of the larger firms use ProjectWise. 

[CADmgrMike]

We are 99% C3D firm also. I will say this in regards to C3D and VPN. It stinks!

Does it work? Mostly, but performance is awful and using something like SSM over VPN is a disaster. We tried this during Covid and spent 10s of thousands in lost productivity. Latency will kill you.

1. We are a Panzura firm. We were before Covid, and for multi-office collaboration, it's hard to beat. Assuming everyone has a good outside connection to the internet. If that breaks down, then there will be problems.

2. After Covid, we switched remote CAD users to Workspot VM's with a Panzura appliance in the datacenter next to the VMs. Performance is awesome and SSM, Dref's, etc work flawlessly.

3. Panzura is $$$

I don't believe ANYONE in this storage space industry (except maybe Autodesk) understands the SSM .dst file, C3D Data References, and how those two things impact their system. I don't have any experience with Project Wise.

Besides those two things, it's just another file type that needs a lock.

I say again, latency plays a HUGE role in whether this stuff works and works correctly.

We have more technical meetings with Egnyte, and I have some hard questions to ask. Hopefully we'll get a POC project first before spending any hard $$.

[zwilkins]

Curious if you have had any further developments with Egnyte?  I had an intro call with them and they have advised that a "Hybrid" approach with Civil3d works well.  Essentially, our on-site server is still used for "local" file copies to maintain strong Civil3D performance, but everything is cloud based and can be accessed at any location.  Eager to get  a demo and try for ourselves, or hear from others experience!

Thanks!

[CADmgrMike]

@zwilkins , no POC yet, but we're getting close.

Panzura is similar to what you have. It's cloud storage w/ instant replication in each office with a Panzura appliance.

You can't access data outside of office environment without VPN connection.

That's why we switched to the VM environment for remote users.

Egnyte is different in that you access data through a local pc desktop connector.

So remote users should have a "similar" experience as the office, depending of course on internet connection.

At least that's what I understand right now.

[randyspear6624]

Long time projectwise user here.

No major complaints with it other than how we or partners administer it. The speed is pretty good in office or over VPN. However there are times where it's very slow but I doubt I can pin that on Bentley given the typical speed. 

I'm curious about the ACC docs platform... What would be the difference between that (minus ABC) and Microsoft Teams document management? We don't use teams but one of our partners does and was showing me the general functionality. It looks alot like ACC. 

Additionally, Autodesk did present ACC/ABC to us but it seems quite basic compared to PW or Vault (RIP). They seemed to focus on how the data shortcuts were the same locally as they are in the cloud (this is not ground breaking stuff). They also praised the speed when you select a project to be kept on the device. Lol still nothing new compared to it's competitors. 

[r.capper]

My input is test extensively if not vanilla windows or all Autodesk as there seems to be a wide range of what 'compatible' means. Claims of AutoCAD support will not equal Civil 3D support, get a mix of platforms and both the platform vendor and Autodesk can point to each other... leaving you stuck in the middle.
At least with ACC it is all their system, no real experience if any better but at least you have one support network to deal with for resolution.

[ektkamv]

I have a question that I want to ask to see if someone has had the same problem.
We have a local server and we have phased a lot of problems with our DWG files which contain only data shortcuts. We were unable to open the DWG files and saw that they were creating problems with the data shortcuts. We contacted Autodesk but the advice that they gave us was to work locally.
What’s your experience and what is better for the workflow of Civil 3d of many users?
Is it better to move to cloud server or stay local and how we can avoid the same problem from happening again.
We are using civil 3d 2024 and all of our projects is made with custom subassembly’s

[MichaelH13]

A local server is "working locally", i.e, not in the cloud. 

Your question doesn't target anything specifically so it's difficult to answer. 

Data shortcuts can become broken for a few reasons and without seeing what "problems" you are having it is not possible to give a solution.

Always better to work locally and backup off site, its how our small office manages it.

[tcorey]

Hi @m_kingdon,

Do you have an update? I'd like to hear the successes and failures you've experienced, if you care to share. Is the Desktop Connector still causing woes?

[m_kingdon]

So, the decision was made to adopt Microsoft SharePoint as our Cloud Server.

I can’t really comment on it much as we haven’t made the move yet.  SharePoint doesn’t support file locking (not conveniently) so duplicate file opening is a problem.  However, in initial tests it seemed to perform well.  Civil 3D drawings opened fine and I did not experience any problems with referenced files.  But to emphasize, I haven’t done much testing.

My original point remains regarding ACC.  It is a good platform for linking multidisciplinary professionals to work/collaborate on a single, complex project.  But ACC is not a cloud server replacement for mass projects.

That is absolutely fine in my opinion.  I doubt mass project storage was the intention of the ACC.  Why would AutoDesk want to start running server farms anyway?

The most frustrating part of this process has been dealing with our CAD reseller who has continually pushed ACC onto us, stating it was the only option and tried to nullify the difficulties and extra costs.  They were simply snake oil salesmen, and our last meeting was the closest I’ve ever been to shouting at someone in the office.  ACC is not a mass project storage solution and I am happy to fight anyone who thinks otherwise.

[m_kingdon]

The other option we considered was 12D Synergy.  It is initially quite a clunky platform to use and requires various applications to be installed and plugins added to Civil 3D.  Files have to be checked in and out to be used etc.  But once the platform was up and running I found it to be very good.  It also had a very strong import feature that made migrating existing Civil 3D projects onto the Synergy platform very easy.  I found it light years ahead of the DWG Migration tool from AutoDesk.

Overall, my summary so far is:

SharePoint: good allrounder for documents and CAD files.  No thrills, some flaws, does everything quite well.  Somewhat easy to adopt.

12D Synergy: very good with CAD files.  A bit clunky at first, but great once you are past the initial pain.

ACC: the best tool for project collaboration where various AutoDesk users need to work together.  Also great for Revit users.  Not suitable for mass project storage for Civil 3D users who work on various small / medium sized projects and don’t often need real time collaboration.

[CADmgrMike]

If you are a multi office firm, Sharepoint will not work well with C3D Data References or Sheet Set Manager. You need to be looking at something like Egnyte, Panzure, ACC, Projectwise, etc. Those cloud storage platforms are designed to work with the C3D software.

C3D data references are not meant to work with UNC pathing, and that's what Sharepoint path is. You need a mapped drive letter for the references to work correctly, consistently.

SSM is a beast of a different nature. Anything that introduces the remote amount of extra latency, and issues will be many in a multi-user environment.

That's my 2 cents.

[asturtevantSCRCP]

My company is on Egnyte and it feels slower and more prong to C3D freezing then a local server. I was hoping this thread would have some tips.

We sync for offline access the C3D search paths and then any data shortcut and xRef folders that are project specific. It's kind of a pain if you work on multiple projects to have to remember to sync. It probably saves a lot on the IT side of things, but CAD productivity it feels like it is reduced.

[cnewell]

We ran through a trial with Egnyte over the course of a couple months. It seemed to work alright with one major issue. Notification balloons were not consistent or sometimes not at all. We are almost always working as a team across regions and need to know when to synchronize data references and reload XREFs. If I saved a drawing and tabbed over to another I would get the notifications but when I saved a file, other team members were not getting them consistently.

I will compliment Egnyte with the level of effort and work they put into trying to get this to work for us. In my opinion they really went above and beyond with meetings and testing but to no avail. They said they had other clients using Civil 3D and were not experiencing the issue like we were.

It makes me wonder if there was something in our network that was preventing it from working. We tried multiple packages from them. 

@Cadguru42 what was your experience with the notification balloons? Were they working as they normally would on a local server?

Thanks!

Chris Newell

[Cadguru42]

---

@cnewell wrote:

We ran through a trial with Egnyte over the course of a couple months. It seemed to work alright with one major issue. Notification balloons were not consistent or sometimes not at all. We are almost always working as a team across regions and need to know when to synchronize data references and reload XREFs. If I saved a drawing and tabbed over to another I would get the notifications but when I saved a file, other team members were not getting them consistently.

I will compliment Egnyte with the level of effort and work they put into trying to get this to work for us. In my opinion they really went above and beyond with meetings and testing but to no avail. They said they had other clients using Civil 3D and were not experiencing the issue like we were.

It makes me wonder if there was something in our network that was preventing it from working. We tried multiple packages from them. 

@Cadguru42 what was your experience with the notification balloons? Were they working as they normally would on a local server?

Thanks!

Chris Newell

---

Egnyte seems to work fine for us. We get the notifications when a file is sync'd, but it's not instant like a locally saved project would do. It does take a few seconds for it to sync up with the cloud and it also depends on each user's internet speed. With that said, it's still much faster syncing than what Desktop Connector does when it works. We have constant issues of DC not unlocking files when closed and for me DC crashes every time I wake the workstation up. It's better than it used to be, but still happens almost daily. 

The only issue we really have with Egnyte is when there's a lot of small files being created at a time, such as when the block palette window creates the thumbnail PNGs, it has trouble keeping up. 

[cnewell]

Thanks for replying on an old subject. Greatly appreciated.

[bdavis]

Curious to know from those of you using Egnyte, is an on-site NAS required for data shortcuts to work correctly?

[CADmgrMike]

Not for us. We just switched over a couple weeks ago.

[bdavis]

@CADmgrMike We are testing cloud only right now, but data shortcuts don't seem to stick and need to be reconnected each session. I'm not asking you to troubleshoot, but was told 18 mos ago that in order for data shortcuts to work, we needed something on premesis, which was really at odds with our desire to be in the cloud. Our (limited) testing seems to be showing that this may be true.

Are you set up cloud only w/ data shortcuts funtioning properly or do you have equipment on-prem supporting egnyte?

Thanks in advance.

[CADmgrMike]

We have Smart Cache in one office that uses Revit, but that's all I'm aware of.

What do you mean by Data Shortcuts sticking?

Are you using mapped drive letters, or UNC paths?