Fusion 360 ITAR compliant

[Collin_Korver]

We are working on getting our ITAR compliance and fusion 360 is not compliant due to items being saved on the cloud. Why doesn't fusion 360 just make a preference to "save everything locally" I cant imagine it would be that hard. As it stands I am likely going to drop fusion 360 because it it isn't compliant. 

I was told months ago they were "working on it"

[jbisme]

How about using Featurecam or PowerMill for your ITAR work?

[daviswoody]

We need an update.

Can AutoDesk allow subscribers to use US only servers? Can AutoDesk certify that the foreign servers are located in a country that has an appropriate security agreement with the United States and that they have taken adequate measures to prevent unauthorized access or disclosure of the data.

I think the very obvious solution is to allow a local data only option for selected files. If someone at AutoDesk could explain the "large resource costs" of implementing this, I think we would all really appreciate it.

I really love AutoDesk and I (and my associates) want to avoid going back to Dassault if it is possible.

[engineering]

Yes indeed, we really need an update. Especially those of us using legacy Eagle, and storing local in controlled local only servers. In 2026 we will be forced to transition to the Fusion PCB solution, which should be an easy transition, except two things: lack of support for ULPs and more importantly, losing ITAR compliance.  This is a BIG deal for a lot of users. A simple option to keep some projects as local only (locking out cloud functions for that project) is a BIG need for a LOT of folks, and it seems from the forums, nobody can explain why this is not available yet, or has not been announced as coming (with an expected roll-out date).

[daviswoody]

I'm not sure that AutoDesk realizes how many users they are losing to SolidWorks over this topic. 

[seth.madore]

@engineering @daviswoody 

We are very much aware of the bind this can put our users in, as well as the attraction to other products that do offer this ITAR support. We do hope to find a quick and proper solution, but there are still discussions to be had.

[leafydialupking]

After reading the white paper on how data is stored and handled the fact that this hasn't been implemented already is mind boggling. Guys, you already use AWS and only AWS for cloud storage, if you had multiple cloud vendors it may require actual work. Literally, clone your current cloud into AWS GovCloud, charge ITAR customers an extra couple hundred a year per seat, and have their account point to the AWS ITAR compliant cloud that already exists. Like this is probably the easiest money printer your programmers will have worked on in their whole careers.

Or just maintain lockstep feature parity with fusion cam and inventor cam and any of these complaints could just be dismissed as people trying to cheap out over a couple grand a year.

[engineering]

I am concerned that the real reason that ITAR compliance is difficult for AutoDesk Fusion is that their staff has access to the data, "For quality and services purposes" or whatever, and that they employ a number of H1B and foreign offices employees. ITAR compliance would have to guarantee that only USA based USA citizen employees have access to the data, OR... lock out the visibility of the data from AutoDesk internal, all together. I suspect that either or both of these options may not be desirable from AutoDesk's perspective.

[engineering]

Shouldn't the "overall goal" of a product be to provide what the customers need/want within a pricing model that is profitable??  Folks want FLEXIBILITY!!  And we need this flexibility in terms of certain legal constraints we may have with our customer base. The stubborn refusal to implement a non-cloud work flow option is just plain stupid and/or arrogant. It is my understanding that On-Shape has a limited customer base for this very reason. I know that is why we would never adopt On-Shape, for example. Given that Fusion contains Eagle, and that Eagle previously had that option to allow complete off-line work flows, indictates that AutoDesk inherited a certain customer base with a portion that does not want to or can not accept a cloud only work flow.

[leafydialupking]

And onshape in their cloud only solution has an ITAR service where they limit the data of certain customers to only go to an ITAR complaint cloud. 

[engineering]

Hi Al,

Your notes:

What are your options:

• Use Inventor CAM for your ITAR work.  (You can share you tools, posts, and even templates)
• Use a competitive CAM solution
• Use one of the workarounds seth has provided. 

Listen, I don't want to lose your business, I am not trying to push you away.  We want you to use Fusion.

This does not help legacy Eagle users that have a long history of local control over all the files. I am starting from the Eagle side, and want to move to Fusion (why not? I have been paying for it for a few years now, but getting nothing yet from it). But 2026 is FAST approaching and this is ramping the anxiety up rapidly. I have been using Eagle for nearly 15 years. 100's of PCBs and uncountable library parts are about to be in limbo.  I am not the only one, for sure.  Why oh why can't the user decide that for some projects, local only work flow is the way to go?  I do not deny some of the cloud advantages. But why on earth do you insist that you know better than the users what is best for each person or organizations' use case??

[engineering]

"An offline model doesn't align with the overall goal of Fusion 360" is a non-answer that screams "customer desires and needs are not as important as our idealist dogma".  A greatly desired feature that is relatively easy to implement won't be implemented "because we don't feel like it". Is this a correct interpretation? 

[engineering]

"An offline model doesn't align with the overall goal of Fusion 360" is a non-answer that screams "customer desires and needs are not as important as our idealist dogma".  That is, a greatly desired feature that is relatively easy to implement won't be implemented "because we don't feel like it".  Is this a correct interpretation? 

[jbisme]

Two questions:

Who took Al Whatmough's place when he left?

Does anyone besides myself think that using multiple browsers like NX does is a better approach than overloading one tree? Multiple browsers are when you have multiple trees for different modes such as a tree for toolpaths, a tree for CAD, a tree for features, etc. 

[leafydialupking]

Nah if you want offline you buy inventor. Which wouldn’t be a problem if inventor cam and fusion had the same features or inventor had more features. They’d pretty much annihilate mastercam for small aerospace shops even with inventor’s pricing model as it’s still way cheaper than 5 axis mastercam + lathe for mastercam, but they need inventor cam to match fusion.

[foadmin3LUMP]

I think you are over simplifying the effort it would take to make this change to Fusion.  If it were this easy, they would make the change to allow for an ITAR workflow.  It is not the tool for this at the moment and may never be.  Al's suggested solutions are right on, for now.

[jbisme]

That's not what I was told privately. I'm not going to elaborate so don't ask.

[leafydialupking]

Actually, if you don’t need to do 2d drawings it’s very easy to for them to make it offline only. I wrote an addin that completely disables cloud saving even in online mode and makes the save button automatically open the export dialog box (basically makes to e save button work as the save as button on a traditional windows app). And when you hit open it automatically opens the open from my computer dialog box. The only thing I couldn’t figure out how to do is make the save button automatically save over the same file name on your computer, basically replicating the save function 1 to 1. I’m sure someone better with python or that can use c++ could make it work fully. 

2d in fusion is trapped behind cloud functionality. But you’re also not going to draft in fusion professionally anyways since it’s limited to the 1994 version of same y14.1. 

[billXMX4D]

Leafy,

That is clever but unfortunately I think if using a solid model recieved from a customer the solid model must be uploaded to the Fusion server in order to get started.

[leafydialupking]

Most model types do not need online access to be imported, there's a page somewhere that outlines what file types require the cloud for importing and which don't that I cant find at the moment. I also want to say the list is different for the free and paid version. I'm not certain if assemblies are possible working this way either since no files ever end up in your files in the built in file manager.

[billXMX4D]

Thanks Leafy. That is interesting. If the accessing / modeling with correct filetypes can be controlled, I wonder what additional functions or 'safety switches' would be needed to lock into certain filetypes and keep it ITAR compatible. Doesn't seem like a difficult task at all. There must be more to it on the AD/Fusion side of the business model.