Locally Store All Files

[neljoshua]

In light of today's events (see post here), I believe it would be beneficial to allow users to locally store all Fusion files and data.  The data can still be backed up to the server, but is locally stored first.  This would prevent server outages from becoming catastrophic events for businesses, schools, and individuals.  If users did not want to locally store files (due to disk space or other reasons), they could elect not to in Fusion's preferences.  Or perhaps this could be a setting for each folder or project.

Manually, individually backing up files (a current Fusion capability) is not a reasonable solution to this problem.  Not only is it time-consuming and difficult to manage well, it does not currently work for designs that have XREFs.

I personally have no problem using the cloud for storage and computing (such as simulations).  There are some great things that Fusion allows because of this capability.  The lack of local storage as a backup, however, is an issue for me.

[Hardened]

Sounds good to me.  If I knew this was being developed, I might fall back in love with Fusion.

As it is, I am using my un-wanted free time to research other CAD systems...

[andersEQHR7]

@neljoshua

Nice to see that you liked my suggestion 😉

[Anonymous]

Totally agree. Today was a disaster, fortunately an impacted client of ours took in the news with complete understanding, but it might not be the case if this happens again. Even with great trust clients will tend to think you are making up excuses when you can't deliver on time.

[bensbenz]

I voted for this in the same way I voted republican in the state of Illinois, not because I thought it would change anything, but because it was my duty.

I think the major issue here is that file storage is not the only thing Fusion needs the cloud for as evidenced on how terribly it behaves when the cloud goes away.

[neljoshua]

@andersEQHR7,

I think it is a great idea.  Let's hope enough other people (both users and developers) agree.

[sambirchenough]

Agreed. I want a global setting that syncs ALL files locally. Here's my post from the outage thread:

"Fusion 360 is so close to being an amazing product but lately has been very polarizing. It's been an absolute game changer for my business but reliability is key when working with client deadlines and complex supply chains. 

Relative to what you guys have built so far, it'd be simple to create a more robust system that would directly & positively impact your customers business reputation. Please please please give us an option in the near future to keep ALL files synced locally for work in offline mode (or at least accessible to export in various formats). I've always been a huge advocate for Fusion 360 and Autodesk is my favorite vendor in the industry. Hoping I don't have to re-impliment less efficient & less capable solutions in exchange for reliability on high-profile projects."

[Anonymous]

I guess I'm just "old school" but this is exactly how I want any/all software to work for me.  I'd prefer that this approach be the default, but at least we need a big, easy "local storage as primary, cloud as backup/extra features" button in preferences to be sure this is enabled.  Being able to log in from another terminal (oh my, I'm showing my age...) er, I mean computer and team sharing are nice additional features.  But having your files locally (even very old ones) and having all the core tools function wether it's my internet connection that's out or your servers is the difference between Fusion 360 being a "fun, helpful but can't be used for critical tasks" product versus a core production tool.

My guess from looking at Fusion 360's development is that MBAs in management see this approach as a better way to maximize profits somehow in the mid to long range (as is the obligation to all public corporations.)  I'm sure they're very smart and have looked at options, upsides and downsides.  That said, plenty of public corporations have done stupid things and have come and gone because of locking into anti-customer approaches.

But for now, when I talk about Fusion 360 to colleagues and others interested in it, I have to say, "It's powerful, it's a great value at the current pricing... but you're dead in the water if stuff out of your control happens, like last December when I had a few minutes to work on a conceptual project...  Check it out, it's fun, but..."

[Anonymous]

Completely agree that we need to have local file backup by default.

[planetzargon]

This is not the first time I have had issues with the whole cloud thing, so this idea definitely gets my vote.

[kylek292]

This 100% gets my vote. My work is stuck in limbo because I can't even save locally without getting an error message that it must communicate with the cloud server first. So essentially, business is on hold.

[Anonymous]

If history is any indicator, it's usually not until some disastrous outcome that changes are made. I'm hoping this resounds with development and some compromise is made with the cloud. The skeptics of Fusion 360 warned this was a huge weakness of this software and most of us drank the koolaid anyway. Too tempted by the attainability. ... A few minutes of cloud connection issues here or there is frustrating but being down for an entire day (maybe more?)is hostage...

Im only a mere hobbyist. I can't imagine those of you with multi-person shops trying to turn a profit...

[lachlan.dowd]

Yeah this outage today made me realise that I have a lot of files that aren't cached locally at the moment. If they decide to take down the servers or there is data loss that is 1000s of hours of work lost.

Scary!!

[matth]

I have not read all of the comments, but i would suggest instead of each Fusion user caching the entire cloud data, that a service is installed on a server that caches the data. That way you are not bottlenecking your network by having those requests across several clients. 

[b.graaf]

I totally agree!

It can be something like the workspace from Vault (only without having to check-in and -out).

[SMottaghi]

I couldn't agree more. As many other businesses have experienced, we had lost access to our files in a particularly busy day and I had to make few thins (though small) from ground up to be able to deliver the work on time ( had made them the evening before on a different computer, but having relied on Fusion cloud didn't save them on our company's server).
This also made my boss more reluctant about subscribing and officially moving to Fusion 😒, something that I was lobbying for now for some time.
While I love the current Fusion status and its roadmap, I think having a local first savings approach (by default, maybe you can choose otherwise in the setting ) would pave the way for businesses to make their move towards the software. This could be in the form of a unified vault on any machine with Fusion installation that may be synced to a personal/ company cloud so it may be accessible from other machines since sto the same personal cloud.

I would love to see Fusion becoming the choice for more small size business like ours and I think a change like the one I'm suggesting would help gain trust of the users, particularly after the past 48hrs events.

Thanks

[roambotics_scott]

+100

Plenty to love about F360, but the religious / dogmatic «it shalt depend on the cloud no matter what» commandment is silly and guarantees instability and unreliability

Just make the damned program work well on its own, and use the cloud to enhance that.

It's not rocket surgery

[Anonymous]

Although  I the cloud has saved  me more times than it has hindered me I have to agree. But maybe you dont have to back up everything to start. Lets try our recent files that way our work in progress isnt affected, and then possibly add a known to good type file that dosent need to keep the revisions. That way if a customer calls for a part and the revision hasnt changed I can rock and roll, and make their part. I wouldnt lose what in the process of working on.. I wouldnt have a huge database of files locally, and it would allow for back up locally that no longer need collaboration or to track design changes. Additionally, once things start to be manufactured you want things as static as possible. Not trying to bash, I just want to push the discussion in ways that create solution and give ideas.  

[jacob.bjorkman]

I JUST learnt the basics of Fusion and I love it but after this I wonder if I should look for something else before I'm become to dependent on a software with such weaknesses. Cloud is great, Cloud with offline sync is greater!

[sstephe1622]

I feel that both local and another cloud based service is what is needed.  After I did some editing at home I came in to work the next day to find the outage.  At home I was on version 22of my project.  At work I had to make due with version 19.  Not a total loss but still a shock but I was okay the outage would end at 1pm when the outage was not resolved by 1 pm I ended up remaking all the changes and moving forward from there.

[Ezekiel12]

I am totally for this. Even a stupid Word have the option to save the files locally, why not the super needed CAD software? 

So let us choose if we want to store it on cloud... or locally.

Or for god, let it sync similar way as a A360 Drive. -> Word offline and when online sync it to the cloud... then there is no problem. Or let us choose project files that we are working on right now and need them accessible in any moment.

Some solution like this is must have.