PDMWorks and remote access
PDMWorks and remote access
(OP)
I have read a number of posts regarding PDMWorks, Smarteam etc. including the one by bb007. We are a company with Solidworks being used in a number of locations in the U.S. and Canada by our CNC programmers and plant engineers. Up to now we have not used any data management system for Solidworks but as our product engineering department is starting to use SW, we must start to manage our SW drawings. Our current engineering practice (for 2D drawings) is to have a central server in one location.
My question is what is remote access and how does it work? Is access to the drawing files slow?
Tom Stanley
My question is what is remote access and how does it work? Is access to the drawing files slow?
Tom Stanley






RE: PDMWorks and remote access
You can contact Solidworks to discuss purchasing options for PDMWorks Advanced Server to allow for multisite implementation.
The basic concept of data managment is to have all engineering documentation in one physical location or PDMWorks Vault. One site should be the server site and clients would log into from wherever. They would log in from Canada through PDMWorks via internet and your server would remain online 24/7. They would then save files to your server. The PDMWORKS adminstrator would determine what users or groups have access to what project
Not sure about access time you would need to run tests
RE: PDMWorks and remote access
It is easy to set up PDM clients to access a login server in a different location. However, the network speed will be a critical factor in how useful such an implementation turns out to be. Assuming all the different locations are on the same company network, try setting up one or two clients to access the central server. That way, you can get an assessment of the data access speed. If the network is too slow, not only will the users be frustrated, but PDMWorks will probably stop working because of timeout issues.
RE: PDMWorks and remote access
Check with the different vendors to see if they have a multiple store implementation available. This is an installation where each site hosts its own vault and administration, but often (very often, I used end of the work day in each country previously) all the servers connect and synch the vault and the administrative portions. The servers also exchange admin data (at least) whenever there was a request for a document that was not found locally...if the doc was present elsewhere, it would be copied to the requesting server first, then to the other(s). This way rarely was there a slow time a user experienced.
RE: PDMWorks and remote access
Stefan Hamminga
EngIT Solutions
CSWP/Mechanical designer/AI student
RE: PDMWorks and remote access
thread559-135612
RE: PDMWorks and remote access
vpn is way too slow for SW files. With our current connection (700kbps upload) it takes 140 times longer to open a file thru vpn when compared to an internal connection.
phreaq
Has anyone seen my brain today? (^_^)
www.phreaq.net
RE: PDMWorks and remote access
I gave PDMAmin a star for referring to the thread about VPN. Out of ignorance, I'd missed that one. Regarding alexit's system of having a number of servers, we would have to consider that very carefully since the complications of two people working on the same drawing at different locations are pretty severe. Download speed may dictate that type of solution though.
I would have thought that this problem was common enough that the speed problem would have been resolved by now.
Tom Stanley
RE: PDMWorks and remote access
Pete
RE: PDMWorks and remote access