Archiving advice

[DanielRo]

Hi all,

The company I work for has recently migrated from AutoCAD to SolidWorks with PDMWorks as our designated archiving system. In the past we used a version of AMWorkflow (Cyco) to archive ACAD files which is now becoming obsolete. That repository holds approximately 20,000 ACAD files and 10,000 scanned (into Tiff) pencil drawings.

I need some advice on what I should do with these legacy files. Do I incorporate them into our PDMW server, or should I convert them all into PDF and set up an external database for them. I'm sure some of you must have dealt with this issue in the past, so I would be very interested in hearing how you went about it.

Thanks in advance.

 

[dgowans]

Is the Cyco product obsolete to the point that it can't be used on current hardware or is it a case where the product has reached end-of-life but you can still use it?

If the latter, I'd continue using it, provided it meets your needs. I don't see the value in moving 30,000 files from one system to another simply for the sake of having them all in one spot. You may feel otherwise.

If, on the other hand, there is a benefit to be realized by moving the legacy data to the current system then you need to weigh the value of that benefit against the cost (time, essentially) of moving the data.

 

[MadMango]

I would move them, why maintain two databases when one will suffice? Find a local (in-house?) programmer to create a batching script to convert the TIFFs to PDFs and migrate the drawings. My last company had closer to 55k archival drawings, and it was moved over night in one evening, and the data integrity was verified in a few days after that. I can't give any specifics, as I'm not a programmer.

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