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Standard business collaboration is by definition tricky and fraught with often unforeseen “gotchas.” Exchanging word documents, spreadsheets, or PowerPoint files is seldom a serial, linear process. Any number of small things—i.e., two people at different locations working simultaneously on the same document—can interrupt workflow, throwing a project off-course and behind schedule.
CAD collaboration is an order of magnitude more difficult, complex, and error-prone. First, CAD files are typically far more complex than even the most dizzying legal document; in most scenarios, project team members must follow standardized procedures, i.e., part naming, in the creation and development of a CAD file, which by itself can derail the project. Second, CAD projects are by their very nature iterative, as engineers must make sure their designs actually work, are manufacturable, and meet the requirements of customers. Implementing a collaborative framework for a design or engineering firm clearly comes with a unique set of challenges.
Several months ago, Synergy Surgical Technologies (Synergy), designers of orthopedics implants and instruments, was looking to redesign and expand their network to support and connect their main office in Redlands, California, and their satellite office in Austin. Their main challenge was to implement a collaborative framework to support some 10 engineers, evenly distributed between both offices. Synergy reached out to TeamAccent, a prominent reseller also based in Southern California; TeamAccent was selected based on their previous work with a 150-person engineering firm also with offices in Southern California and Texas (Houston).
TeamAccent’s Nedal Hamad, a Senior Network Engineer, was assigned to head up the project—a logical choice as Hamad knew full well from their previous project the challenges unique to CAD collaboration.
“Synergy needed a solution to facilitate efficient AutoCad collaboration between these two locations, which can be a real bear if not handled right. Most design firms have very rigorous procedures in place—from naming conventions to directory structures. Going in you need to understand that and build a solution that takes that into account,” said Hamad.
Previously, Synergy’s project teams shared files via email—which is the case with an alarmingly large number of organizations. The problem with this approach is two-fold: the files are very large, which slows transfer times (by putting a hit on network bandwidth) and does not lend itself to the kind of fluid collaboration necessary for large-scale, interactive design projects.
“We run into this time and again, and described to Synergy the solution we implemented at that other firm, allowing them to collaborate on even the largest AutoCad files without hiccups, interruptions, or problems,” said Hamad.
Hamad installed Peer Software’s Peer CAD Collaboration Package, which includes a range of critical file management features to simplify the backup and synchronization of even the largest CAD files, making collaboration seamless and transparent. The software offers server-to-server file mirroring between a companies office sites with integrated file locking to prevent version conflicts. It also includes a number of features indispensable to large CAD projects: ByteReplicator, allowing for the transfer of just the changed data in a file when synchronizing (instead of the entire file), Multi-Threading, which allows for parallel processing of multiple file transfer events between the source machine(s) and the target machine(s), and most important to Hamad, it comes with PeerLock, ensuring that when a user is modifying a file, no other user will be allowed to make changes to that file on any machine that the user has chosen to lock.
“The package is easy to install, configure, and deploy—it’s completely hassle and headache-free,” said Hamad. Synergy has four file servers, three at their central location, one at the satellite office, which are connected via a point-to-point VPN.
“Synergy especially liked the file locking mechanism, which completely avoids version conflict.”
“The package is easy to install, configure, and deploy—it’s completely hassle and headache-free,” said Hamad. Synergy has four file servers, three at their central location, one at the satellite office, which are connected via a point-to-point VPN.
“Synergy especially liked the file locking mechanism, which completely avoids version conflict.”
“They embraced it right away,” said Hamad. “It was a nightmare how they were sharing files using emails, which would be only compounded as they grew. Now they can truly collaborate on large AutoCad files, without hogging network bandwidth. Additionally, PeerSync also gave them built-in disaster recovery, as you now have the same files on both ends. It’s just a great solution for firms whose business runs on CAD files—or any files, for that matter.”
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