I work for a very small company (4 office staff and a couple of 'floating' directors who occasionally come in the office), and we're in the process of setting up our computer system and figuring out our data management process. We're too small to get much benefit from services such as Solidworks' PDM Vault, so I was wondering if anyone can offer some advice on how/when to back up data from our 4 work stations to our server. Would you recommend working from the server? What gets backed up? How often? and in what structure? etc etc Stories please!
Welp, the last time I had any say in IT, it went like this.. Linux based server, redhat I believe, with a raid array of drives. you would work locally, and save back to the server. We had a tape backup system with 5 tapes, one for each nightly backup. The tape from the previous day was taken off site each night, just in case... At the end of the month the last tape would be archived for that month and new fresh tape in its place. Worked fairly well. How I would do it now? Well probably a linux server, raid, and maybe use something like a data synching tool, I think microsuck has a free one if you can believe that! You can work locally and have data synched to the server at intervals automatically, or manually. Especially nice with laptops and no VPN connection. This would work well in a smaller office where you can communicate with your team on the files your working on. Hope this helps! -Mark
I'm not sure what would work best, Pete. I'm actually the sole mechanical designer where I work which makes matters incredibly simple. I don't use PDM. I just work straight from a folder containing all the SolidWorks files - I have a write-protected "released" area containing parts, drawings and assemblies with formal part nos and rev nos. I also have a "work in progress" area. I once tried working from the server, but it was so slow I gave up. Instead, all the CAD files reside on my C drive, and I have a daily backup to the server using SyncToy. This method is a bit of a headache when upissuing assemblies - you have to be really careful! If you work in a team you would have to ensure that you know what everyone's working on to prevent people simultaneously upissuing a file. I once worked this way with 2 other guys on Pro-e. We often considered getting "vault" or whatever PTC call it, but we got by just fine.
I have used as PDM Software Windchill with ProE and Matrix with Solid Edge. Either of them have different issues to manage datason the server. I recommend if you aren't many staff at your work you might work on the server. However you shouldn't work in a part at the same time, or if you work together in a assembly file, you should also open your data and always keep in touch with your colleagues.
Hi Guys as I changed my job and in my recent company we have 4 designers + me and two cnc programmers. I implemented SVN. Linux based server is working excellent. Just I made the repositories, then all designers can access (as I grant them) and work. I am still working on it and checking for issues etc. I am interesting to develop my own on the basis of svn and VB to handle the CAD data.
Depending on the CAD application used, you probably want to look at Autodesk Vault. The base version is free and has functionalities that would suffice for a small workgroup.
