Performance Issues / Vault

[Maple2009]

I'll start by saying I am fairly new to AutoCAD. I am responsible for installation and performance. Our outlying offices, on a LAN, are having very bad performance issues with opening/saving files. I understand that AutoCAD is very chatty, and this combined with latency is likely causing the problem. We have done a lot of other things to fine tune PC settings, the drawings, etc.

 

Does anyone have experience with using Vault, and would this be a solution to this problem? Seems like a straight file transfer to a local drive and the checkin/checkout procedures might be a simple solution.

 

We are using Map3D 2009, SP3 with the Map features "turned off".

[DVDM]

Hi Maple2009,

 

What's the filesize of the files you're working with? Do you know what kind of transfer speeds you're getting on your network?

 

At our office we run all our AutoCAD files from the server, with filesizes of about 1.5 to 3Mb. There's the odd file that is about 10Mb or 20Mb (usually containing some 3D models), and with those files things start to slow down a bit when opening/saving. We don't normally do anything 3D in AutoCAD (and am unfamiliar with Map3D)

 

I'm currently implementing Vault for our Inventor models/assemblies, partially because of Vaults ability to track and maintain file references, partially because of performance benefits, and we are seeing benefits in both these areas.

 

It does however require a new workflow, and tends to annoy and confuse people with a whole bunch of dialogue boxes that pop up all the time, and have questioned several times whether implimenting Vault is the right thing to do.

 

Also note, that while Vault is a free product, they limit it in a way to tempt you to upgrade for a paid version that has the functionality you'd really like to have, and you will then have to get a license for every single seat logging into Vault.

 

I thought about using Vault for our AutoCAD files, where the primary benefit would be version history of files, and keeping track of who did what, but I think that for now the headaches that come with it are bigger than the benefits.

I asked our VAR, and they said they don't have a single customer who's implimented Vault for AutoCAD files.

 

But set up server with Vault and give it a try, it should have come with your 2009 install disks, and it's easy to test if there are performance benefits with your current setup.

[Maple2009]

Our files range between 3 and 20mb, most are under 10mb. We believe there is a lot of latency to this one location, the far away locations just have very little bandwidth and that's not going to be changed any day soon. I understand that the application is very chatty, so this is likely contributing to the slowness.

 

We'll look at vault, the only reason we would use it is for the checkin/checkout features and transferring files to the user rather than opening.

 

We are also having a lot of problems with the application crashing (Map3D 2009, SP3). Tried just about everything under the sun, but still looking for various suggestions.

[DVDM]

From what I understand, the standard Vault is to be used for single site implementation only. If you require multiple sites logging into Vault, you will need to upgrade to a paid version I believe (Vault Collaboration?), with multiple servers.

But Vault would be a good integrated solution to have file management on multiple sites. It should prevent out of turn edits on files (well, that is if everyone bothers to read and understand the many warnings that pop up when you attempt to do so), and should reduce the amount of data going to and from remote sites.

 

We have our drawing office in the one location so speed isn't the issue, but we do have some form of file replication to synchronise certain (non-cad) files between different offices. The problem that can occur though, is that two people can open a file at the same time and save their edits afterwards, and I think whoever saves last wins. Not ideal!