Revit worksharing across locations

[castroman]

We are based in two cities and have so far worked on separate projects, but recently have been getting bigger projects where we have to utilize people across locations. We are having trouble saving to central from one location to another. We are currently using a VPN solution that is not working as we would like. Our internet line is a standard ADSL 2Mbit/512Kb.

 

Has anybody experienced any trouble and have found a solution when working across different locations.

[mbowers]

We've just started using Revit and have offices in three cities. Luckily for our 2 offices (which are only 50 miles apart) we have the luxury of having a T3 connection. The other office (about 400 miles away) isn't so lucky. Our biggest concern is the large file sizes that are associated with Revit can bring down even the best networks. We've haven't worked on a shared project yet, but we've been told to investigate SteelHead...

 

http://www.riverbed.com/products/

 

Essentially it's hardware attached to your network that pushes that information across offices faster. I don't know if this is the best solution (it's about 50K) as apposed to good ol fashioned FTP. We're still investigating, but maybe this has helped you.

[BrianKitts]

I couldn't even imagine trying to use revit across a vpn. In my previous office even on a gigabit network the central files for the hospitals we were working on would take on average up to five mins to open initially and most of the designers only saved to central at lunch and at the end of the day because of the time it took due to the massive files.

[castroman]

I have talked to Autodesk, as well as posting over at AUGI, and Riverbed steelhead keeps popping up. Seems like it is a product that is recommended.

But $50 000, that is a lot of money for a small company like ours.

 

I have sent them an email, see what comes of it.

thanx for the input.

[castroman]

I couldn't even imagine trying to use revit across a vpn. In my previous office even on a gigabit network the central files for the hospitals we were working on would take on average up to five mins to open initially and most of the designers only saved to central at lunch and at the end of the day because of the time it took due to the massive files.

 

I have had the same problem, we had ha big project that involved a hotel and a cultural center in one Revit file, at the end of the project we had major difficulties working with the file since it became so big. Decided to split the two buildings in two and linking them together. Became workable, but still heavy.

 

Right now working on a hospital with 3 sections, but decided to optimize into usable worksets so I only have one workset open(say 1st floor). Makes it much easier to work with.

 

Did you use worksets on your project?

[BrianKitts]

Did you use worksets on your project?

 

Couldn't tell you. I wasn't on the production side of REVIT, I was just one of the in house 3d guys going into the project files to pull out geometry to do renderings. And of course normally not closing out of the projects properly then recieving a phone call from somewhere in the building to get the heck out of the file so they could work..... took me a couple of days to learn the glory of "detach from central"

 

I do know that they kept everything ext vs. interior seperated and then linked together. So the exterior core could be opened without dealing with all of the interior mess which is the grunt of the data.

[castroman]

ok, yea detach from central is a godsend when doing these kinds of things.

what is the weather like in colombus, I miss ohio. Lived in Beavercreek outside dayton for almost 5 years.