Autodesk Vault General Info

[desiree.thom]

I would like some general information as to how Vault works. Our company is looking at implementing it, but the owners want to be informed about how it works, etc. I know nothing about the program, but have been told to research it.

Thanks.

[blads]

G'day desiree.ball

Please note I have *moved* this thread from the New Forum Users (http://forums.augi.com/forumdisplay.php?f=47) forum to this one, as I feel this particular forum is a more appropriate place for such a topic.

;) Cheers, Bill
Forum Moderator

[cadtag]

The question is what industry are you working in? The second is what Autodesk application you're using, and the third question is what are you trying to accomplish with Vault, that is what problem are you trying to solve or goal are your hoping to reach?

And finally, what is the scope of the effort, 1 cad operator? 20 cad users? 5,000 people?

[desiree.thom]

We are an architectural company that is using Architectural Desktop 2007. We will be upgrading to AutoCAD Architecture 2008 soon. We have a second office of two people and we want them to be able to work on files without having people in the main office affect any of the work they are doing. It is difficult for them to work off our main server, it takes a long time to retrieve any files, so we would like for them to be able to "check-out" files and work on them from their own location.

[cadtag]

Ok, then I can answer the Vault question.

Dont' touch it!!

Vault may be essential if your're running C3D or Mechanical, but otherwise it's not worth it. There are many better choices to fix your stated problem, from a EDMS (Electronic Document Management System) that actually works fairly well, to a Steelhead appliance from riverbed technologies.

The latter is the quickest way to speed up remote offices connecting to your local server, and takes minimal admin time once it's running. file transfer times drop automagically and dramatically.

For EDMS - which will give you check-in/check-out - you could get Adept from synergis, PaperPlus EDMS from falcon, Meridian or Teamwork from BlueCielo (formerly cyco) Columbus from OASYS, Mclaren, and lot of other choices. All of which are better choices than Vault.

Search the cad management forums for EDMS and you'll probably find other suggestions

[desiree.thom]

What about Vault would not be good for our company? We currently have a subscription that includes Vault and would like to use it if possible, but if you think that it would definitely not work for us I would like to know why.
Is the Riverbed Steelhead Appliance a VPN router? We currently have a VPN router and still have wait times.

[cadtag]

The steelhead appliances are not routers - think of them as cache-ing boxes that sit at either end of a wide area network link. The neat part of the devices is the idea that only the changed bytes are transmitted. It's very efficient technology, and for repeat work will reduce transmission times far below what I ever thought was possible.

As an example, you access a file that contains the phrase 'The quick brown fox ran over the hill', and edit it changing the word 'over' to 'down'. When you update the remote server, only the change bits for 'down' are sent across the wire. The steelhead at the the remote end has kept a binary image of the original file, and know that it only has to send the bits for 'down'. the receiving steelhead gets the binary bits for 'down' and puts them in the file at the local server.

For ACAD files in particular, the changed bytes are only a small portion of the file size. Depending on your ISAVEPERCENT setting, as much as 50 percent of the file may be 'old' information that's just been marked as old but still kept in the file. (that was done to speed up saving to the local hard drive - new edits are just written to the back end of the file instead of re-writing the entire file.)

[desiree.thom]

What about the Vault program? Since we already have it included in our subscription why would it not be a good program to use?

[cadtag]

If you use Vault, then the Autosave and drawing recovery portions of Acad are no longer useful. The recovered files are treated as new files, and can't be checked back in to replace the old corrupt file. Vault does not recognize Sheet Set Manager or work with Sheet Sets. As far as I know, there's no substantive integration with Adesk Architecture either, so the Project Navigator in ACA will (probably) not work. If anyone has used Vault successfully with ACAD pleas chime in and correct me!! I don't run ADT, Revit, or ACA. I've yet to find a straightforward way for the Vault administrator to fix check-in/out problems.

Backup and recovery options in Vault are not up to speed, for either the database or the file store. Transparent automated backups are not configurable, Although Vault requires (and will only work with a MS SQL Server back end engine), Vault users are not integrated into the Windows network environment, requiring the administrators and users to maintain s separate login for Vault. If security or confidentiality matter to your business, note that Vault does not have a secure out of the box configuration, and as far as I can tell, can't be made secure due to hardwired passwords.

With a limited number of people, files, and data, you can implement Vault using the freely available SQL Server Express. Once you grow however, you'll need to purchase a MS SQL Server license and CALs for each user who may connect to the Vault. That ramps the out of pocket expense up considerably. And no, I would strongly advise running Vault connections to a shared SQL Server. Unless you're willing to risk all the company financials or whatever else is in SQL on an insecure-by-design backend.

There's no migration path for data or file to move them from Vault to any other EDMS. Vault does not pretend to be enterprise-class, but does not address the need for files and data from the Vault to anywhere else. Even Bentley Projectwise had a way to move projects into a Documentum archive. Vault simply ignore the issues with migration, archiving or long term storage. And the track record to date of Vault compatibility between Vault versions is not encouraging.

CAD Design File EDMS is HARD to do, and _very_ hard to do well. Vault shows all the short comings of EDMS, with little thought put into making it work well. As long as it's a no-cost package that doesn't generate its own revue for Adesk, that's unlikely to change. The ones that do work fairly well, are not free. Adesk tried years ago to do an EDMS for CAD files called Workcenter, and failed to make a go of it.

With all that said, I'm pushing in my own organization for a Vault deployment - simply because there is no other method to share data in Civil 3D.

[hmunsell]

With all that said....... why DOSE it work for Civil? we are looking to deploy C3D in the next 6 months and am trying to familiarize my self with Vault and C3d. im told it is is a must use for C3d?

HJM

[cadtag]

For Civil 3D, there's no other reliable way to share data (alignments, surfaces, etc) between C3D drawings. I don't want to duplicate my Existing surface, I just want to display it in other drawings. Vault is the Autodesk path to do that. Datareference the surface, stylize it, and you should be good to go.

Data shortcuts do exist, and may be usable for some, but they are not all that reliable, and cannot be used for points or point groups. Of course, Vault doesn't handle parcels either.... Nothing in the C3D world seems to work as well as it should. Lot's of good functionality in C3D though, and with LDT dying on the vine, little choice. Save early, save often.

Caveat -- Autodesk just released a service pack 1 for the ADMS portion of Vault that broke the Civil 3D installations of Vault. Some serious QA/QC and communication issues there.

[hmunsell]

sounds like i have some fun work ahead of me......

Thanks
HJM

[Capt. Computer Crasher]

With all that said....... why DOSE it work for Civil? we are looking to deploy C3D in the next 6 months and am trying to familiarize my self with Vault and C3d. im told it is is a must use for C3d?

HJM

It works very well with Civil3D? however it only works with same year version (example 2007 Vault only works with Civil3D2007). Also you can use recovery on the files, but Vault can also recover its own files plus different version of the drawing over weeks or months

[cadtag]

Drawing Recovery works now? So if my C3D application crashes while I've got a file checked out, and leaves a corrupted version of the drawing on my hard drive called "bogus_recover.dwg", and i use autoCAD's recover tools, Vault will let me check that back in in lieu of the checked out file?


I'm not sure what you mean by the rest of the post, in paticular:
...Vault can also recover its own files plus different version of the drawing over weeks or months...

[Capt. Computer Crasher]

Drawing Recovery works now? So if my C3D application crashes while I've got a file checked out, and leaves a corrupted version of the drawing on my hard drive called "bogus_recover.dwg", and i use autoCAD's recover tools, Vault will let me check that back in in lieu of the checked out file?


I'm not sure what you mean by the rest of the post, in paticular:
...Vault can also recover its own files plus different version of the drawing over weeks or months...

We have gone back and pulled an earlier edited drawing from weeks before. Example "Drawing A " was saved and checked in on 9/24/07. you can go into vault and retrieve "Drawing A" that was saved and checked in from 8/28/07.

you can also overwrite drawings of same name. Example: if "Topo A" is put vault and then the surveyor sents an updated version of "Topo A" (correcting some small errors no major changes) a day later. you can check of "Topo A", but then close the file donl't check back in. Then save updated "Topo A" over old "Topo A" then open "Topo A" in Vault save and check back in. Still, one drawing in Vault "Topo A" not "Topo A" and "Topo A-revised"

[lewis.p.lineberger]

Our organization is using Vault for AutoCAD Electrical, about 30 users. I recently discovered that anyone with write privilege to check in anything to Vault has the ability to easily erase ALL the versions inside of any created Vault folder, using Vault Explorer. Only all the files have to be checked in in that folder, and no other files can be linked to that folder. This is the normal way we'd set up projects in AutoCAD Electrical. The project file and supporting dwgs in one folder. Simply right clicking that folder in Vault Explorer and selecting 'Delete' does the job! I contacted Autodesk about this issue, and they said they don't intend to do anything about it. This huge hole in their system makes Vault behave little better than a shared folder on a server - except it provides revisions and automatic dwf publishing. Don't be fooled into believing you've gained any additional file security with Vault. In one way, it's much worse than a normal network share. In Vault, in order to do a backup (I do one nightly by batch.), the Vault has to shut down. In a shared folder on the Windows Server, I can go out whenever necessary and backup any new or changed files. That way, if someone inadvertantly deletes something, I can go back to a recent state. In Vault, I can only go back to last night's copy.

[cadtag]

We have gone back and pulled an earlier edited drawing from weeks before.

Ok, I understand that -- equivalent in concept to pulling an earlier version off a backup tape or CD -- but quicker.

But, that's not what I meant by Drawing Recovery. To my thinking, Drawing Recovery is when the tools for recovering corrupt files located under the File|Drawing Utilities|Recover and the Recovery Manager come into play. AFAIK, it's not directly or indirectly integrated into Vault, and putting a recovered file back into Vault to replace a crashed file will take some extra steps, renaming, copying, overwriting. Doable? sure. But extra steps to fake out the system with replacement files should not be needed.

I find it frustrating that the tools that Adesk pushes out simply do not take interoperability into consideration, even with their own software. It's bad enough that that Adesk doesn't even try to work with Projectwise or Documentum, but really inexcusable that Vault dosen't work cleany with the Autodesk drawing recovery tools, or with SheetSet Manager. Or, that the SP1 for ADMS 2008 broke C3D. QA/QC is not something you can just slap on after the fact, it has to be a company culture.

[Capt. Computer Crasher]

Ok, I understand that -- equivalent in concept to pulling an earlier version off a backup tape or CD -- but quicker.

But, that's not what I meant by Drawing Recovery. To my thinking, Drawing Recovery is when the tools for recovering corrupt files located under the File|Drawing Utilities|Recover and the Recovery Manager come into play. AFAIK, it's not directly or indirectly integrated into Vault, and putting a recovered file back into Vault to replace a crashed file will take some extra steps, renaming, copying, overwriting. I don't have direct experience with

Yes, you do need a little experience at file manipulation to make that work, but everyone should some of that experience when using any program. 20 years ago, one needed to know DOS just to access a computer and with the creation of Windows that basic computer skill has almost disappeared.

[jgratton]

We need to keep track of 1000+ drawings that belong to our client that we are temporary custodians of. I envision a vault where the version the client sends us is stored. We may revise it, we may not. But we need to know if we have that drawing and how many different revs of that drawing we have and where they all are, because more than one project my need to revise them with their own revision numbers before they return to the client. It takes too long to search each by filename one at a time and it also would be problematic to launch Autocad with a file management system as we rely heavily on 3rd party software to do this for us. Does vault work with only one folder or any number of filepaths?

[cadtag]

AFAIK, You can create any number of vaults, but 'folder access' to vaulted drawings is not possible. Vault controls the drwings and access to them, not the file system

[lcamara]

Is the Riverbed Steelhead Appliance a VPN router? We currently have a VPN router and still have wait times.

A VPN router just off-loads the encryption calculations from your workstation (which will probably only increase speed if your CPU was over-taxed to begin with). The Steelhead is a "cache" of your network server(s). The difference between it & creating a full server that's sync'd with the main one is that it's dynamic, so it doesn't need to have the same (full) capacity. There's also a competing VPN acceleration (software-only) product available from Availl/GlobalSCAPE - WAFS (which actually duplicates/synchronizes the entire server and saves previous versions, instead of "caching"), but don't ask me about either product - we don't have any other offices, and it's just too expensive for individual users working from home part-time (though it looks like Riverbed has a "Mobile" version now, which I'll be checking out). With your two full-time users, it might make sense (also taking into account the decreased management).

Looking at it again now, WAFS seems very similar to SureSync's functionality (which we have), though we haven't started using the File Locking option.

[Ehsan]

all the issues may have discuss here but no one tell which types of vault is good for a team work on autocad 2012.
thanks

[David Gaskill]

Vault works well if the correct procedure is followed. We use Inventor and could not live without vault. Yes it takes some change in work flow but the gains out weight the draw backs. I disagree that the restore won't work with ACAD, there is a work flow that works for over writing files. First check out the file, turn off the read only attribute, restore the file (over write it with the same file name) then check it back in.