Our company (8 seats - 400Gb vault data) is about to upgrade PDM from WorkgroupPDM to PDM Standard.
We asked our VAR for a cost estimate and this is what he came up with. Note this is chargeable work time spend not duration which probably is longer as some conversion takes place unsupervised.
Installation PCs: 1 day
Installation server: 1 day
Setup and test of conversion routine: 5 days
Setup PDM standard: 1 day
Conversion of data: 3 days
In total 11 days of payed work by an experienced expert charging a hefty salary !
Is this a reasonably time consumption?
It seems a little high to me, but maybe they're just estimating on a "worst-case scenario" basis. I haven't been around for a full PDM migration, but I've been involved in several EPDM upgrades, and this seems like it could be done a little faster.
Client installation: This is easy. For 8 seats, it shouldn't take more than a few hours.
Server installation: This is a little trickier, but it also shouldn't take more than a couple hours.
Setting up and testing conversion: If your VAR rep knows what they are doing, I would think they should be able to complete this in 3 or 4 days (or less).
Setting up PDM standard: If they are referring to setting up the vault view, this shouldn't take more than a couple hours.
Conversion of data: I would expect this to take around 2 - 3 days, but it also depends on network speeds and how much data will actually be migrated.
Assuming everything goes relatively smooth, I would expect a realistic work time of about 6 - 8 days. I agree with Lee CS Young that client installation, server installation, and vault setup should all be able to be completed within one day. To help lessen the chance of it taking longer, check to make sure that your server hosts and clients meet the system requirements before your VAR rep gets there. We had to upgrade our servers during a PDM upgrade a couple years ago, and it took a size-able chunk of time to get that straightened out with our IT department.
http://www.solidworks.com/sw/support/PDMSystemRequirements.html