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remote access to pdm workgroups

Question asked by Steve Karanovich on Nov 3, 2008
Latest reply on Nov 6, 2008 by Steve Karanovich

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We are a small company currently with just one seat. We are cgoing to add another designer and get a second seat of solidworks. I do alot of work form home is there away to access the vault remotely? with workgroups or do i have to upgrade to enterprise?

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Rodney Hall Nov 3, 2008 12:01 PM
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I tried using VPN connection to my work from home with unuseable performance.
The problem is bandwidth. each file you check out must be downloaded to your machines local working directory. all communcations for vault status must also travel back and forth. Simple five second refresh of vault veiw or document info request took over five to ten minutes using remote connection. In summary, unless you can establish a remote connection with speed equivalent to at least 100mb network, then I find it almost useless to attempt remote connections for using PDM workgroup. Enterprise can do this better because it uses SQL server and replication of data.
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- Troy Peterson @ Rodney Hall on Nov 3, 2008 1:00 PM
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  Steve,
  
  PDMW use to have a standalone program called "PDMW Webportal", I am sure they still have it but under another name. The program will allow you to access the vault from your web browser no need for VPN. contact your VAR for new name and cost.
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David Anderson Nov 3, 2008 1:57 PM
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Hi Steve,

I have a single user license and have the PDMWorks vault installed on my the C-drive of my office computer. I often work remotely and need access to my vault. I also have clients and contract engineers who need to gain access to the vault.

You can certainly use PDMWorkgroup to do exactly what you request. As Rodney mentioned, speed is always an issue. This is my second VPN router setup and I have found with my new setup that check-in check-out speed is no longer an issue.

Here's a configuration of a typical remote vault access setup...

Your vault computer will need to be connected to a VPN router that has been assigned a static IP address.

The vault computer should be assigned a static, not a DHCP IP address, althought the latter may work if the machine name is known but i found IP addresses to be more reliable.

The remoter user can connect to the VPN router a couple of ways...

PPTP protocol is built into WinXP and no remote software is needed. In my experience this was a slow way to connect to a VPN router. (not all routers allow for PPTP)

IPSec protocol requires software for the remote user, this is a more secure and faster way to connect but does cost more for the software however i have found that is is worth the cost. for my setup, the speed "feels" about 50% slower than a LAN dpending on the remote users connection, but i have no hard data. I can tell you a wireless remote connection can drastically effect the speed based on signal strenght and bandwith capability.

You will also need to give access to ports 20000,30000 and 40000 for PDMWorks in WinXP firewall.

I am using a Sonicwall TZ180 wireless VPN router that allows up to 5 simultaneous VPN users based on the sofware license I purchased. This was a big cost to me but i had to have remote access. My previous router was a Secure Computing Snapgear SG565 and i only used PPTP to connect. This was slow, but worked fine but until the router died after only 2 years which is a short MTBF. Hence the new router mfg.

Best,

Dave
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Jason Corl Nov 3, 2008 3:31 PM
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Hey Steve,

A comment in regards to Troy's comment.

Although you can download files using the web portal, you cannot upload solidworks files, and the cost is around 2,500.

I agree with the others that VPN is the way to go. Depending on how large your files are, the free solutions might be an option. There are a few products you can try from www.LogmeIn.com that will work for you but for the higher speeds you will need to pay. For example if you setup LogmeIn Hamachi, you can access your vault remotely but it will be a little slow. To get the high speed you will need the premium account. If you're not worried about checking in from home you could also use Windows Remote Desktop (or LogmeIn Free) to access your work computer, download the files there, then either load them onto an FTP site where you can get them from home or if you feel secure enough just share your local drives and copy the files directly...this is slow though. Or again if you have the LogmeIn Pro account you can just drag the files right onto your home computer and skip the FTP account, and its faster than the Windows built in client.

Good Luck,
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- Rodney Hall @ Jason Corl on Nov 3, 2008 4:30 PM
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  To all who have PDM work for you remotely
  Speed is an issue and for me the killer was my companies DSL (1.2mbps/512k) connection to the iternet.
  At home I have Cable (10mbps/1mbps). Even if I could connect at the fast speed I have at home the bottle neck is still my slowest connection. Vault Check Out (10mbps Download) could be fast, but Vault Check In (1mbps upload) would still be horribly slow. Any ideas?
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  - David Anderson @ Rodney Hall on Nov 3, 2008 6:13 PM
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    FIOS! I have FIOS and get 20 megs down and at least 5 megs up. i have used my internet connection to check-in to others vaults, and I know it was their VPN router that was choking the connection. i routinely check in from a T3 and it works very well. However, at 1 meg up anything is going to be slow.
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Doug Calvert Nov 6, 2008 1:00 PM
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We have used remote desktop through terminal services to log onto our vault computer and get better luck than through a VPN.
For some reason the speed seems to be a lot better.
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- Steve Karanovich @ Doug Calvert on Nov 6, 2008 1:30 PM
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  Hi Doug
  Can you explain how you got this to work?
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