Hi all,
Just an enquiry - company has a few solidworks users and I have been approached to setup some hardware for a PDM server (not sure on which version exactly so lets call it standard).
I've got a few questions on usability and setup that I am hoping experienced users can help with.
1) Can the setup be installed and work perfectly fine on a Windows 10 box, rather than Server 2016/2019? I assume it can, but are there any things that wouldn't work, any really usable details that wouldn't work?
2) I'd like to virtualise if possible, officially VMWare 6.5 is supported, but has anyone run this on Hyper-V Core or KVM/Proxmox, vSphere 7? Any gotchas to know about? Any major cons?
3) Is a lack of Active Directory (AD) a problem as long as there is user access? how are user accounts managed in PDM or are they read from Local Machine? Does it complicate the setup at all?
4) Solidworks file data is currently kept on a reasonably speedy NAS, it is likely not to be co-located with PDM (unless this is massively beneficial or required). Does anyone run a setup like this?
5) Assuming no server side rendering takes place, so the server won't need a workstation GPU, or does it?
6) I read a specification document that details two drives, one with PDM and some other componenets (SQL) and the 2nd for archive server - I assume this is for performance purposes.
7) Assuming there is no issue with using this over a VPN setup for remote workers, or providing the web interface if I really needed to outside of the VPN? Any access issues?
8) Finally how do you backup - I was hoping to use virtualisation to simplify this and just take a whole virtual machine backup but with SQL thrown into the mix i' assuming there is a definitive "correct way".
Apologies if some of these seem quite basic, i've just been handed a product spec sheet and It doesn't contain any details of any of this, i've read a few documents and watched some videos but it seems more focused on someone who is a solidworks user than someoe who has to manage the systems/data setup.
We are going to get a specialist to install it - but I want to have a good base setup ready to take the install and avoid issues on the day. We still have time to change spec/os/some supporting software stack at this time.
Thanks in advance.
Hi there,
Obviously quite a few questions below, and to be fair your VAR should be able to support you with much of this. I've added a few comments below to get things rolling..
The answers to much of below will be quite different for PDM Pro to Standard and dependent on the size of the deployment.
SolidWorks strongly recommend deploying SolidWorks PDM on a Server Operating system, but for smaller deployments (of PDM Standard) a 'desktop' operating system could be suitable.
If the Virtualisation platform (KVM /Proxmox?) is not certified by SolidWorks then it's likely to be because of a problem with the Network License Manager and you may find that the installation is actually blocked. An example of this is Parallels on MacOS which allowed a Server to be duplicated and give out more licenses than a customer had purchased as a result. I'd stick to the 'supported' platform. If its PDM Standard with SQL you don;t have to worry to much, but if it's Pro with SQL Standard or Enterprise and you don;t have Software Assurance with your SQL Licenses you will not be able to take advantage of load balancing in VM Clusters (as you can only move the SQL license once every 90 days or so)
Again STD / Pro have different answers. PDM Pro supports AD logins, STD does not and relies on PDM User accounts created within the Vault itself. What 'windows' users you will have to consider is how people 'attach' to the Vault. If you don;t have a Domain / Domain Users then you will need to create a local User on the PDM Server that is added to the 'Can Attach' Security settings in the Archive Server configuration Tool. Users will then need to enter those credentials when setting up their connection to the Vault.
Not quite sure what you are asking here. Managed Data will need to be copied into teh Vault, PDM cannot manage 'external' files. Using the NAS to hold the PDM Archive whilst possible is not recommended (supported) by SolidWorks
unlikely
Performance, but the 'ultimate' performance requires many disks to split Vault database, Temp Database, log files, etc all under a suitably redundant RAID set up. The main reason why you see different requirements for the Database and Archive Server is that with PDM Pro it is possible to set up replicated Archives on remote sites, so that spec would be for those boxes only running one Service not both.
The only thing to be careful of with VPN (once standard PDM / SNL ports are opened 1433, 14345, 3030, 25734, 23575) is that teh SNL Manager doesn;t support IPV6 so if not disabled on the VPN you may find users are unable to get a license.
The Web Server (Web2.0) is only available with PDM Pro (not Standard) and your VAR would typically only set up as an intranet, since externalising it would require you to have a suitable secure domain name e.g. https://pdm.acme.com and your ISP to configure redirects from that address to your Web Server (that would typically be a separate box outside your firewall in the DMZ)
I would recommend creating a database backup to avoid issues with snapshoting/backing up a VM with open database connections.
PDM Pro uses SQL Standard so you can create a Maintenance Plan to create a DB backup just before you backup teh box.
PDM Std uses SQL Express so has no SQL Agent. For our Customers we have created a couple of SQL Scripts launched via a .bat file that we trigger using the Microsoft Task Scheduler. One script does a backup, the other rebuilds the indexes.
Hope this helps!?
Wayne Marshall
Solid Solutions Management (UK)