Internet Speed requirements

Are you using MicroStation with ProjectWise? If not, MicroStation itself almost doesn't need internet except CONNECTION Client. 100Mbs speed is enough.

I found the upload speed is also important if your working remote off company  network and vpns as microstation is constantly  trying to write back to files ... I changed my  provider and  plan used to be 150mbps down and  50 up and  fibre to curb  and  worked great then went  to new provider with 250 down and  fibre to house but up went to 20 mbps and  i noticed how slow microstation became...and I was working in pwise too..and  some stuff company server other times and it did slow performance...also the laptop and wifi modem made big difference too... my new  laptop very fast wifi connection.. but old work laptopn del was much slower connection same network, same wifi

If you directly access the files on your company's shared server through VPN, it is the worst case. MicroStation constantly save changes to DGN file. So in this case, MicroStation has to heavily use Internet and the DGN file is easily destroyed when the Internet is unstable.

If this is your case, I recommend below workflow:

• Copy files from your company's shared server to your local hard disk (Download)
• Open local DGN files in MicroStation
• Close MicroStation after you finish your work
• Copy local files to company's shared server (Upload)

ProjectWise performed the above steps transparently. So if your company is using ProjectWise, please ignore above recommend. You can simply directly access files on the ProjectWise server through VPN.

How does your VPN workaround function if the CAD Standards/Workspace/Worksets are over the same network as the project files?

We use Networked workspaces so that all our computers have access to the same standards, without the need to maintain every client workspace on every single computer. This also paths and redirects all of our configuration variables and project resources to our network location. I do not believe this is an unusual setup...

How would copying the drawing files locally work with VPN network standards?

Or are you saying that everything has to be local?

Back to the old sneaker network - you'd copy your files onto a floppy disk, take the disk to your computer, work on your drawings, and walk them back over to copy onto the storage computer...Is that really what we've gone back to?

Not everyone has ProjectWise. There is a lot of overhead in setting it up properly and maintaining it. Smaller companies can't afford that, and if you don't actually do project sharing outside of your own small department, the payback is limited.

How does your VPN workaround function if the CAD Standards/Workspace/Worksets are over the same network as the project files?

We use Networked workspaces so that all our computers have access to the same standards, without the need to maintain every client workspace on every single computer. This also paths and redirects all of our configuration variables and project resources to our network location. I do not believe this is an unusual setup...

How would copying the drawing files locally work with VPN network standards?

Or are you saying that everything has to be local?

Back to the old sneaker network - you'd copy your files onto a floppy disk, take the disk to your computer, work on your drawings, and walk them back over to copy onto the storage computer...Is that really what we've gone back to?

Not everyone has ProjectWise. There is a lot of overhead in setting it up properly and maintaining it. Smaller companies can't afford that, and if you don't actually do project sharing outside of your own small department, the payback is limited.

It is also possible to use Bentley Share which synchronize drawing across all computers which is tuned better for DGN files than Google, Dropbox or Onedrive.

Projectwise is great but should be more available.

MaryB said:

How does your VPN workaround function if the CAD Standards/Workspace/Worksets are over the same network as the project files?

We use Networked workspaces so that all our computers have access to the same standards, without the need to maintain every client workspace on every single computer. This also paths and redirects all of our configuration variables and project resources to our network location. I do not believe this is an unusual setup...

For this complex case, ProjectWise Managed Workspace is recommended. Using VPN to access your company's PW is almost same as you work in Office. Just speed is a little bit slow depending on your internet speed.

MaryB said:

How does your VPN workaround function if the CAD Standards/Workspace/Worksets are over the same network as the project files?

You would set your workspace to Bentley share folder which is located at "%userprofile%\share". Then any changes which admin does to Workspace automatically get synchronized to local computers. Point _USTN_CUSTOM_CONFIGURATION variable to this folder.

Also work with DGN files in share folder so they get synchronized and then can be copied later to some project delivery folder. This way you would get mini-Projectwise and managed workspaces. One unique feature of Projectwise is spatial indexing so I do consider anything named Projectwise without spatial indexing as true Projectwise and will not call "Bentley share" as "Projecwise share". It is bad marketing same like trying to call margarine as butter.

ProjectWise Managed Workspace requires the purchase of additional software, the training of people on that software, the training of the person who will be setting up and maintaining that software, and the time required to set up and troubleshoot that software, not to mention the production (billable) time lost by the person learning how to set up the software. This is a very pricey suggestion. I am not going to be able to "sell" this idea for a department of a dozen people.

ProjectWise is not "plug and play". I've worked with enough firms who do use ProjectWise to have seen how important it is that it be set up correctly (standards, permissions, etc.) and how frustrating it is when something isn't right.

Oto - Is this OneDrive, or something else? How does that work with my office network? I don't have the authority to change how the entire office stores project information, and it's all on the network. Also, how does that prevent someone else from downloading the same file to their share, working on it and saving it back up? Sneaker net problems - If more than one person works on the file, one person's work gets lost. I've seen that too many times. The minute a file is copied from the main server to anywhere else, that leaves the server copy open to being changed by someone else.

How does this work out if your Windows profile gets corrupted? It doesn't happen often, but it is a possibility. They had to create a new one for me just last week.

I am a MicroStation guy. I am not an IT guy. Our IT guys are NOT MicroStation guys.
Time to learn something else new...