Connecting to a WAN

[stosh]

Our office (Architecture) recently purchased the newest version of Autocad and it came with some great features linking all the drawings for a project together. Up until now we never had these options so working off site we would just download individual files work on them and then upload so the time lag was never a big deal however now we are working in more real time with our files and the lag is WAY to much. Aside from getting a T1 connection for $1200 a month what kind of options do I have to help streamline our connection speed. We are currently "VPN'ing" into our server.

[Kornphlake]

Stop doing work off-site.

The only way to get a faster connection is to get a faster connection. You might look into wireless services, I can't remember if they can even come close to the upload speed of DSL or Cable though.

[BUCKET]

Cad files are freaking huge. Any connection will have a lag time when working with these files in real-time. A full T1 is a good option, but may not be practical. You're always gonna be limited to offsite connection speeds, but it usually doesn't affect the majority of users. The majority of us aren't dealing with Cad files in real-time - thank God. Cable is the fastest cost effective option out there - atleast in my area.

By the way - you are connected to a WAN right now.

[H8R]

On the cheap - if you have the option to go for cable over dsl, do that.

[stosh]

Stop doing work off-site.

The only way to get a faster connection is to get a faster connection. You might look into wireless services, I can't remember if they can even come close to the upload speed of DSL or Cable though.

Yeah, even with Cable or DSL nothing has the upload speed that is fast enough.

[binary visions]

Contact your local cable companies and find out about their business packages. Your new expensive T1 has a download speed of less than half a good cable service, but the upload speed will kill ya' since they limit it so severely. However, the business class connections might have higher upload speed options.

Without investing a tremendous amount of money in bandwidth, working real-time with online CAD files is just going to be laggy, not much you can do.

[syadasti]

Get a really really beefy server and run Citrix or terminal services so your computers are in effect dummy terminals and all the work is done on the server end (probably very expensive or impossible with CAD apps) or you could setup all your CAD workstations at one site and use a VPN with RDP or VNC and use some crappy computers remotely to work on the CAD workstations which would be on a 100 or 1000 Mb LAN talking to each other with no bandwidth issues.

I think Verizon FIOS is offering 100 Mb internet in some markets now, but that would only do you good if you had it on both ends.

[peter6061]

Can you work through a remote desktop connection so that the file remains on the workstation in the office and you simply are 'viewing' the workstation's screen from your PC?

I don't know if this would be faster, but it's another option.

We just moved several of our applications to a Citrix server so we could lose the various VPN connections in our org.

edit: Damn. beat me to it.

[syadasti]

P.S. RDP works better than VNC in various setups I've used (less bandwidth and more seamless) but VNC works with more OS. Remote Desktop support is built into WinXP, so if you are lucky, you won't need to buy any software to test this solution. You can get RDP clients for many different OS. Terminal client works with remote desktop but has limited color display palette.

Citrix, RDP, VNC, etc don't tend to work well with multimedia content like videos, games, etc due the screen refresh not being fast enough. Some of the solutions do have audio support, but I doubt that would be relevant for CAD.

[stosh]

We tried the REMOTE desktop but when we're running Acad it's UBER slow.

What would cause that lag?

[syadasti]

Did you have all workstation at the same site? Otherwise using remote desktop won't have any effect at all on your bandwidth issues.

Remote desktop has no effect on the speed of the workstation since the processing is done locally. It can be laggy in screen refresh if your bandwidth isn't that great, but the application will run at full speed...

[stosh]

Did you have all workstation at the same site? Otherwise using remote desktop won't have any effect at all on your bandwidth issues.

Remote desktop has no effect on the speed of the workstation since the processing is done locally. It can be laggy in screen refresh if your bandwidth isn't that great, but the application will run at full speed...

Yeah I think it's teh refresh rate. I was working on my work computer from home and the refresh rate was slow I believe.

How do all these gamers play against eachother?

[syadasti]

Yeah I think it's teh refresh rate. I was working on my work computer from home and the refresh rate was slow I believe.

How do all these gamers play against eachother?

Well RDP is the best you are going to get - local speed for everything but page refresh. Even over dialup you should be able to get at least half a dozen page refreshes per second.

Most games work off a client server model and don't require a lot of bandwidth. Lag is the usual issue for online gaming.

[binary visions]

How do all these gamers play against eachother?

Most games are entirely local with only a small amount of data being transmitted to and from the computers tracking what the other players are doing. The actual data being transmitted is suprisingly small.

Your CAD files are transferring huge amounts of data back and forth.

[sanjuro]

On that note, possibly there is a way to optimize cad file transfers, instead of a complete file move....

[stosh]

On that note, possibly there is a way to optimize cad file transfers, instead of a complete file move....

Yeah we're holding off calling Acad about that.
I just know how worthless that conversation is going to be. The guys going to read thru the help menu and if there isn't anything there he's going to go "uh... I don't know if you can do that".

[Kornphlake]

If that's the kind of support you get from the vendor you need to find a new vendor. Based on what I know of sales reps for SolidWorks, the sales guys know about as much about the product as the programmers themselves. I wouldn't expect AutoDesk to be too helpful but the vendor who made a few thousand dollars in commisison on the sale of the software you bought should be able to help you out.