External References & PDM Systems

[prohammy]

In all the years I have been working with ProE I have never used it in conjunction with either Intralink or Windchill. I have used it with UGS's Teamcenter, IFSand another PDM called Pulse. With all of these products, there is a common thems, they all hate external references and family tables (both lead to exceptionally long retrival times)


So my question is how do both Intralink and Windchill handle external references and family tables


Cheers


Kev

 

[neillsuitor]

Kev,

I have used ProE with both Intralink and Audros (from Rand), both these as you describe had huge retrieval times, roughly 5x reading files direct from server. Currently I have a site with here in ireland with 8 users on ProE using Pulse as our PDM. retrieval times for large assemblies are very very fast. Tests show at least a factor of 5x faster using Pulse than reading same large assemblies direct from server.

from my understanding Pulse produces speed as a combination of:

1. Files compressed to approx 50% original native ProE size meaning half the network bandwidth.
2. Server sends all assembly files in one go direct from single directory on server to single workbench directory on workstation, opening from server direct means many open file links and searching using paths etc etc.
3. Workstation performance used to epand the compressed files.
4. Assembly opened direct from local disc which everyone knows is extremely fast.

From my experiance the larger files have the more marked improvement compared to opening direct from server.

Incidentaly our Server is only a cheap Dell Poweredge 1800 with an average speed raid 5. We get superb performance without having to resort to expensive server end equipment.

regards
Neill Suitor.