Intralink 3.X Vault Alternatives

[dbrooks]

We have been moving down the PDMLink path. We use PDMLink and ProjectLink currently for non-Pro/Engineer files. Management has directed us to review alternatives. They are very concerned about performance, administrative overhead/complexity, and using a PDM solution that offers lots of utility that we do not intend to use.<?:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />


We do have the staff to administer PDMLink. But it is a challenge when doing install/upgrades. Out biggest technical issue with the PLink solutions is the way they put some information in Oracle and some in LDAP. It

 

[MarkBrouwers]

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[MarkBrouwers]

HI,
We also went the way form PDMLink towards another PDMsolution: DDM. We had the same issues like you : bad performance, complexity, ...
DDM works for us.
It's mainly focused for engineering people that want a quick yet complete overview of their parts/assemblies/drawings. You can easily add your own fields in the search results (unlike PDMLink), search on your own attributes, ....
DDM keeps track on all of ProE entities (and theid relations), but DDM can't ,unlike PDMLink, modify any ProE items without ProE.
Converting data form one system to the other is something else. I did not manage to export data from PDMLink directly into DDM. A lot of this conversion was done manually (we alse had to add some new attributes to the parts/assemblies). Maybe the people of CSI can help you with this.
At this moment DDM is fully incoperated into our MRP system and up until now I did not regret our decision to switch to DDM.

 

[walkerone]

Hi Koda1,


There are a few other threads on this topic - I've included my response in one of them below.


[url]http://www.mcadcentral.com/proe/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=33 236&PN=2[/url]


I've just been through a DDM installation whilst setting up a five user Pro/E mechanical design department. Compared to the experiences I've had previously with Intralink set-ups, this was really quite easy. Three days were sufficient to install the software and train the users.


We had a few minor problems initially, but the support service at DDM was rapid and sorted us out in a stisfactory manner. Most of the problems were actually more of getting used to the system rather than problems with the code. Now we have had a few weeks to use the system, the three continual users are pretty happy. It is simple to use, and suits our requirements nicely.


We are actually using one of the Pro/E machines as the client server for DDM without any problems. Back-ups are taken care of by an automated script to a server, and then tape from that server. In a simulated server crash, all the data survived and the system was up and running in an hour. Admittedly, we only had approx. 500 modelled parts and assemblies at that point.


DDM isn't amazingly cheap, but neither is it restrictively expensive. Compared to the monster which Intralink seems to be growing into due to the Windchill influence, I think we've made a good choice for our requirements.

 

[BigD]

Hello Koda1,


Check out my other posts regarding DDM. We're a smallengineering company, running 4 seats of WF3. We took up DDM after running with files and folders. It is working OK for us.


FYI, there is an import function on DDM, but we've never used it. We did not have a great deal of legacy information and chose to import manually as and when we needed it.





Davy