Pulse PLM - a decent solution

[neillsuitor]

Just a quick note to recommend Pulse PLM.

I currently manage an engineering group with 8 engineers developing large mobile quarry equipment. Our machines are typically 3000 plus ProE components.

Retrieval times are circa 3 to 4 mins to a regenerated model on screen using Dell 690 workstations and a basic Dell 1800 Poweredge server. Our CAD software is ProE Wildfire 3 - M070.

Pulse does exactly what it sayes. I have used it previously in a larger company with 27 engineers on ProE and vault with well in excess of 100,000 items. It is both fast and very fault tolerant. Best of all it takes about 30mins to teach a new user the basics so saving on training expense. Pulse are a small company but this brings benefits in that they will implement changes recommended by the user group, try asking Microsoft or PTC to change something you have a problem with.

We are about to start implementing multi site between our Irish and Canadian sites using Pulse which will be relatively painless to setup.


I am looking forward to Pulse 3 the next major release which promises even better useability and faster performance.

Neill Suitor
Engineering Manager
McCloskey International LTD

 

[verge]

Is it 64-bit compliant? We just found out that another small data management company's product won't work with Wildfire 2.0 in a 64-bit context. Will Pulse do this?


I also work for a small company, coincidentally enough with eight engineers, and we need a data management solution. I would prefer to work with a smaller, more flexible company like Pulse.


What can you tell me about system requirements? How is your system configured? How do you backup your files? I'm not an IT expert, I'm just asking some relevant questions here, the answers to which I'll pass on to our IT department.

 

[neillsuitor]

Hi Verge,

This is currently an interesting question.

We run 32bit ProE on Win XP 64 which is apparently faster that 64 bit proe on 64 bit windows unless you have absolutely massive data sets. Our machines are 4Gb Dell precision 690's. Using 64 bit Windows gives 32 bit processes up to 4gb of ram maximum which suits our setup of 4Gb installed. On 32 bit windows the maximum process size is 2Gb even if you have 4gb installed. You can use the 3gb switch but this is very slow and little better.

We have 32 bit Pulse installed which works just fine on XP 64. Pulse are working on 64 bit proe compatibility which will be available later on. When we next purchase workstations with more than 4Gb we will look at this. However with our setup at the moment we can easily work with 3-4 times then data and rarely ever have crashes compared to the bad old days of 32bit.

Our backup is done on server tapedrive which is very simple as there is only one directory and the database file to be backed up. pulse compresses the native proE files to about 50% original size thus reducing the amount of data to be backed up nightly.

I hope this explains

neill.

 

[verge]

Thanks alot for the info.


So they're not compatible with 64-bit machines right now?Half of our engineering department is running on 64-bit machinesnow, and that's why our initial PDM attempt fell through; it's simply not compatible with 64-bit machines running Wildfire 2.0. We might have to go with some kind of on-the-cheap Intralink orsomething until these smaller companies catch up...

 

[neillsuitor]

Sorry Verge,

I have confused you.

On your 64 bit machines - install 32 bit proE and 32 bit Pulse. 32 bit Pulse and proE work fine on 64 bit.

You will benefit as follows:

- Faster overal
- more stable
- 2x data set size limit (4gb install of 2gb).

I you have 64 bit proe installed simply uninstall and reinstall 32 bit version. then install 32 bit pulse as normal.

I reinstalled all our machines here from 32bit to 64 bit after testing. We still have the 32 bit versions of proE and pulse, it was simply far faster and more stable and i can open 6 plus machines in session when previously 2 machines made proe crash.

What ram have you installed in your workstaions??

neill.

 

[verge]

I see what you're saying about the 32-bit issue now. Makes sense to me.


The ram's another issue. Some of us have 4 gigs, others more like 2 gigs. I don't even know all of the numbers. We're a small company, and upgrade one computer at a time. This makes things really fun for us at times

.


What would you say to these criticisms? They're from a trusted colleague...


1. System crashs after retrival and I have to delete the ProExt file from my active applications each time. 2. (This is probably Pulse's biggest bug bear) When you are checking in an assembly, you have to save and check in each part individually first. This is a real pain in the arse! Very bloody time consuming. 3. The level of phone support is rubbish. (This comes from the fact that the package was developed by Pulse with a small number of Northern Irish businesses and these guys get all the help, others tend to be way down their list, or at least that is my take on it)


The phone support and checking-in part are big issues for me. Certainly we're not anywhere near Northern Ireland...


Thanks again..

 

[neillsuitor]

[No message]

 

[neillsuitor]

Hi again,

Seems you got on top of the 64 vs 32 bit thing now. If you only have a max of 4gb then in all situations if your system supports it you upgrade to xp64 and install proe 32bit and Pulse 32 bit.

1 System crashes.

This can happen, but very very rarely. I would estimate that a Pulse extension crash happens us about once a month with 8 users online working. This is very minor. As your colleague said you 'endtask' the proext.exe and continue as normal. there is nothing to restart or delete etc etc as it restarts itself when required. This crash is not server side and has no effect on other users or data. I would estimate that this inconveniances the user by about 1 minute. i tested Intralink in the bad old days and when it crashed it left the entire system down at both ends.

2. Checking In.

This is not true. If you modify a part you should (but dont have to) save it individually if you want all the parameters to fully update. It does not have to be checked in individually. if you are working on an assembly and modify say 5 parts and the assembly I would save each one and also save the assembly. When finished you can check in the assembly and it will take in the changes providing they were locked for modification in the first place. This is no slower than working normally. It is always good practive to save each change separately in proE and users know that sometimes changes get forgotten if you assume saving the top level will get everything.

3 Phone support.

Well im one of those Irish companies and know the owners personal mobile number so I have great support if needed. however we rarely ever need to call as we know the product so well so I cant comment on support for new users as I have no experiance with this. I guess there may be some truth in what your colleague sayes. Though because they are a small company it allows them to react quickly if something major needs fixed or changed so I guess its a bit swings and roundabouts on this.


regards
Neill.

 

[verge]

Neill,


This IT stuff is giving me a headache! One of our IT people just told me that he wasn't able to install 32-bit Pro-E on my 64-bit machine (he's already tried it). Are you running 2.0 or 3.0?


Here's another interesting aspect - some of us run XP64, some of us don't. Sounds to me like we may need a major overhaul just to be compatible with any data management system.


Thanks for your response once again. It's nice to have so much input (from both sides of the issue, I guess you could say). I think it's time to talk with some of the Pulse people directly and see how they present things.

 

[neillsuitor]

We are running ProE Wildfire 3 32 bit on XP 64. This installs no probs.

No reason why Wildfire 2 wouldnt do likewise though I have not tried it. Everyone said AutoCAD 2006 wouldnt run on XP64 including Autodesk, though again everyone was wrong as we have it working here perfectly!

To be honest XP is hard to install things on properly unless you have proper admin priviledges at all levels including local user level.

I would recommend the following:
- Install Wildfire 3 across the board - it is stabler, faster and highly improved compared to 2. I have used all versions of ProE since release 16 in 1995.

- Install xp 64 on any workstations that will support it otherwise leave alone.

- install 32 bit Pulse on all machines, doesnt matter if 32 or 64 bit.


note pulse works exactly the same as with Wildfire 2 as with 3.

Give Pulse a call to discuss properly. Mention that you have discussed these issues with me here. Damian the owner is very experianced as he was engineering manager in a local company before leaving to develop Pulse PLM properly.

regards
Neill Suitor.

 

[verge]

Neill,


Our main reason for running 2.0 is that our main suppliers (one of whom basically owns this area)run 2.0. We're afraid we may have compatibility issues. I'm starting to think you're right, though, the whole thing's a huge hassle in part because we're still running 2.0.


Thanks again. I'm going to have to look into the bigger picture here all over again. I'll certainly let you know how it works out.


Verge