Bandwidth - BIMcloud for Archicad 26

[catalano]

I'm part of a small architecture firm in Boston. With the new upgrade to Archicad 26 and the BIMcloud, the internet requirements are massive and costly. Is anyone that's part of a small firm working on Archicad 26 - and how much bandwidth do you have in the office?? Graphisoft is recommending 50mbps per user. I'd love it if anyone has insight on this!!

[Karl Ottenstein]

Not your question - but as far as I know, nothing has changed in AC 26 and BIMcloud vs prior releases in terms of the amount of data exchanged.  I've never seen this 50mbps per user number and it doesn't make sense to me at all... way more than you need.  Can you give a link to whatever article advised that speed?

[Miha_M]

Probably from this link: BIMcloud as a Service Connection Test - Graphisoft Community

Or this one: System Requirements – Graphisoft

[Karl Ottenstein]

Thanks, @Miha_M 

Several things are interesting about those articles.  First, they don't recommend the bandwidth for BIMCloud Basic, or BIMCloud, only for BIMcloud as a Service - and we don't know which of the 3 options   @catalano intends to use.  Second, as a fully hosted solution, BIMCloud as a Service (SAAS) should not have any greater network demands...other than that it can host more file types than the other 2.  In ordinary operation, TeamWork sends and receives very little data... it is only the initial upload and the initial download to each workstation that is potentially massive.

The listed "Acceptable" bandwidth seems, well, acceptable 🙂

[catalano]

Thank you for commenting, Karl.

Yes, I am referencing Graphisoft's article on System Requirements. Our office currently uses a self-hosted (physical) server and we are looking to eventually migrate to BIMcloud As a Service. To clarify, are you saying the BIMcloud SAAsS shouldn't have greater network demands than a server, or than the other  BIMcloud options? Do you have an idea why Graphisoft "recommends" 50 mbps per user? Are you working in a small size office as well? 

Thank you for your responses!

[Karl Ottenstein]

I'm not using TW at the moment, but the BIMcloud technology is nearly the same across all three platforms... with more and more features as you move toward the SAAS solution.   BIMcloud SAAS is ideal for those offices that can afford it as there is no need for an in-house IT person... it is hosted on Graphisoft servers and maintained by them.  It has additional file hosting features, but to my knowledge there is nothing about it that should make the network demands any different than the other solutions.

Someone actively using it will have to answer more specifically. 

(Caveat on self-hosted BIMcloud is that if everyone including the server hosting BIMCloud is on your local network, then the internet speed is irrelevant.)

[Miha_M]

What is your current upload bandwidth and latency? How does the small office translate into active Archicad user numbers? The recommended bandwidth of 50Mbps is 6,25MB/s, but I think this is only needed for projects on a larger scale and affects the transfer time at large data transfers, like first time a project file is downloaded, etc.

I think if you don't work on multiple project files at once and your file sizes are about 500MB or less, you can work without major problems also on smaller bandwidth numbers.

The easiest way to figure out if this works for your office would be to test it. There was a 60 day free trial subscription offered during covid, but I don't know if this is still available.

[catalano]

We currently have 11 Archicad users and 200Mbps upload speed. What do you mean by 50Mbps is 6.25MB/s? Thank you. 

[Miha_M]

1 Megabit/sec. = 0.125 Megabytes/sec, 8:1 ratio.

200Mbps/11 = 18 Mbps/user. With this numbers you seem to be above the GS declared acceptable treshhold of 15 Mbps. Your download speed is probably on the same or higher bandwidth. I'd say this should work, but I would suggest to test this out on a free trial, if this is still on offer.

[Laszlo Nagy]

200 Mbps/sec does not seems too much for an office.

I only have home internet but even that is 350 Mbps/sec.

Is there any specific reason why you guys are not using something more robust?

I don't know about other parts of the world, but here in Hungary, 1000 Mbps/sec connections are becoming the latest norm for home internet connections. (I have not upgraded mine yet because even 350 is more than enough for me.)