Server recommendations for BIMcloud Basic

[Anonymous]

Hello. I need to make a proposal soon for a new and dedicated BIM Server. We have 18 licenses and generally 3-5 Teamwork projects, between 21 and 22. Archicad 24 cannot yet be implemented because of the OS limitations for BIMcloud, one of the reasons for the need of a new server. The other reason is that it is current running in a virtual machine on the file server.

I'm interested knowing your setups and experiences... CPU speed and number of cores, RAM, number of TW users and of course the operating system.

Currently I'm leaning towards a refurbished Mac Pro 8-core with at least 16GB of RAM. What do you think?

[Noemi Balogh]

Hi,

Based on the number of BIMcloud Basics you wish to install, I don't think 16 GB of RAM will be enough.

I suggest to check out also our Help Center article: https://helpcenter.graphisoft.com/knowledgebase/64444/

Please note that the above article is calculating with only one BIMcloud Basic - in your case, based on the number of BIMcloud Basics, I think you will need at least 32 GB of RAM.

Can you provide us some hints about the size of the projects and how many projects you work on actively approx. an average day?

Kind regards,

[Anonymous]

We'll be running one BIMcloud for use with 24. The other servers will stay in place until the projects are completed or we take them out of Teamwork. There will most likely be 3 or 4 projects between 1-2 GB with 2-5 users per project at a time.

[SeRohde]

subatomic wrote:
We'll be running one BIMcloud for use with 24. The other servers will stay in place until the projects are completed or we take them out of Teamwork. There will most likely be 3 or 4 projects between 1-2 GB with 2-5 users per project at a time.

subatomic wrote:
The other reason is that it is current running in a virtual machine on the file server.

I maintain some BIMServer and BIMCloud Basic Servers within a VM. From my experience Storage I/O and enough (empty) Storage Space is the thing that is limiting our Performance the most at the moment. So it's wise to plan ahead. I'd never run one of those Servers on a System, that is also a Fileserver, because I just can't afford to give away any "I/O - Speed" to another task like serving files.

Cheers, S.

[Noemi Balogh]

In this case the computer you shared with us can be OK, though I would not recommend to install any further BIMcloud Basic beside it in the future, as this one BIMcloud Basic will use at least approx. 10-12 GB of RAM.

I believe you wish to buy this Mac Pro for hosting not only one BIMcloud Basic at a time, so It might be advisable to think about the future too.

Also, thanks SeRohde for this comment:

I'd never run one of those Servers on a System, that is also a Fileserver, because I just can't afford to give away any "I/O - Speed" to another task like serving files.

I don't recommend to do this either - BIMcloud is heavily relying on resources, and performance of Teamwork operations can be a nightmare when other applications hijack the resources from the program.

[Anonymous]

Then It seems to be only a matter of RAM.
The 10-12 GB mentioned for one server is including the estimated projects, right? (2 + 1.5 x size)

[Noemi Balogh]

I still believe 32 GB RAM is essential in your case. About further specification (CPU, storage), the best way you can go is if you check our recommendations on Help Center I linked earlier before. If you match all of these recommendations, I think you will not have performance issues with your BIMcloud Basic.

[wjakubowski]

Interesting topic!
In order not to multiply threads, I will ask here.

For now, we are having an old pc ( quad6600/8gb/ 2ssd with windows7) . It handles bimcloud for v22/v23/v24;) WIth v24 we are noticing some troubles ( lags, etc), especially with bigger files (>700mb).

We've bought a replacement: Dell Poweredge r710, with 4x 3TB SAS 7.2K (raid 10) ,2x X5650, 128Gb RAM, 6x1Gbit, VMware.
We were planning to setup it as a BimcloudBasic , and also file server on vmware and separate ethernet port.
I was wondering, if this setup will work for us, and which OS to choose- windows 10pro, server2016, server2019?...
We have 4 teamwork users, working on one project, or four different.
Some of our files are small ( <500mb) other should be considered as huge ( 6Gb).

There was a plan to build separate machine only for bimcloudbasic, with good mobo, >32Gb ram, and NVMe ssd, but in my opinion with 1Gbit/s (128Mb/s) LAN it won't use the potential.

Am I right?:-)
Anyone is using 2x xeon on windows 10pro, or windows server2016/19 with bimcloud?
Will windows server 2016 be supported in next bimcloud versions?:-)

[Johan Stinckens]

Hi Noémi,

Our current system, about a year old, is a HP ProLiant DL360 Gen10 SMB with a Xeon Silver 4210/2.2GHz and 64GB DDR4. It runs both a fileserver and our BIMcloud.

We have 10 BIMcloud licenses and about 16 projects, each with at least two files. File size ranges from 200mb to 500mb with some reaching over 1GB. On average there are about  8 to 10 files in use by 6 to 8 users.

Does this seem fine to you?!

Johan

[Johan Stinckens]

SeRohde,

Do you mean that you would never create two VM's on one physical server for which one runs a fileserver and the other the BIMcloud?!

Johan