Working remotely

[Lucian]

Hello!


Our company is getting bigger and we want to switch from Allplan to ArchiCAD. But we've hit a problem in our country. The people who offer ArchiCAD services are not collaborative to identify our needs in order to make software purchase more adequate.

So I am asking here for help!

We currently have an office in Bucharest and want to extend in another city (Sibiu) with a small team, mostly remote work.
We want to put the server at Sibiu. Our questions are:
1. Witch type of service do we need? The local guys from archicad only presented us with individual licences, which is weird. Not to say they didn't even ask us about our work structure . I found out that other offices in our cite have a different configuration. One with a central access key(server) and users.
2. How can we configure the server so that anybody from our team can connect to it and work on the projects, not depending on its fizical location.
3. What type of hardware do we need? We configured our selfs from the site information about the hardware type. But we don't know if its good or not. The firm who will implement it awaits ArchiCAD recomandations in order to make it work... but we are still waiting.

We will have a central data server with:
-Windows Server
- 12Core CPU 3.0GHz, 3.5 Turbo
- 65/128 GB RAM
- 4 TB Storage Place
- 1500W UPS
- cooling system

Do we need VPNs for:
- BimCloud
- BimManager

4. Other things? As software do we need something else besides ArchiCAD and BimCloud/Manager which we can purchase form ArchiCAD or 3rd parties (server software)?


Thank you

[Anonymous]

1. Which type of service do we need?
How many stations are you planning?
The local key for 1-license has one major drawback - it is only available on the computer which is connected to.
10, however, gets more expensive to support - both with and without ArchiClub subscription and you can't divide. Therefore we use 3-lic keys there are more flexible.

2. How can we configure the server?
There are different approaches to this matter. But mostly 3 general ways:
- the physical server in one of the offices - running BIMCloud - another office connects to the server via VPN(free BIMCloud) or BIMCloud paid service.
- 2 physical servers in both - running BIMCloud I'm not sure if its available in the free version but theoretically you can work even when the connection fails and you don't need to download files and changes though internet each time.
- cloud service running BIMCloud - Virtual machine running server you need to set it up. I heard there is this kind of service planned by Graphisoft

3. What type of hardware do we need?
The best will be better
Seriously it depends on form size of the project. Definitely CPU at least i5 and 16GbRAM and decent GPU. This should be fine up to medium complexity. Especially that we observe on AC22 big performance improvement.
If you will set up on local server it's recommended to use a separate computer for BIMCloud. Your specs for the server should be more than enough even for bigger teams.


4. Other things? As software do we need something else besides ArchiCAD and BimCloud/Manager which we can purchase form ArchiCAD or 3rd parties (server software)?

BIMCloud has paid version. I think it costs around 10euro/sit/month.
Definitely, 1GBs LAN is the must and good fibre connection.

I would suggest finding a different distributor in your country.

Whats wrong with AllPlan?

[Lucian]

Hey thank you for your answer.

1. I need a service with a server license and 5 users for flexability. Ty

For 2 and 3. I was trying to figure out how to structure the actual server:

I can buy a rack server storage with:
- server for bimCloud (hardware spec. from archicad website)
- server for bimManager (hardware spec. from archicad website)
- server for BimCloud Delta Cache (hardware spec. from archicad website)
- ups

vs

- a general powerfull server
- VPS bimCloud
- VPS for bimManager
- VPS for BimCloud Delta Cache
- ups

What i`m trying to figure out is: do i only need one server for BimCloud/ BimCloud Delta/ BimManager. Or do i need individual servers for each of them or do i need a powerfull server with 3 VPS for each of them .
Or it's just a choice that doesn't reflect work speed.

In my country they are the only ones that are selling ArchiCAD licenses

Allplan is very expensive, much more the ArchiCAD, and we can't find people that know the software to imploy. Bummer!

[Da3dalus]

We have about 100 people working in 3 cities in the USA. We do not have the full BIMCloud; we use the free BIM Server (now called BIMCloud Lite) on 2 servers. These do NOT need to be Windows Server OS; you can use standard Windows, since there is no need for direct client connections. It runs like a web server, all over HTTP.

Ours are pretty big machines (8-core Xeons with 96GB RAM and a 2 TB SSD RAID), but that's because we're hosting 150 projects on each one, with up to 40 users accessing simultaneously. If you're smaller, you won't need that much power. Many offices run a dozen projects off of a Mac Mini or cheap desktop PC.

In order to access outside of your office, you'll need to set up your router to point a subdomain into that machine's IP address. Once you do that, there's no need for a VPN (unless you need to manage Hotlink Modules outside the office).

We are considering the upgrade to full BIMCloud, which would centralize our server management and make a few things easier. It comes down to money, of course!

[Anonymous]

How do you set up the address for BIM Manager so that we can access remotely? Trying to figure this out.

[Da3dalus]

gurmukhpanesar wrote:
How do you set up the address for BIM Manager so that we can access remotely? Trying to figure this out.

That takes some IT expertise. You will need to add a subdomain to your DNS registry (like bimcloud.mycompany.com) and point it to the IP address of your server, which must be fixed (or you can just access directly to an IP address). You also have to configure your router to route traffic to that machine, both inside and outside of your office (LAN and WAN). Sometimes your Internet Service Provider can help you set this up over the phone. However, you should also take network security into consideration (block ports that aren't required, runs firewall, etc.). Check out the BIMCloud help center online.

[Anonymous]

Thanks, worked a charm.

[Noemi Balogh]

Hello everyone,

I would like to recommend our article collection on this topic, which you can access from here:
https://helpcenter.graphisoft.com/knowledgebase/126774/

Kind regards,