Installing proe over a network

[blockandahole]

Hi all,


Has anyone any experience of installing proe to run over a network?


What I mean is that the softare is installedand configured on a central system and the clients run the software over the network rather than having pro installed locally.


I guess the benefit is that updating proe is much easier as itonly has to be done on the server.


What are the penalties? Performance?? Stability?? Network reliance?


Any comments greatly appreciated

 

[looslib]

I have installed Pro/E both ways.


Network Install Advantages: 1 update, common config files (without copying)


Network Install Disadvantages: Slower load times for both start-up and when switching modules, Network bandwidth, server goes down so does everyone


Local Install Advantages: Updates can be automated with scripts since there is no registry information to worry about, performance is better


Local Install Disadvantages: Multiple upgrades, multiple build codes, mass updates to config files not propogated due to machine being off-line





I am sure there are more that can be listed.

 

[jnoval]

I have try both, and is now only using server installation. It is only the startup time at take some seconde more (depend on your netvork). As soon as ProE in running there is no different.


Another bennefit for a server installation is that whenone user get problems and the other users haven't the same problem, then you know that there isen't anything wrong with the CAD installation.

 

[elab.theken]

I would agree with the previous two posts. So long as you can live with a slightly longer load time, the server install is the way to go. Unless you split up your licenses so each machine has its own, if the network goes down, so do the workstations, so this is a moot point.

 

[looslib]

I will differ on the "As soon as ProE in running there is no different." part of your ststement. There is some difference in peformance when switching between modules as the code segments have to be retrieved from the server. The last place I worked had local installs, we went to network installs and now they have gone back to local because of the little hits in performance all day long. They told me they benchmarked it for a few days before loading everything local again. They use Robocopy to do mass updates over the weekend of all workstation installs.

 

[jnoval]

Robocopy could be a good option. This can also be done togehter with ProE start script to check version and do a copy if version is to old. Ofcourse the user have to wait and that can be a problem.


Anyway it would be a good ideawith a local installation to have ProE start script to always copy config files like config.pro and config.win from server to local installation.


But give the server installation a try.

 

[slashct]

I tried both and ended up with local installs and use RoboCopy as well, and it works awesome. Problem I had was at 8 am when everybody gets in and decides to start up it would take minutes and the network traffic was enough that the IT group was getting upset because I had not notified them of what I was doing and it started to strain things. We do have a good network, IT here prefers that we do things locally to reduce the traffic because of the number of users., I do as well now because when I travel I can run ProE locally through my VPN something that I cannot do if it is on the server.