REVIT SERVER

Do you work for a company that has more than one office?  Do you occasionally need to collaborate with those offices using the same Revit Central File?  Then it's time to:

We can't get enough production staff in Singapore for the project I am presently working on so we have had to engage workers located in our Australian offices.  That did not go well at all.  Our central file lived on a server in Singapore and the lag times involved with users synchronizing over the Wide Area Network (WAN) were absolutely crippling us.

At AU last year, I had heard rumblings about a recently developed piece of software designed to address this problem.  I did a little research and the trail led to Robert Manna.  He taught a class on it last year and presented a wealth of info about using Revit on a WAN.  He was VERY helpful in briefing me on the solution.  You can get at his EXTREMELY HELPFUL PRESENTATION FROM AU HERE.

This is the simplified explanation:

The master model is moved up to a CENTRAL SERVER.  Each office location then sets up a LOCAL SEVER.  The LOCAL and CENTRAL SERVERS talk to each other all day long through the WAN.  Individual users then sync their models to their office's LOCAL SERVER through the Local Area Network.  User don't have to interact with the WAN and everybody is happy.  It works pretty sweet.

It took a bit of effort because the company I work for has a pretty complex network security system and uses multiple DNS addresses for our different locations.  We received some excellent support from Autodesk in getting the system up and running.  RS uncovered some open doors in our system and i think we found some unknown bugs in RS from the process.  Many thanks to anyone from ADSK who helped out.

Its free if you are on subscription and if you work for a firm which uses Revit in more than one office, you need this tool at the ready in your arsenal.  period.  no excuses.  Charlie sez PLAN BETTER, and i think it applies here!