|
CSG now offering
Siteops
Civil Systems Group, Inc, the parent company
of the Collaboration Systems Group has signed a
reseller and training partner agreement with
Blueridge Analytics to
represent Siteops.
Scott
Noble, President of Civil Systems Group, Inc.,
says, "SITEOPS represents the most significant
leap forward in technology and productivity for
site and land development that we have seen in
almost two decades. This software puts new power
in the hands of the designer, with measurable
economic results."
|
|
|
| | |
Greetings!
On behalf of CSG, let me
say thank you for your support in 2009. It
was certainly a challenging year for us all, but
we had a significant quantity
of successful Riverbed implementations in
2009. Revit Collaboration seemed to be the
hot topic last year, and we expect it will become
even more prevalent in 2010 as the BIM and VDC
market continues to expand. CSG remains the
leader in Revit Collaboration solutions, through
our implementation of Riverbed's Steelhead devices
and Steelhead Mobile.
As you look at your
business processes in 2010, we encourage you to
think about how you're working with your remote
offices, and with your trusted partners.
What does your "file centric" workflow cost you in
hard dollars (remote office servers and tape
drives, etc) and soft costs (I.T support, copied
files, etc). How much time is wasted copying
files, and then determining what the latest
version is?
We're already beginning to see some
life in certain pockets of the country and trust
that 2010 will be a much improved year for us
all. We look forward to an opportunity to
assist you in
2010. |
 |
CSG's Revit Model Hosting
Service
CSG expects to begin
our Revit Model hosting service around the first
of February, 2010. We're actively
looking for partners to run some pilot
projects. If you're interested, please
contact us. |
Common questions about
this service:
Q. How is this
different than an FTP site or similar?
A. FTP sites are static, meaning
you post your file there and then
disconnect. Because Revit utilizes a
"model-centric" workflow, constant connection to
the Central File will be needed. CSG's
hosted service is designed to allow your project
team live access to the Central File.
Q. How does this work?
A. CSG will have a Riverbed Steelhead
appliance at our datacenter. Each office or
person connecting to that particular project
folder will need a Steelhead appliance or
Steelhead Mobile client to create the
optimized connection to the model.
Q. How will this change the recommended
Autodesk workflow?
A. If you are using the latest
recommended workflow, with Workshare enabled, it
won't change how you use Revit at all. You
will simply open the Revit model from our server
(your own project folder). The model will be
set up for Worksharing, so when you open from the
server, the model understands its role as the
Central File and will create a local working copy
for each each project member. You will save
to your local file, then synchronize with the
Central File, on the CSG server.
Q. What if I have multiple projects and
multiple Revit models?
A. CSG will create separate, private,
secure, project folders and give access only to
those project team members you designate.....from
your own company and/or partner firms.
Q. What about security?
A. CSG will protect each folder with a
secure firewall. You will only have access
to your own folder through the VPN
connection.
Q. Will CSG help us manage our
Model?
A. No, CSG is simply providing a
landing area for all project team members to
utilize for your project. As you do today,
someone will need be designated the Project
Manager for your project. Our intent is to
take your LAN-based Revit workflow and simply
extend that same workflow to your WAN
users.........like everyone was sitting in one
office.
Q. What about sharing work
overseas?
A. The CSG server will be available 7
days a week, 24 hours per day, except for
regularly scheduled maintenance, which will be
announced well in advance.
Q. Does CSG offer a Proof of
Concept program?
A. Yes !! You can take
advantage of the CSG Proof of Concept program for
the Steelhead Appliance you'll need in your
office. This allows you to make the decision
AFTER you know it
works. |
|
Autodesk University Wrap
Up |
Thanks to all who flooded
our booth during the two nightly receptions at AU
!! We appreciate all the questions and
interest we received.
We learned a couple of interesting things
that I'd like to share with you. We had a
few long time Revit users approach our booth, as
they saw our banners about Revit Collaboration and
Riverbed. As it turned out, a few of these
long time Revit users also were long time Riverbed
customers, too. We were puzzled by some
customer's comments that Riverbed "doesn't work"
with Revit. Obviously, this got our
attention !!
Upon follow up after AU with a couple of
these clients, we found the problem. In the
early days of Revit, there was no such thing as
setting the model up for worksharing, where we
could simply open the model from a server drive
and Revit would understand that the model on the
server was the "central file". In today's
Revit, a local copy is automatically created when
opening from the Central file on the
server...........in the old days, this was not the
case. Long time Revit users were simply
doing a "copy" from the server to their local
disk. Riverbed certainly helped with that
transfer time. However, when you tried to
update the central file, because it had been
"copied" and not "opened", the path to the server
was not known and it would take several minutes of
pain to try to update the central file.
Simply updating the processes of the Revit
model setup and workflow to take advantage of
Revit's enhancements in working with several
projects members on a single model fixed this
issue.
We look forward to next year's Autodesk
University and are taking steps to try to be a
presenter at next year's conference
! |
|
Success Story
Invitation |
|
Manufacturers are always
doing "success stories" with clients who have
deployed their solution and finding it has had a
significant, positive affect on their business,
but generally, these "success stories" are with
multi-national, or Fortune 100 companies (or at
least the companies we've all heard of). CSG
would like to provide a forum for us "little guys"
to also share our successes with others, and get a
little press for your firm, as well. If you
have deployed Riverbed for Revit Collaboration
with your own offices, or with Partner firms,
or for disaster recovery, I.T consolidation, or
simply sharing CAD files, we'd like to offer you
this space in our quarterly newsletter to
share your story, and your success.
Currently, our newsletter
goes out to approximately 2500 contacts throughout
the United States. We'll also publish your
story on our website, which has received over
20,000 hits in December 2009 alone !
If you are
interested, please contact Mark Schlicher at
734-418-4012, or email at Mark.Schlicher@cs-grp.net |
|
Thanks again to all who
attended Autodesk University and visited our
booth. It was great to be able to meet those
we've talked to before but had never met in
person.
Note to
myself........next year, when you book your flight
to Autodesk University, make sure you remember
what day you scheduled yourself to leave, so
you don't show up at the airport two days after
your flight left !
Sincerely,
Mark R. Schlicher
National Account Manager
Collaboration
Systems Group
734-418-3012 | | |
