WAN Performance - The Performance Criteria for the 21st Century

Just the other day I heard about a company implementing Pro/INTRALINK 8.0 where there are essentially no "local" users. ALL the users are remote users - they are distributed across multiple sites. As a result - wide area network (WAN) performance is more important to them than local area network (LAN) performance.

Over the last 4-5 years it has become commonplace to hear about engineers working with colleagues or design partners who are working at another location, maybe in a different town, state, country or continent. As a result Pro/INTRALINK performance is evaluated in a whole different context -not only is performance in the office important - but now performance working with Pro/INTRALINK over a WAN is as just as important if not more.

So sure - Pro/INTRALINK 8.0 WAN performance is better than Pro/INTRALINK 3.x WAN performance. Have a look at the whitepaper to read the numbers. But don't you hate it when your car is advertised by the manufacturer as getting 40 miles per gallon and you only get 25 miles per gallon? What are the manufacturers doing to get such great performance and what do you need to do to make sure you share the same experience?

Well, I 'm not going to tell you how to get better gas mileage but I will suggest a couple of key-capabilities to configure and work habits to follow to make sure your getting the best WAN system response time with Pro/INTRALINK 8.0 and Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 2.0.

Meta-Data Compression - The upload/download metadata compression option compresses the metadata that is transferred between Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire client and a Pro/INTRALINK 8.0 or Windchill 8.0 server during upload and download as well and checkin and checkout operations.

The compression option, dm_http_compression_level, is set within Pro/ENGINEER, by Clicking Tools > Options.

Specify the data compression factor (0-9, where 0 = no compression) for data exchange with a Pro/INTRALINK 8.0 or Windchill 8.0 server. Higher compressions can speed up uploads for a client over a slow network. The optimal value for the number of threads is dependent on the hardware and network environment as well as the customer data set sizes and complexity so finding the optimal thread value for each site requires some iteration and testing. Multi-Threaded Download

Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire can be configured to download files using multiple threads, which can reduce the time of transferring files from a Pro/INTRALINK 8.0 or Windchill 8.0 server to a your workstation.

Multi-threaded download is configured using the following environment variable and syntax: PROWT_THREADS=2

Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire can be configured to use from 1 to 10 threads. The optimal value for PROWT_THREADS varies with environment and types of data sets used. As a starting point, PROWT_THREADS should be set for 3 in a LAN environment and 7 in a WAN environment.

The optimal value for the number of threads is dependent on the hardware and network environment as well as the customer data set sizes and complexity. Users will realize 80% of the performance benefit by using the default recommended values of 3 in a LAN environment and 7 in a WAN environment; but finding the optimal thread value for each site requires some iteration and testing.

Pro/ENGINEER Native Menus - Use the Pro/INTRALINK Pro/INTRALINK capabilities available through Pro/ENGINEER menus and dialogs. What can you do? Check Out, Undo Check Out, Check In, and Update. As mentioned in the Pro/INTRALINK 8.0 Delivers Improved Productivity white paper in the Improved Usability section on pages 4-8.

When working over a WAN, there are a lot of reasons why you might lose a connection to the server - your connection might be a temporary one if you are using a virtual private network (VPN), the server might become unavailable for system maintenance, or your connection simply may be unreliable.

With Pro/INTRALINK 3.x, when the server became unavailable while Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire was connected, the Pro/ENGINEER session eventually froze and the work was interrupted.

The new capability enables you to continue working in a Pro/ENGINEER session uninterrupted while the server is unavailable. Offline workspace access for Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire enables remote or external partners and suppliers to work productively despite intermittent or unreliable network, or interrupted access to a Pro/INTRALINK 8.0 or Windchill 8.0 server.

In Pro/INTRALINK 8.0 and Windchill 8,0, when a connection to the server is lost, Pro/ENGINEER notifies you of the connection loss. While working offline, the Pro/ENGINEER browser workspace user interface supports only a subset of the workspace commands. In addition, when working offline, the restriction on the local cache size is suspended in favor of a "soft" local cache size restriction.

When you try to access the server (clicking on server icon in Wildfire, choosing checkin or checkout for example), if the server is available, upon reconnecting to the server, information is synchronized between the workspace and the server, and, if necessary, conflicts are automatically resolved.

FYI - in a few months there will be a Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 2.0 maintenance release which has a new "Work Offline" command in the file menu to make connecting and disconnecting easier and providing an indicator when you are offline "v Work Offline".

Try it! - No one likes to wait - so if you are working with Pro/INTRALINK 8.0 over a WAN try setting configuring Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire for Meta-Data Compression and Multi-Threaded Download. Also focus on using the Pro/ENGINEER Native Menus to streamline your data management work and if you lose access to the server - you can keep on working with Offline Workspace Access.