MSDE & the Vault

Although I’m sold on SQL Server for large firms for obvious reasons, don’t discount MSDE. True, there is a 10 connection limit, but that’s a limit imposed by the operating system (Windows XP only allows 10 concurrent connections). However, if you install on Windows Server you’ll enjoy upwards of 30 concurrent users, as MSDE takes over the management of the connections!

There is a 2Gb limit (a limit, less when accounting for backups and room to breathe) on the size of the MSDE relational database (relax, that’s about 60,000 drawings – but remember, you can control how many versions of a drawing are saved to the Vault). If you start to approach the 2 GB limit, Vault starts to throttle back the number of concurrent users. As you start approaching the 2 GB limit, MSDE will start to limit the number of concurrent users (great way to tell if the Vault is filling up).

The nice thing about an MSDE implementation of Vault, is that if you start to hit the 2GB limit, you simply create a new vault – this is something that our Mechanical friends using the Vault can’t do. So if you’re in a firm with several teams (i.e. Walmart team, Residential team, Education team, etc.), you could conceivably create a Vault for each team. Although you can’t share data between Vaults, this may still be a viable solution. And by the way, Vault supports the Microsoft SQL Server Express Edition, which offers a 4 GM limit on the relational DB.

So what if you roll out MSDE, fill up the relational Database, and decide to swith to full SQL Server, can it be done? Absolutley. The upgrade to full SQL is very easy. In fact, the easiest way to install vault with full SQL is to install it with MSDE and upgrade it. And moving the vault to a new server is fairly simple as well!

You can check the size of your relational database by logging into the Autodesk Vault Manager.

Can you use Data Shortcuts without the Vault? Absolutely, check out Angel’s Thoughts: Angel’s Civil 3D Thoughts: Civil 3D 2007 – Data Shortcuts

Cheers!