The Vault – My Final Answer

I’ve had several requests to take all I’ve written about the Vault in the past, and combine it into one document…

If you need to share project data in Civil 3D 2007 similar to the way you shared it in Land Desktop, Softdesk, or DCA, then you need the Vault, no way around it – but it comes with Civil 3D 2007.

Using the Vault in Civil 3D 2007 allows you to control not only access to specific drawings, but the data within those drawings as well. I can create a surface as a team lead, and I can give specific users the rights to modify the surface, while other users only have permission use it/see it in various drawings related to a specific project – it’s awesome. Think about it – in the past we could control drawing access via permissions; now we can control object data as well. Sweet. Think you’ll need a Vault Admin? Absolutely.

Autodesk Civil 3D 2007 includes the Autodesk Data Management (Vault) feature. Autodesk Data Management (Vault) includes client and server components. The client component of Vault is called the Autodesk Vault Explorer. The server component is called the Autodesk Data Management Server. Collectively, these components can be referred to as the Autodesk Vault. The Autodesk Data Management Server is a secure relational database (and uses either MSDE which is included on the installation disk, or SQL Server). A user must have an account to access data and must be assigned appropriate user permissions (Windows persmissions do not apply to the Vault). The following roles can be assigned to Vault users:

Administrator
Full privileges within to all folders all the time and administrative privileges on the server, including ERP rights. There can be only One Administrator. Although the system will allow more than one Administrator, this can be problematic at best.

Vault Editor
Full privileges within the vault, but no administrative privileges on the server.

Vault Consumer
Read-only access to files and folders only.

The following roles are included in Vault Administration, but are not currently used by Civil 3D:
Content Center Administrator
Content Center Editor

I would strongly recommend a single user (typically the CAD Manager, and assuming, of course, you have one) be assigned administrative rights to each Vault (and there can be several). Assigning the role of Vault Admin to an outside resource (such as an outside IT consultant) could be problematic if it is typically difficult to reach the IT firm. Your projects are vital to production, if something goes wrong with the Vault, and you can’t reach your outside consultant, you may not be working on your projects as planned. Does the Vault bring the Civil Engineering, Land Planning, and Surveying community into a new era of data management? Absolutely…

Working Folders
Your work is STORED in the Vault, buried deeply in a strange looking directory structure you do NOT want to toy with – but the relational database knows how to find it (your drawings, your alignments, your terrain models, etc). Irregardless of the pain you’ve gone through organizing your files in the past, when you open a drawing in Civil 3D 2007, and attach that drawing to a “Project”, the drawing is actually copied, moved to the Vault, copied again, and stored in a “Working Folder” for use. Yes, you could delete the original file without affecting your data, but you’ll now have the ability to keep track of ALL versions of your work, and restore them as necessary! The relational database (MSDE or full SQL Server) tells Civil 3D how to find your work, but again, it’s ALWAYS a copy you work on.

The working folder contains your local copies of drawings and other files for ALL the projects stored in a Vault (think you need a rather large local Hard Drive if you decide to set the working folder to a local drive?). If all your projects are stored in the same Vault, you will use the same working folder for all projects. If you work with projects that are stored in different Vaults, then use a different working folder for each Vault. If you decide local storage is at a premium, you’ll want to store your local files on a server and point everyone to that directory – but you’ll slow access to the files (I hope you turn off the real-time virus scanning for this folder, and I hope you have a serious network).

Once a drawing lives in the Vault, you don’t open it – you check it out (you check it out, a copy goes into the working folder, you work with the copy, yadda yadda yadda). When you’re done, you don’t save and exit, you save and check the drawing back in. Check Out, Check In – Check Out, Check In – be careful Grasshopper! If you forget to check a file in (you save and then exit, for example), the file will remain “Read-Only,” but the Vault Administrator can check it back in (in case you saved, exited, and left for the day)… now can you imagine if your Vault Admin resides in an IT firm across town!

SQL Server & the Vault
Now that we’ve established that if you want multi-user access to your projects, you’ll need not only the Vault, but you’ll need an appropriately sized relational database (a bank, so to speak), what do you do?

The Vault ships with a small database for you – it’s called MSDE (Microsoft Desktop Engine), think of it as an ATM machine (and imagine the lines if you all try to access at the same time). If you have more than 3-4 users in the firm who need to access your bank at the same time, well, you may need a REAL bank – enter Microsoft SQL Server (“Sequel Server”).

Would you put all your banking information on the same server as the rest of your data? Absolutely not – too much traffic, too much bandwidth, too slow. You’ll want to purchase a stout server, with stout networking capabilities, and let it stand alone (using a Windows Server OS to control traffic). Microsoft SQL Server supports the Autodesk Vault, so should you save your pennies and buy a SQL Server from another vendor? I wouldn’t! Be safe, get the real deal.

What’s the bottom line? You’ll need the following if you’re serious about your Civil 3D data:
1. Microsoft SQL Server (about $1000 plus about $100 for each concurrent user, please don’t quote me on it)
2. A stand-alone server to run the above (let your conscience be your guide).
3. Stand alone file server(s) to store your Working Folder(s)
4. Stout networking hardware to control the flow of information.

MSDE & the Vault
Although I’m sold on SQL Server for large firms for obvious reasons, don’t discount MSDE. You may have heard there is a 10 connection limit, and this is true, but that’s a limit imposed by the operating system (Windows XP only allows 10 concurrent connections). However, if you install the server on a 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, 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 – 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 Gb limit on the relational DB.

So what if you roll out MSDE, fill up the relational Database, and decide to switch 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 by the way, moving the vault to a new server is fairly simple as well!

How can you check the size of the relational database? The Vault Administrator can log into the Autodesk Vault Manager.

Data Management Server Installation
To install the Autodesk Data Management Server (“the ATM Machine” in effect, this installs MSDE):

1. Insert the Civil 3D 2007 installation DVD.
2. Under “Choose an installation type:” select “Stand-Alone Installation.”
3. Under the section “Review Product Documentation” select “Readme,” these
would be, and have always been, the directions, and I always recommend reading them

In the directions, on the first page, in the first section, you’ll read the following:

Installing the Autodesk Data Management Server

This section describes the steps to install the Autodesk Data Management server component.

Note that the instructions for installing the Autodesk Data Management server component in the Autodesk Civil 3D Stand-Alone Installation Guide (chapter 3 “Install Autodesk Civil 3D 2007 for an Individual User”, “Install Autodesk Data Management 5.0″ section, page 36) are incorrect.

To install the Autodesk Data Management server component:

1. From the Autodesk Civil 3D 2007 product media, click Setup.exe in Bin\Installer\support\Vault\Server.

2. As the installation proceeds, follow the onscreen prompts. For more information about this installation, click the Help button on the “Autodesk Data Management Server 5 for Civil 3D 2007 Setup” dialog. You may be prompted to install Microsoft IIS. If so, click Yes on that dialog to install it.

Cheers!

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