A couple of decades ago, when I first started doing work for other design and construction professionals, I began working with remote contract collaborators, because I frequently had too much work to produce all by myself. At that time we were not using what I would call clouds. My collaborators and I distributed and collected AutoCAD files via email and then after a few years we started using file transfer protocol (FTP). FTP is basically email on steroids. It's just a way to move more data around than can generally be handled by an ordinary email attachment. We continuedwithout any problems with collection and distribution of files in this manner until about 2007, when we first started venturing into Revit, which is the Autodesk flavor of building information modeling (BIM).

Before BIM we would leave AutoCAD files distributed with our remotely located collaborators for sometimes a week at a time, while everyone worked on his or her individually assigned files. This was easy to do, because AutoCAD projects are typically fragmented into numerous relatively small files, which are suitable for division and distribution to numerous project team members. Collaborators could use a variety of AutoCAD releases, because most releases were compatible.

One person in one location might work on floor plans, while another person at another location might work on building elevations. Then, we would collect everything together into one location via email or FTP. We would review and compare the collected data, and we would attempt to resolve any errors and omissions, which might have taken place, while the data had been distributed. It wasn't ideal, but it worked well enough for us to have successfully produced over 1,000 projects in over half the states in the US, the US Virgin Islands and overseas for over 150 firms.

When we branched out into Revit, we continued using FTP to collect and to distribute BIM data. We would distribute copies of the project model to various team members, and then attempt to merge and to assemble everything periodically, say once per week or so. We soon found that email and FTP and Revit did not work well together. In order to prevent unwanted clashes and errors and omissions we began to realize that we needed much more frequent exchanges of information.

Because each Revit project is typically organized into one usually very big file, frequent distribution and collection of remotely produced project data was difficult. Some of our team members had low bandwidth, which just added more grief to file exchanges, and others either had outdated Revit Releases, which were not compatible with later releases, or if they had been previously very good AutoCAD collaborators, they did not have Revit at all, so we just did the best we could. We found that we had a much smaller audience of qualified and prepared Revit collaborators than we had had for AutoCAD, and all of our hands were continuing to be tied to FTP communications. We looked at appliances for conditioning our connections to emulate higher bandwidth, but never got into it, because it looked too cumbersome and expensive. We were frustrated, but since we didn’t have anything better we continued to distribute and collect data about once per week. This propagated errors and omissions, delays, missed deadlines, increased production costs and financial losses.

We had our own private FTP server, and I discovered if I installed applications, such as AutoCAD on our server, I could log in remotely, using an application, such as Ultra VNC, and actually open files on the server in AutoCAD and use remote key strokes and mouse clicks to control AutoCAD commands on the server. It was slow and cumbersome, but it DID work.

Then about 2011 we discovered Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection, which is part of all of the later versions of Microsoft Windows operating systems. We fabricated a big huge rack mounted server, containing 8 mother boards. This machine had 8 workstations, one of which was set up to function as a Citrix server, and we installedtwo Autodesk Premium Suites and one Ultimate Design Suite on each of three of those work stations, and we installed an FTP server on one of the other work stations. We could log onto this cloud server, open up a session on one of the Design Suite enabled work stations, and issue remote key stroke and mouse click commands almost as efficiently as working offline.

I shut down business operations in 2011 to concentrate on perfecting a cloudcomputing solution. By the time operations were shut down we had successfully completed a lot of Revit projects, but we generally were losing money on almost every project, mostly because of the constraints of file management. My initial attempts at setting up a cloud computing solution met with a number of frustrating constraints.

The first and biggest constraint was software. I ran into conflicting opinions about what was allowed and what was NOT allowed in the End User License Agreement with Autodesk. On one hand it appeared not to be permitted to use my Licenses in a virtualinstallation. On the other hand it looked like I would be permitted to install one local and one remote copy of each Autodesk License as long as I did not use both installations at the same time. I began a year-long dialog with Autodesk Corporate, including their Legal Counsel, to attempt to obtain permission somehow to be able to do what I wanted to do with my Autodesk Licenses. My Licenses were and still are all Stand Alone Licenses. I was told that I could not use Stand Alone Licenses in a virtual or network environment, because Autodesk did not want to take a chance that multiple sessions would be opened simultaneously. I countered that argument with the proposition that our server and its respective work stations would be toggled to only allow one work session at one time to be opened. The idea here is that if two users are attempting to get online at the same time, the first one to log on gets to decide whether to stay online or to log off if another user wants to log on. Finally, sometime in 2012 I received a telephone call from Autodesk Corporate, informing me that I could feel free to use my Autodesk Licenses in a cloud or virtual environment just as long as I did not open any particular License more than once at a time. I requested that statement to be put into writing. My request was denied. So, I have proceeded to use my Autodesk Licenses as described in this posting, and to date there have been no significant legal or technical problems.

I also had a lot of problems, trying to easily and quickly define user permissions and to keep users from accessing portions of the operating systems for the server and workstations, which could be damaged or compromised. I was attempting to run everything without the benefit of Windows Server 2008, which I eventually learned was a mistake. When Windows Server 2008 was installed, everything about managing access and permissions for users became much easier, faster and more secure.

My hardware began developing one case of trouble after another. When I moved to Hawaii, it was no longer practical to keep dealing with the computer consultant, who had built my original box. I found a new consultant on the Big Island, who turned out to be a really rare talent. He tried fixing things up in the old box, but finally gave up, and suggested we start over with brand new hardware. So we put together three rack mount design boxes, which you can see in the photo at the beginning of this article, and we used a fourth box for a server. We abandoned Citrix and installed Windows Server 2008. Life became much better.

I had heard from colleagues that cloud performance would vary inversely with increases in distances between remote users and the server. I ran speed tests for seleced servers throughout the world and discovered that latency, measured in milliseconds, could be almost as high as a thousand milliseconds, or a full second, in places as far away from our Dallas, Texas located cloud server and, say, Chinchang, China.

We took on a small project, using the new cloud equipment, wher the architect was in Dallas, two of our production people were in Colorado and one was in Bosnia, which is in Eastern Europe. All team members were able to do their work with no complaints.

After shutting down business operations in 2011 my wife, Corinne, and I began making preparations to relocate to Hawaii in order to seek a very mild and moist climate for her health. We arrived on the Big Island in April 2012. Luckily, Corinne began doing well enough here that we decided to buy property and to design and construct a new home. That activity pretty much consumed all my time through the end of 2013 and well into 2014. Gradually, as the time constraints on relocation and construction began to subside I began to start up business operations again.

once the technical aspects of establishing the cloud server and its respective workstations were accomplished, I could now turn my attention to perfecting methods of using this provocative tool more productively. AutoCAD is in widespread use on the Big Island, but Revit is just barely getting started here. When I was in business back in Dallas, my company had transitioned from using US based collaborators to almost exclusively using architects in other countries, because of cost. This was never the best experience. My international colleagues prototypically spoke English as a second or third language, they almost all used metric, and they had no familiarity with materials and methods of construction in the US. Because of difficulties in understanding each others’ spoken words we resorted to communicating via MSN Messenger, which is a real time text messaging application. That was laborious.

Here on the Big Island I discovered that graduates of the local community college, who have studied AutoCAD, make pretty good starter collaborators, and they work inexpensively. It requires more coordination initially to train them, but they are learning fast. We are using Mikogo for online interactive graphics sharing and passing around of mouse clicks, keyboard strokes and desktop visibility. We use ordinary telephones for audio up to a maximum of three participants and Skype for larger conferences.

Although my cloud server is currently only supporting three workstations its capacity to support many more workstations is potentially unlimited. Each workstation is a rack mount design…no keyboard and no monitor. I can add additional workstations at about $1,000 each, equipped with about 16 gigs RAM. If we get into larger projects RAM will probably need to be increased to about three times that level. Other architects, who have Autodesk Licenses, can install their additionally allowed one copy on my server, and share access to the local server drive for project collaboration. Large project teams can be set up in a week, which is about the time it would take to assemble additional rack mount workstations. Using this type of tool, it is now possible for sole proprietor architects to compete on a level playing field with the largest multidiscipline design firms in the business.

If you would like more detailed information about how any of this stuff works, please feel free to contact me.