Comments on: Do I Need An Invitation To Join CAD/PLM Cloud?

By: olegshilovitsky

olegshilovitsky — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:20:05 +0000

Tom, My best knowledge is that Arena relies on local PDM system that manages CAD files in the vault. So, read CAD models are not going to the cloud… Best, Oleg

By: Tom Gill

Tom Gill — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 13:23:10 +0000

Hi Joe,
Thanks for the description on how Arena’s CAD integration works. Just to clarify, your integration manages metadata on the cloud by integrating with PDMWorks or PDMWorks Enterprise, but leaves the CAD models on the customers server. Am I correct?

Thanks
Tom

By: olegshilovitsky

olegshilovitsky — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 17:32:31 +0000

Hello Joe, Thanks for your comments and great explanations! Yes, you are right SaaS-type integrations are relatively new and in my eyes are still not much known to the people. Additional example to Prevasive and Boomi is the SaaS integration done by Workday (they actually acquired separate company to do so- http://www.workday.com/company/news/workday_launches_integration_on-demand.php). With regards to SolidWorks and Arena integration, it seems to me very similar to the SolidWorks Product Data Sharing solution presented on SolidWorks World. Just instead of Arena, SolidWorks pushed files to the ENOVIA V6. Best, Oleg

By: Joe Lipple

Joe Lipple — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 22:32:36 +0000

Thanks for asking, Oleg. For your readers who aren’t familiar with it, here’s an overview of how SolidWorks customers can use Arena.

In brief, we have an existing integration that links Arena and SolidWorks, and with SolidWorks’ cloud offering, we expect our integration to work much in the same way as it currently does — possibly even better.

Our current integration consists of two parts: 1) an Add-in to SolidWorks that allows engineers to create and reserve part numbers and link SolidWorks parts or assemblies to Arena Items, and 2) a Publisher that listens to the PDM vault and pushes properties to Arena.

As a SaaS solution provider (also known as on-demand, or in current terms, “in the cloud”), we are agnostic to the location of the vault — imagine a cloud drawn around the PDM vault on this diagram of the Arena-SolidWorks Integration (http://www.arenasolutions.com/product/solidworks.html). As long as the vault is available (and, importantly, SolidWorks continues its long-standing tradition of supporting third-party add-ins), the integration will work. And PDM in the cloud could make integration even easier, because the software to connect two cloud-based solutions generally has the same virtues as the solutions themselves: low or no IT overhead, continuous availability, and automatic upgrades.

Just a note on the “cloud”: While SaaS-to-SaaS or cloud-to-cloud integrations are definitely a new concept in the CAD world, companies like Pervasive (http://www.pervasiveintegration.com/scenarios/Pages/cloud_integration.aspx) and Boomi (http://www.boomi.com/) have been doing it for years.
Best,
Joe

By: PLM in the Cloud: Opportunity or Threat? « Daily PLM Think Tank Blog

PLM in the Cloud: Opportunity or Threat? « Daily PLM Think Tank Blog — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 23:55:10 +0000

[...] can be an opportunity for PLM companies to step into the integration process. I wrote few days ago- Do I need an invitation to CAD/PLM Cloud?. Integration of data and engineering information can be much easier when information will be [...]