CenitFlex+ / CATIA / 3dexperience (ENOVIA) hybrid running

[spe88]

Hello,

I am inquiring how CATIA could work in our company environment.
Specs:
Client side (CAD users):
- Strong hardwares which good for CAD and Simulation
- Many CATIA environments and CAA are used by users
- none of the CATIA environments are installed
- frameworks are installed (JAVA, .NET, C++)
- app are installed like 3dexperience launcher, IEFClient, CATIA-3Dexperience connector
- Dassault VB (Visual Basic) prerequisites are also installed
- CenitFlex+ has a shortcut on user's desktop which runs on the server side
- CenitFlex+ makes app data in the standard Windows user folder in the client side
- users can reach 3dexperience via web browser or directly from CATIA thank for the connector, latter is only good for search and download\upload files from\to the database

Server side:

- more servers (oracle database, 3dexperience app, license server, file server for each sites)
- file servers contain the different installed CATIA environments, CAAs, users' CATSettings
- from the oracle database the CAD files and other documents (which were uploaded into the db via 3Dexperience platform) are replicated to each sites for faster access

What I do not know is that how can users run CATIA if it does not installed to their machines? They cannot stream from the server side everything without computing. Servers does not have this kind of computing capacity for 20-30 users everyday for each site. And if they would be streamed then why the necessity of a strong hardware for every user on client side (32-128 GB RAM etc.)?

I assume this is some kind of hybrid method, where CenitFlex+ downloads a lightweight CATIA to every CAD user's machine. Then the computing is done natively on client side, however other things can be streamed from server side. CenitFlex+ "just" checks what DLLs, CAAs etc. should be downloaded and checks the licenses as well.

Anyone can confirm my theory? Or just fix it?

Thank you

 

[Little Cthulhu]

Never heard of Cenitflex before, but done a lot of CATIA deployments and built automated batch processing solution with multiple CATIAs running on many sites.

Based of what you (very intelligently) described I don't believe anything is streamed since Cenitflex is basically environment and distribution manager (akin to Novell ZENWorks for example).

Meanwhile CATIA has no special lightweight distributive. In fact since it's cross-platform it requires no installation, a simple copy is enough in most scenarios.

With all of that being said I believe there's a full-sized copy of CATIA residing in AppData directory on user's machine that runs with environment and settings checked out from Cenitflex at launch. And it's just a "standard" way to run it to be honest.

High RAM capacity may be required to simply cache files of multiple CADs at once. Another possibility is that it uses a RAM disk which I really doubt.

 

[spe88]

Thank you for your help.

" I don't believe anything is streamed since Cenitflex is basically environment and distribution manager (akin to Novell ZENWorks for example)"

Me neither now.

"Meanwhile CATIA has no special lightweight distributive." I know officially they do not have. I thought CenitFlex+ team computed one, but yeah... This is like science fiction, I admit it.

"In fact since it's cross-platform it requires no installation, a simple copy is enough in most scenarios." :O I did not know that. Croos platform means in this case that during installation the files are just "unzipped" to the actual storage drive? No registry modification no other things like that? I thought big softwares like that will massively modifiy everything in an OS during the installation, but it seems they do not. In this case I assume CenitFlex+ just copys everything to the client side, checks the licences and comparing the data from server side. If nothing has been changed on the server side since last CATIA closing, then it will not copy anything from server side. In this case I assume after users close (or during using) CATIA, CenitFlex will copy their modified CATSettings back to the server side.

One thing is still not 100% clear:
CenitFlex+ has 3 options:
1. Online mode (user uses CATIA in office)
2. VPN mode (user uses CATIA in home office with internet)
3. Offline mode (user uses CATIA without internet)

If one of the user goes to home office he needs to decide which method will he use: VPN or offline mode. In case of VPN they use company license server to check for licenses. In case of offline mode they get an offline license for defined period of time. In any case this preparation requires lot of time at both VPN and offline mode still in the office. If user needs more environments at home then the preparation requires even more time spending with it in the office. If the user just uses the standard 1 environment during preparation, then why it takes so much time, if it has already been downloaded to the client side? Maybe it just overwrites it which is already available on the user's storage drive.

 

[Little Cthulhu]

Term "environment" here is rather vague. In CATIA vocabulary it stands for a set of OS environment variables, often provided to an executable (such as CNEXT.exe) via CATSTART utility.

On the other hand in business domain, terminology of which CenitFlex should adhere for marketing reasons at least, "environment" often stands for the whole set of shared resources and predefined settings. In CATIA we share part catalogs, feature dictionaries and various configuration files. These can take up to several gigabytes, so taking them offline should take quite a few time depending on connection. And it fits into "if the user wants more environments he waits more" statement.

 

[spe88]

Yes. I meant on environment that for example they need the company standard release R28 and user also needs R32 with BMW specific CAAs, and R26 release with VW specific CAAs etc.
That is why they need more time to wait for copy all these 3 environments in my example.

 

[Little Cthulhu]

Technically VPN and office LAN are the same since you get a license and environment from a remote computer.

Offline licensing is obviously designed with a sole reason to waste a license so that CentiFlex could charge you more. As long as it's cost is less than an administration expenses (both human and automation-wise) you should be good.

Also note that releases are not interoperable in terms of installation, so you have to keep multiple copies of the same file in different folders which affects total space (and time) required to use them properly. In fact DS (and common C++ sense) states that you should build all of CAA customizations for each release specifically.

So, I guess, your assumptions are correct and you're having a pretty clear picture of what's going on.