SW2004/SmarTeam install feedback 1

[JNR]

Hi, folks. Just some feedback for all those who were having fun installing SW2004. It is intended to give some encouragement that it should all work fine. If not go beat on your VAR for support.

We just updated to 2004 along with a new Oracle database and SmarTeam (PDM). The delay has been due to SmarTeam compatibility - we are using some interesting settings.

We got the new server built late Friday and early Saturday and transfered the database. The we attacked the workstations. We have currently 29 seats of SW and a few systems with SmarTeam only (Doc. contol dept, etc.).

Everything went well. (BTW: We are on XP) This is how we did it:

We had 5 people working the updates. A cheat sheet was copied for every PC. This had detailed instructions listed in order and in some cases screen shots. There were checkoff boxes next to each instruction, and a place to record the sercurity code.

1. Cleaned up and deleted some working directories.
2. Control Panel uninstalled all SW, eDrawing (and any other related software) listed. Also SmarTeam and Oracle.
3. Regedit deleted all references to SW, SmarTeam, Oracle, etc.
4. Installed Oracle
5. Installed SW
6. Installed SmarTeam
7. Patched Soliworks (seemed as long as the install?)
8. Patched SmarTeam
9. Final Cleanup
10. Test open SW/SmarTeam.

Each system took almost one hour total for the entire process. The whole process took all day Saturday, but everyone was up and running first thing Monday morning. (Yea, amazed us too!)

John Richards Sr. Mech. Engr.
Rockwell Collins Flight Dynamics

A hobbit's lifestyle sounds rather pleasant...... it's the hairy feet that turn me off.

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

Glad to hear you had a successful weekend.

BTW: Whats wrong with hairy feet.....think of the money you could save on socks!!!


CorBlimeyLimey, Barrie, Ontario.
Sign on a Barrie restaurant reads, "We serve Molsons, but we only smoke Ribs"
faq559-863

 

[Olid]

Sounds like everything is working as it should. Glad to hear it. We did our Smarteam upgrade a week and half ago in almost the same manner as you. The exception being is that we have not installed SWX 2004 yet. We will wait a few weeks in order to let everyone adjust to the new Smarteam. Unfortunatly I have discoverd a few bugs in our version of Smarteam. Nothing that we can't work around, more of a pain. However, we did have a MAJOR problem the first day we went live with the new Smarteam. Smarteam did not recognize any of our existing files. Imagine that. Turns out we have some strange settings ourselves. We don't manage SWX configurations. Luckily and thankfully our VAR was here the next day and stayed here until it was fixed, although he did need help from Israel. I will be heading off to Smarteam Admin training sometime in the near future which should help me get a better understanding on all of the possible setting options. On another note I read your recommendation regarding the install of SWX 2004. Sounds like a new install is the way to go. Thanks for the insight. I'll make sure that way do the same.

 

[JNR]

Yup, we had some issues too. We do manage SW configs, in fact some of our SW parts represent multiple parts suing the configs. Our part numbering system is xxxx-yyyy-nnn where nnn is the configuration and the drawing number only contains xxxx-yyyy. so they are only used when multpile configurations are on the same drawing and for hardware. It fit well with the original SmarTeam constraints in 4 digit + 4 in parens system (-001 (expl)) for example. We had to wait for patch 7 to cure all our issues. You are right though, VAR support has been really good. I wonder how it will go with the new regional VAR only scheme?! We did run a test server setup and beat it up pretty good with a copy of our database and some test SW2004 stations before we went live. In fact, when we loaded all the systems, we connected them to the test server first and made sure everything flew with SW on every system, then swithced it over to the real sever. It also enabled us to save time by transferring the live database to the real server while we were doing the workstation upgrades.

John Richards Sr. Mech. Engr.
Rockwell Collins Flight Dynamics

A hobbit's lifestyle sounds rather pleasant...... it's the hairy feet that turn me off.

 

[JNR]

DOLID: I just spoke to one of our SmarTeam admin guys. He said GO DIRECLTY TO SW SP2.1 it fixes some SmartTeam related issues.

John Richards Sr. Mech. Engr.
Rockwell Collins Flight Dynamics

A hobbit's lifestyle sounds rather pleasant...... it's the hairy feet that turn me off.

 

[Olid]

JNR, Thanks for the tip. We also ran a test and it seemed fine. SWX and Smarteam seem to get along fine. The issues were/are with the Smarteam. If SP2.1 takes care of them all the more reason to update SWX sooner than later.
When we first installed Smarteam three years ago we also controlled configurations. Our configurations are our part numbers as well, but did not fit into Smarteam scheme and we just didn't like the idea of having to use simplied configuration names. Additionally our machines and server really took a beating. Super slow performance. The decision was made then to control the SWX files only. One profile card per SWX file and to turn off the common file objects in order to improve performance. I don't think it would be a problem with the machines we have today. It works beautifully for the most part. I am happy with it. However, we were ready to pull the plug on Smarteam about 10 months into it until support made a conscience effort to help resolve our issues. Like our VAR told me "Smarteam is like a giant Swiss army knife. It has many tools, you just need to know which ones to use."