1. CAD Admin
What does "ME" stand for?
Mechanical Engineer
When you say the issues are often with the model itself, are you referring to the data model?
Yes
2. Dynamic Documents vs Documents
Can you describe what is a doctype or object for you? For instance, I may have one Dynamic Document that bursts into over 100k objects. Or I could have 100k 'MS Word' documents stored as objects. The maintenance on each will be different.
I was thinking simple documents - a correlation of one document - primary content equals what I was calling a document. That might not be a very good assumption/measure - we have many documents that have multiple secondary content. Probably need to come up with a better way to think about and measure that.
3. Architecture
What type of architecture?
Windchill Application server - 32G mem, 3 drives
C: OS 300G,
😧 Windchill 1T
E: Content 2T currently using 200Tb
How many environments are involved in the system these estimates apply to?
Production
Preprod
Test
and a couple more sandboxes
How many servers per environment?
Generally 3 Windchill, DB, Cadworker. We should probably add more CAD Workers.
Any integrations (Arbortext Editor, Arbortext Publishing Engine, Citrix, etc)?
No - we will be doing ERP eventually, Arbortext would be farther out the roadmap
4. Core Components vs Optional Components
Which optional components are included in the system these estimates are for?
Core Components are the Web Server, Windchilll Application Server, Database Server, and LDAP.
Optional Components include:
Visualization and CAD Publishing with ProductView
Full Text Search
Advanced Reporting Server with Cognos
Adobe Forms
Archive Server
ERP and Enterprise Systems Integrations with TIBCO ESI and ERP Connector
Arbortext Publishing Engine (for use with dynamic documents)
Content Storage (Remote File Servers and Replication)
We have deployed
Core Components are the Web Server, Windchilll Application Server, Database Server, and LDAP.
Optional Components include:
Visualization and CAD Publishing with ProductView
Full Text Search
Advanced Reporting Server with Cognos
Adobe Forms
Archive Server
5. Customizations/Methodology
What types of customizations are applied to the system these estimates are for?
- No the estimates do not cover that type of work yet. We are trying to do a little as possible, but I think we will eventually need to.
And how many/how in-depth?
Workflows?
Lifecycles?
Custom Types?
Access Control Polices/Rules?
Vaulting?
- I would have to do a little work to dig these numbers up - I do not know them off the top of my head.
Do you use Libraries? Or just Products? Parts?
- We use libraries
6. Configuration Management/Control
I don't see anything in here regarding SRB, CCB, etc. Are these not included in the estimate?
They are not. They might go well under bussiness admin or a whole CM role.
7. Updates/Upgrades/Patches
Frequency of patches/updates/upgrades are applied? Are these included in the estimates? If yes, where?
Not really - I would like to get into a quarterly schedule
8. Maintenance Roles
How did you define the roles? Some of the items I see under CAD Admin would typically fall under System Admin according to the documentation.
- Since all the roles overlap it can be difficult to draw clear delineations. They were are best attempt at doing so - any feedback anyone wants to provide on how to do that better is definitely welcome.
9. Set Up
I see a column that says "Set Up", but it appears to be lacking numbers for some items (Initial Setup of Libraries, Users, a new Dynamic Document Type, etc)
Yes, there is still work to do to fill in good values with meaningful numbers.
10. Additions To The File
I would include information equivalent to the answers above so that its easy for people to gain an understanding of the type of system these numbers apply to, and compare it to the environment they are working. For example, if these numbers are to maintain one environment, but I have three environments, I will need increase these estimates. These variables can have a massive impact on
Yes they can have significant impact. The one thing that I think is true but others might disagree, is there is sort of a minimum level of staffing required to run an environment - you have to fill all the roles whether you support a hundred or a thousand users. At one point I tried to account for complexity factors, but it got a little confusing. I may go back and take a cut though. I have worked at one of the largest Windchill implementations on down to smaller customers so I have some idea how the stuff scales in manpower requirements but have not had time to really capture that in a meaningful way. Maybe over the next couple of months I will get a chance to do that.
