Understanding Local Workspace

Local Workspace is a folder on client computers that contains copies made by the Meridian client applications of recently accessed vault documents. The folder also contains a database that tracks the files that are contained in the Local Workspace. Local Workspace does not exist on the server computer. As documents are checked out or viewed, they are copied to the user’s Local Workspace folder for use, thus providing a local caching mechanism. A document will be copied to Local Workspace if it is accessed under the following circumstances:

• If a document is selected for viewing. This will also copy all referenced files. The files are made read-only in Local Workspace. The first time this is done, the user will see no benefit because the files are downloaded from the Meridian application or file server whether they are accessed by AMFS or Local Workspace. However, if the user views one of these files again later, the performance will be dramatically improved because the file and all its references are retrieved from Local Workspace instead of from the Meridian application server or file server. This is particularly important when viewing large or complex 3D model files such as created by Autodesk Inventor or SolidWorks.

Tip    You can confirm that a document is being opened from Local Workspace by examining the Local Copy property on the Document property page of the document in PowerUser. The property will contain the modification date and time of the file.

• If a document is checked out by a user for editing. The file and its references are initially copied to Local Workspace read-only. However, when the document is opened for editing in the application, it is made writable and the document is locked in the Meridian vault against change by other users.
• The user manually synchronizes property or reference data using the commands in PowerUser.

Files will be copied to the local disk if it does not exist in Local Workspace or if the version in Local Workspace is older than the version in the vault.

Changed documents in the Local Workspace are synchronized with the vault in the background at a time interval set by the user. This is an important difference between Meridian and a simple manual check-out/check-in system. The synchronization is automatic, transparent to the users, and secure.

Local Workspace has the following advantages:

• There is less load on the Meridian application server or file server.
• There is much less network traffic when viewing, opening, or saving files, giving increased performance.
• Customization and configuration (for example, wizard pages) are executed the same as when AMFS is used.
• Larger data files such as complex assembly models open much faster.

Of course, there are also some disadvantages:

• If a conflict occurs during synchronization, user intervention is needed to take the appropriate action.
• Referenced documents cannot be found if the references do not exist in the vault.

We recommend that vaults using AMFS be reconfigured to use Local Workspace when any of the following conditions on the Meridian server are performance bottlenecks:

• CPU utilization
• Memory consumption
• Network bandwidth

Large assemblies or other complex related documents cause a lot of network traffic when viewed or opened in their applications because all related documents must be opened before the composite document can be viewed or opened. Therefore, we always recommend implementing Local Workspace in such circumstances.

Note

• Although the Local Workspace itself does not impose a limitation on the length of the paths to documents, other programs that might need to work with the documents (application links, viewers, and so on) may be limited to approximately 256 characters. The fully-qualified path of a document in Local Workspace comprises several elements:

  <LocalWorkspaceLocation>\<UserName>\<Server,Datastore,ContextID,RevisionID>\<VaultPath>\<FileName>.<Ext>

  For example:

  C:\BC-Workspace\John Doe\M-MyServer,D-Engineering,P-AMContext1,W-b9A04B874B60FE440\Projects\P1000\Foundation Plans\D1000201.dwg

  For this reason, we recommend that all paths within vaults be maintained at 190 characters or less so as to not result in Local Workspace paths over 256 characters.

• By default, the Local Workspace uses the Microsoft Jet database engine to create and maintain the Local Workspace database. On computers where 64-Meridian Enterprise client applications are used and 64-bit Microsoft Jet is not supported, the Local Workspace can use SQL Server Compact Edition if it is installed. SQL Server Compact Edition is provided as an option during installation. To enable use of SQL Server Compact Edition, see the WorkSpaceDB registry setting in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Cyco\AutoManager Meridian\CurrentVersion\Client.