Workplace Disruption
What if some unforeseen event forced you to leave the building and work 100% remote? That could never happen, right? I think COVID proved that it could and that we were woefully unprepared for such an event.
The questions that come to mind in such a case include:
- How mobile are your workstations?
- How could you move fixed workstations to remote locations?
- Is a plan for remote desktop access in place?
- How will remote user validation be handled?
- Will your CAD software licensing be impacted?
- What will be the impact of reduced bandwidth for home-base users and network servers be?
Clearly, some of these questions are within the purview of IT, but I found that in many cases IT was caught unaware of CAD issues during the start of the COVID lockdown. Here are some recommendations to help organize your plan:
Mobile vs Desktop. Is it worth buying more mobile workstations for CAD users even though they can cost more than desktop options? The answer is worth considering and budgeting for THIS year, so you can be more prepared for the years to come.
Licensing issues. How should a mobile workstation be configured for a remote worker to gain access to a CAD license? Does that include any special firewall or VPN settings at license servers inside your workplace? Every time there is an update, be sure to test those settings.
Bandwidth issues. Will remote workers find their access to large files so slow that software times out or they experience faults due to latency errors? Find this out now by testing a remote location with the slowest Internet access (such as a hotel lobby WIFI router) using the largest files in production use. If bandwidth is problematic, you may need to investigate file sync and replication tools to mitigate the problem.
Conclusion: These are not made-up scenarios — they are real issues that I’ve seen time and time again during the COVID lockdown. While we probably won’t see another pandemic soon, it’s possible that a regional event such as a hurricane, earthquake, or fire damage to a building could cause a similar set of issues. Isn’t it better to know how to react than having to improvise on the fly?
Product/Data Disruption
You’ve configured your company to use a powerful cloud-based tool for some specific design functions and have grown dependent on it. Then, for no apparent reason, the tool goes offline and you can’t gain access to your data at all. This could never happen, right? That’s what everyone who used Garmin shipping or flight management software thought in July 2020 as a week-long ransomware attack stopped shippers and pilots from filing logs and plans. Or when Wells Fargo customers had no access to electronic banking for two days in February 2019.
The questions that come to mind in such a case include:
- How dependent are you on dedicated cloud solutions?
- Could you live through the disruption assuming no data loss?
- What would happen if there were data loss?
- What would happen if the vendor went out of business?
- Are you making regular backups of any cloud hosted data?
- Would you be able to function offline or is your company trapped?
Again, some of these questions regarding data backup are IT-driven, but the movement towards more cloud applications and data should give everyone concern.
Find out what CAD managers should do next concerning data disruption. What about project backups? How can you prepare for issues that have more to do with your software than your own process? Read more »
