C&S Companies Eliminates AutoCAD Latency

Panzura, Inc. announced that C&S Companies, a firm providing engineering, architecture, planning, environmental, and construction services to enterprises and government agencies, has deployed the Panzura Global Cloud Storage System to slash latency, provide LAN file access speeds for centralized CAD files, and deliver inherent data protection with cloud storage scalability and redundancy.

 
C&S Companies is a 450-person architectural engineering and construction firm with 13 offices stretching from California to New York. The company’s challenge is providing fast and reliable access to centralized storage for complex CAD files generated in programs like AutoCAD Civil 3D, Revit, and Bentley MicroStation. In the Architectural/Engineering/Construction (AEC) community this challenge is often referred to as the "File Open" problem because of the latency associated with opening complex projects over a WAN. 
 
C&S deployed a multi-site global NAS configuration tying all locations into a singular Panzura Global File System solution, with all data securely stored and centralized on Amazon’s S3 storage. Each site owns and operates a global file system, integrated with their local environment and providing access at LAN speeds for edge users to the centralized data store. A lightweight synchronization protocol keeps everything consistent and in-sync across the entire system.

It often took 20 minutes to open a complex CAD project file. By deploying Panzura’s Global Cloud Storage System in all key office sites, C&S was able to slash file access times to less than 10s. Latency has been reduced and the "file open problem" is a thing of the past.
 
"A key to our success is the ability to quickly access complex project data files, regardless of the office in which they reside," said Eric Quinn, IT manager, C&S Companies. "We have a 10-Mb MPLS network and had implemented WAN optimization, but only Panzura made it possible for our workers to access complex data files at LAN speeds from any of our offices."
 
"C&S joins a growing list of architectural and engineering firms that rely on Panzura for fast, secure access to large, complex files," said Randy Chou, president and CEO, Panzura. "By moving files to the cloud and accessing them through Panzura’s Global File System, C&S gets the LAN productivity it wanted but was unable to find in other products."