Office Setup

I have worked in a lot of different setups. I'm not an IT person but will give you what I have found in each system.

desktop systems, no server:
Pros - cheap; good for small office with just a couple of workstations.
Cons - file sharing is not efficient for large operations; having to back-up multiple machines; information easily lost; software license has to be purchased separetely for each machine

all machines linked to server:
Pros - files located in one central location and accessible by everyone with permission; use of concurrent licenses saves money and makes license management easier; one system to backup
cons - expense dictated by size of server; one system means everyone is down is system problems; speed for end user is very dependent on connection speed; server is higher maintenance

desktops on server:
pros - desktops are cheaper than laptops for the same specs; less likely to be damaged;
cons - can't be taken in the field;

laptops on server:
pros - more flexible and can be taken to the field or carried to the conference room and being linked to a server means all of the files can be found from anywhere in the system;
cons - expensive for the high-end machine needed; user needs to remember to update server files after field work

I am using a 17" laptop with an i7 processor docked with two 22" monitors. I don't need the 17" in the office but when I am traveling it's nice for CAD, but very heavy. If you go with a laptop, absolutely go with a docking station. It allows for multiple monitors and my mouse, internet connection, and other peripherals are all attached to the dock. I have an extra power cord in the bag so I don't have to unplug the dock (it's all under several desks and a pain to access). Makes coming and going hassle free. When I give a class, I just undock the laptop and take it to where I am teaching. I also take it to outlying camps when traveling. If it needs to go to the field, just borrow the software licenses you need and you are now a stand alone.

On my laptop I run all of the MS office stuff, ArcGIS Advanced, and Civil 3D; often all at the same time along with several IE web pages open. It was a $4000 machine but that pays for itself in efficiency. Whatever you get, get a machine for gaming. The hardest time I have is convincing some IT department that I need a machine on steroids, they figure I'm just using office software! I used to wait 20 minutes to open a CAD drawing, which cost money. Fortunately our current IT director spec'ed out what GIS and CAD needed, bumped it up twice and gave that as our requirements - he understood.

I mention concurrent licenses. My conversion to a preference for this came about after being license administrator for CAD. We have people leave who turn their laptops into IT without deactivating the license on AutoDesk's web page. I have almost $100,000 in licenses that are no longer accessible because IT just wipes the software off of the laptop and the company would not approve a software subscription that would allow me to manage the licenses on line. Although the concurrent licenses seem more expensive, figure I purchased 5 ArcGIS Basic licenses and have about 20 people using the program without an access problem. We have the ArcGIS SDE database on a separate server with SQL Express running. From there I push updates to three outlying servers.

Hope that helps a little.

We have two offices, each with their own server on site. I would never recommend this unless you have an IT guy or someone who shows up in the morning that knows about the server. Our server is constantly over-heating and crashing anytime the power flickers regardless of the battery backup.

We also have a couple docking stations for laptop (one being my computer) It is rather nice. I have had no major issues with the docking station and love the fact that I can grab MY computer and take it to the field or out of town with minor effort.

Hope this helps a bit, I'm no IT expert. Just the views of my situation.

own server on site. I would never recommend this unless you have an IT guy or someone who shows up in the morning that knows about the server

Could not agree more. Gotta have the IT budget. Good IT guys make more than surveyors, but the job looks boring as hell to me. I would do the desktop thing until I needed 5-6 workstations.

Steve

Thank You Geonerd, the docking station option is definitely the way I'm going. Most of my guys already have high speed mobile workstations running various types of software including Leica Cyclone and others. You and I don't have the same workflow but it sounds like we are both pretty speed intensive.
Thanks for your input.

Cheers
Ralph

> own server on site. I would never recommend this unless you have an IT guy or someone who shows up in the morning that knows about the server
>
> Could not agree more. Gotta have the IT budget. Good IT guys make more than surveyors, but the job looks boring as hell to me. I would do the desktop thing until I needed 5-6 workstations.
>
> Steve

Not so much the workstations, it's more about the licensing and information sharing.

I don't know too much about our licences, sorry.

I have a Dell M6700 docked on the server.

Pros: You can work from almost anywhere with a VPN into the office. You can access all files on the server that you have permission to access just as if you were setting in the office. You can print to any printer in the office while connected through VPN.

Cons: Work follows you everywhere. Speed is slow when using the VPN into the office server.

> .. I would never recommend this unless you have an IT guy or someone who shows up in the morning that knows about the server.
You need an IT person, sure enough, but it doesn't have to be a full time employee. There are services that will provide the support you need on an on-call basis. Much of said service can be accomplished remotely. You need someone on site clever enough to reboot the server when needed.

>Our server is constantly over-heating and crashing anytime the power flickers regardless of the battery backup.
You have hardware issues that need to be fixed. This isn't normal.

Why a docking station? Why not just set up Wi-Fi and when you come in with a laptop you can log right into the server, that's what we do.

> Why a docking station? Why not just set up Wi-Fi and when you come in with a laptop you can log right into the server, that's what we do.

I'm just trying to get different opinions. I think having both wifi and docking station wouldn't cost anymore than just the docking station. The hard connection aspect makes the docking station attractive, also the ability to add the big screen and all the other peripherals to simulate a tower. We have a couple of field offices that have lost wifi connections and it ain't fun.

Thanks for the feedback
Ralph

> Why a docking station?
Way cool way to connect your second monitor, power source, and other peripherals to your laptop. Money well spent.

> own server on site. I would never recommend this unless you have an IT guy or someone who shows up in the morning that knows about the server
>
> Could not agree more. Gotta have the IT budget. Good IT guys make more than surveyors, but the job looks boring as hell to me. I would do the desktop thing until I needed 5-6 workstations.
>
> Steve

Actually, with the Wall street scenario as it is IT guys are a dime a dozen here in NYC. But for a small company I couldn't foresee a full time IT person and as was stated above most of the support is done remotely. I currently have my bookkeeping done remotely.

I have a Dell mobile workstation. When I'm in the office it's docked and hooked upto 2 monitors, wireless keyboard and mouse, network, etc... I work in the field a lot and just undock it and go. The only thing I need to take with me is the USB dongle for GEDO Office. Without the dock it would be a pain to plug and unplug everything in each time I left. We have wireless set up in our 4 offices and use a VPN to connect to the server in our main office. There are only 2 of us that use cad, so we have stand alone licenses for that and I use Google Drive to save my work and files and to share files with anyone else. This setup works pretty well for me as I am constantly in and out of the offices we have. One thing that I do suggest is a decent laptop stand/mount for your vehicle, it makes life a lot easier when working on the road. Another thing to consider depending on the software, you could have a desktop at the office running the software and remote into it from the field to use it. I know it might be slow, but it might be cheaper then another license or having the software on your laptop with you and someone else needs to use it at the office.

Hey Ralph,

We have a server in our office and for us its a necessity.
We have about 12 computers hooked up to it and use it primarily for storage, backup and shared drives. Any programs we run are on the computers themselves so it does not tax the server.
I will say that once it is set up it just runs in the background and for us it is minimal maintenance. Basically it just runs constantly and backs up every night.
I should never have opened my big mouth though since it is probably crashing as I write this!!

I'm not sure if he is still around but we used to use a guy in New York to set the server up for us. The nice thing was that he worked with engineers, surveyors and architects so he not only understood the server end but also how to use and set up Land Desktop, Autocad and Civil3D. Not sure if he still does this work but if interested let me know and I will get you some info on his group.

Good luck whichever route you take!

Makes sense!

I'd also heard that you can doc a Galaxy and use it with a computer somehow and that there programs for autocad and a phone. Not sure if that's correct however.

> Hey Ralph,
>
> We have a server in our office and for us its a necessity.
> We have about 12 computers hooked up to it and use it primarily for storage, backup and shared drives. Any programs we run are on the computers themselves so it does not tax the server.
> I will say that once it is set up it just runs in the background and for us it is minimal maintenance. Basically it just runs constantly and backs up every night.
> I should never have opened my big mouth though since it is probably crashing as I write this!!
>
> I'm not sure if he is still around but we used to use a guy in New York to set the server up for us. The nice thing was that he worked with engineers, surveyors and architects so he not only understood the server end but also how to use and set up Land Desktop, Autocad and Civil3D. Not sure if he still does this work but if interested let me know and I will get you some info on his group.
>
> Good luck whichever route you take!

Thank you Gregg,
Always good to hear from you. If you could give me the gentleman's contact info, I would greatly appreciate it. I believe you have my contact info (the NJIT email don't work anymore 🙂 ), if not you can email me through my profile on this forum.
Cheers
Ralph