Help w/ slow SolidWorks drawing server - Engineer side, not IT side

[nobody_here]

You saw good engineers spend all of their time complaining about the crap they had to deal with. And they felt better because of it.

What they felt meant nothing in the end, they got rewarded with a foot in the ass on their way out the door even though their intentions were good. These were good experienced engineers. Management kept the "steady eddies" who kept their mouths shut but didn't really do anything spectacular. Those who survived it took notes.

 

[jonnyjl]

What they felt meant nothing in the end, they got rewarded with a foot in the ass on their way out the door even though their intentions were good. These were good experienced engineers. Management kept the "steady eddies" who kept their mouths shut but didn't really do anything spectacular. Those who survived it took notes.

Ain't that the truth, I'm guessing you worked for a publicly traded company.

That's why you really have to go into a discussion with IT from the correct side. Unless you're the CEO with an overly inflated ego and an extroverted personality that thinks they can dole out technical lessons to the lowly IT guy whose nodding yes but really flipping them off behind their back; don't go in there demanding stuff, go in, again with an attitude of, please help me or magnificent IT one (yes, its probably BS).

And the more technical, while not coming off as a Wikipedia blowhard, you can get, the better. Everyone appreciates people who can "speak" at their level, after all, communication is key.

 

[jen4950]

Um, who the frak cares you run a company. Most in IT don't give two shits about running companies, especially systems engineers. But yeah, I forgot, most CEOs roll up their sleeves and can get all technical. You're obviously the gold standard that everyone follows.

I'm sure that will help though, OP just tell the IT department to do it or you'll fire them. Have fun with consultants, you can bat that around for awhileI'm sorry, do you think anyone is debating that point?

The fact is, most management can't get their head out of their ass to realize that, they can't do proper risk assessment, and won't do proper ROI research.

Again, I point to our crumbling economy as proof of incompetent business management.

Of course, every company can just throw money at a problem and tell their investors, oh yeah sure... keep buying stock.

Sounds like you're in the services or marketing industry.

I am in finance.

The fact that I am doing what I do successfully in this economy and I run the business gives my opinions credibility- that's why people care.

People should be debating the point of payroll vs. IT because it is a very easy metric for ROI because it is measurable.

Most IT people should care. They don't bring in the revenue, and revenue is what pays their paycheck.

We are privately held. I answer to shareholders directly, and IT is their highest priority. Big bad Wall Street doesn't run this entire economy.

Don't make assumptions is my advice.

 

[jonnyjl]

Don't make assumptions is my advice.

Interesting.

Most Non-Services, Non IT-related, publicly traded companies that have to answer to whiny shareholders don't really care that much about infrastructure in bad times. They care about profitability, and all IT is to them is an expense. They never consider it as a revenue generator.

Yes, IT ROI is an easy metric if everything you take into account can be announced over the span of the average bowel movement (me switch costs this and is like 10 times faster dudes!)

But I'm sure its easy to a calculate what a 100% difference in IO to 10% of the company or what a 2% increased downtime (or worse, just degradation) for critical resources means to any entire company. Also, whether or not that was really worth the time to do over facilitating the needs of more visible departments like Sales, R&D, and/or Marketing as opposed to Engineering, cause you know, unless you're an engineering/design firm, you're pretty low on the totem pole too.

Hell, a lot of IT departments still report up to the CFO. Which, OP, if that is true for your company, maybe saddle up to that guy Take the dude out golfing.

 

[jen4950]

Interesting.

...

They never consider it as a revenue generator.
...

One quick point- I am tired and am getting ready to go to bed..

IT is rarely a revenue generator. It should be an expense minimizer.

Both concepts increase profitability which is good, but they are fundamentally different concepts and issues.

Of course you can hire a hundred clerks and process invoices by hand. But you can do the same work volume by spending a couple grand on some computing equipment and only working with 2 clerks. Clerks and computers both do not generate revenue, but computers can minimize payroll expenses while accruing IT expenses at a much slower rate.

Businesses fundamentally should only care about a handful of things. The rest is probably minutiae if these fundamentals are not there.

• Profitability > 0
• Cash Flow > 0
• Assets > Liabilities
• Equity > 0 and accumulating net of owner distributions

Make the list bigger, and it can become garbage information, only meant to cloud investor and decision makers' opinions of the health of the company, or they are derivatives of the same information.

Profitability is simply revenue minus expenses. So when we are talking about IT, it is typically only on the expense side, indirectly affecting revenue in more difficult terms to quantify like productivity and employee uptime.

That is all for tonight..

[EDIT] Forgot the main point.

OP is a revenue generator, and thus should be accommodated. [/EDIT]

 

[Aesma]

Maybe it's not the server that's the bottle neck, maybe you guys have a 10/100 switch instead should have a Gigabit switch.

You could maybe use a NAS drive ? get one that has 2-4 drives and setup a raid on it so your data is not lost.

If you can plug the drive directly in USB3 and don't need other computers or devices (TV, smartphone, etc.) to connect to it, what's the point of a NAS ? Furthermore, I doubt IT would like that very much, you're messing with the network !

 

[geiger]

It's a Cisco.

How many network drops go to your desk? If your workstation is connected to the phone, it may only support 10/100 based on the model. Adding a switch before the phone may not work given the switch config needed to support the phone.