Engineers tackle big waits for big files
Storing large project files separately in its 20 offices worked fine for environmental engineering firm GEI Consultants until employees with different specialties had to start collaborating on jobs.
Once those electronic documents had to be worked on at more than one site, both transmitting and keeping track of them became a challenge, according to CIO Ray Barrie. Server consolidation looked like the answer, and the company started planning for it. But there was so much latency across GEI's network connections that transfers of CAD and GIS (geographic information systems) files, which were 800MB and larger, took several hours.
"People quickly realize the effect of latency when you're passing a very large file," Barrie said. "That issue was really a roadblock for us trying to look at centralizing storage of my company's files." GEI had to take the project off the drawing board.
