Online vs. Offline

billy2

I don't think it has anything to do with language or the internet. It's just basic computer data structures 101.





Don't copy, it's not a good thing. Syncing doesn't work, never has, don't do it.

I've been running my company off the cloud for 12 years and the thought of a local copy is absurd. I know this is different and we've all been tied to hard-drives since the beginning. You don't want data any where else but the cloud. You login and the data is correct.

We all have to come to grips with this. What we have here is so much better than anything we've had in the past.

Wait and see, you'll like it.

OS, you need to start a campaign:


Print a bunch a t-shirts up and send'm out to everybody.

Or, maybe you should only send them to the believers.

Do you believe? , if you check it, we'll send you a t-shirt.



I should have been in sales,

3dcad

This is very tricky question, if OnShape was another local install 'SolidShape' - I wouldn't be writing here at all. The thing I'm interested is online cad - why? because I hate licensing issues, updating and data handling (sharing, backups, versions, etc. in other words COPYING @billy  ).
I have 100/100 connection in my home and office so that area is covered - but what if I spent 50 hours on design and when representing at customer premises my connection fails and I have nothign to show?
But then again what if my computer fails or car or me..

I'm using data connection 90% of the time while on the go, sometimes it's fast sometimes slow.. I rarely use public wlan because everytime I have tried, it's just not working or is slower than mobile network. When abroad I just buy local sim with unlimited data for the time I'm visiting.

For me it would be enough if I could survive with very slow connection every now and then. I don't know anything about programming of OS but if the system would support some sort of special cache which could be turned on while still on good connection and it would 'download' static things to be able to use current version with minimal bandwidth. This would be only for temporary use and local copies would be deleted when turned off. Or maybe it could have another option for updating static stuff everytime when connection is good - for the people who have issues short time every day. Similar to offline maps for navigator. Main idea would be storing the same data locally that would be moved while using so it would be still working on browser and fully compatible with any system.      

lougallo

@Andrew_Troup It is very early days but I can day choosing on platform and OS will probably not be in the future.  Today people don't use one platform or OS and that is probably going to be the trend.  Never say never but Onshape was forged by the restrictions of the current market and platform requirements.  

billy2

For me the exciting thing about OS is the idea of collaboration. For 20 years I've been wanting to have 1 data structure and a team of engineers making it better. I'm tired of structuring a top assembly so each sub-assembly can have a life of it's own and then try and thread it back together into the top assembly one evening in a remote office. Keeping the engineering team within the confines of your top assembly is a full time job and managing the bits of projects is maddening. This is the reason I want to move away from a file based system. It's a nightmare trying to manage all those files.

Most people do this poorly, if at all. I think over time we'll figure out how to collaborate in OS and this will set a new standard for designing a product. This is truly the dawn of a new cad generation and the idea of independent files has been abstracted out of the CAD system totally. I find it interesting that people want'm back.

If we start slicing the cloud data structure into bits, we'll be right back where we are today trying to manage the bits vs. working on a collaborative data structure. Everybody wants to go back to their old localized style which could ruin any chances of a truly collaborative environment.

I would say I'd prohibit any of my team member from branching a bit of my collaborative data set without proving to me that they can successfully merge it back into the main branch without destroying anything. I believe this is beyond most people.

I'd rather people give this 1 data structure a chance to take seed and grow vs. introducing some copy/sync methods prematurely that I believe will never work properly and render us right back were we are today.

My fear is that all the other CAD suppliers with their half-baked cloud solutions will make a big deal out of this non-localized version. They don't have the technology to do a single data structure, this is no reason why we can't have it. Ignore them, they'll be struggling trying to compete with OS's single data structure. 

I think we'll have to change our habits. If you do, I believe wonderful things will happen.

david_sohlstrom

We have started a team CAD build over at Home Model Engine Machinist (HMEM) WE have 3 on the team so far. One problem I see is communicating with team members while in the team build.

Dave

pete_yodis

@David_Sohlstrom Check the forums here for some posts on that topic.  Things are brewing for sure.  Lots of good ideas on this one.  In the meantime, there is a follow mode that was released a month or two ago.  This allows one team member to drive the display of the model for all the other members that are currently following.

berne

So, here is my question. Is there any way OS could monitor bandwidth and when it is intermittent or varying could the app do something like buffering work until the signal returns or improves... just curious. The discussion is great..

pete_yodis

@jeff_Farris17623 I bet there is lot of that kind of activity already.  In what ways are you thinking of buffering?  As far as bandwidth... I have already used Onshape in some remarkably sketchy 3G networks in crazy places and was impressed with how well it performed.  Granted I was not working on gigantic models in those situations, but man have they really optimized the experience.  Well done.  Internet bandwidth is only poised to get better and better as time marches forward.  I think Onshape would not want to spend too much time solving a problem that is not as big as we think and will be rapidly shrinking in the future.   They have made that bet, and it's a smart bet for sure.

Thomas

I totally agree to many pro arguments of cloud computing. But has nobody concerns when it comes down to storing CAD files in an arbitrary server somewhere in the world? Think of highly secret developments. Would you develop something like this with OS? And if there is no internet connection you have no CAD, no files, no nothing. Quite a bit scary if I think about it.

3dcad

@Thomas Most of cads are moving to online activation license system to enable the use of multiple computers for one license. So without connection you would have your cad and files but not able to use it - pretty much same as having nothing. With OS you can look for any computer with connection and use your cad and files there.
Of course there are usb dongles and other options available but if connection is known issue for you, propably OS is not the best solution available. 

For most users (including me), OS will most likely provide better security, better backup systems, better collaboration system and I can still export steps and make dvd's to safe box if I feel the need.

In the other hand, after OS has millions of users their servers might be more interesting to hackers than my company. But after they hack the server and copy data, they still need OS to review it and such import progress might be traceable

And another thing, how many ERPs are currently used over network connection? It's just fact for many companies that if you don't have the internet connection working - cad is the minor problem that day.

Just yesterday I played with OS ipad version while on the go, within 600kms trip I didn't bump into any connection problems though my old ipad2 is 'only' 3G (21Mbit/s in theory). I wasn't monitoring the whole trip but tested every now and then and spent couple of hours straight with OS. I'm sure there was also many times 3G dropping to slower connection modes but I didn't notice it in OS.

I think OS will work pretty good with varying connection speeds, designing has a lot of phases where you just turn the model in different views and think of what you should do next and the amount of data to be transferred when finally making a sketch or extrude shouldn't be that much.  

john_rousseau

Hi @Thomas. I can understand your security concerns. We hear this a lot from people when moving to the cloud. We at Onshape invest a lot of time and effort making your intellectual property (IP) secure. 

If you have your IP on a desktop machine in a secure home or office, make local or encrypted backups and you don't share your IP with anyone else, you are probably pretty secure. If you need to collaborate with others on your IP or have your data on a laptop that moves with you, you may not be as secure as you think. With Onshape, your data is encrypted with SSL/TLS and strong cypher suites before it leaves your browser. It's kept encrypted between the servers that comprise our service. We contract with a professional hacking service that is constantly trying to find new ways of breaking into our service so we can fix them before they are exploited.

We take the protection of your IP very seriously. Onshape employees are forbidden by policy and prevented by technology from looking at your IP unless you explicitly share it with us (via "Share with support").

Your point about internet connectivity is completely true. You cannot access your Onshape files if you don't have a good internet connection. However, this is a little different from having "nothing". Even if you can't access your files right now, they are still there, secure, replicated, backed up and waiting for you and your collaborators to access them. This is quite a bit different from the situation you are in when your hard drive crashes.

You can take a look at some of our security precautions here https://www.onshape.com/security

Thanks
-John

Raphael

Hi @Mark Biasotti , SWCD (formerly SWMC) and SWID (formerly SWIC) CAN run Offline. It has been added to the core functionalities back in October 2014. The SWCD/ID can use and create new product for a period of 30 days and then sync back to the "DS Cloud PDM".  

GMail has its Offline mode, so why not On Shape....
As you said previously, the point is that as a user you never know when the idea of a new design will come up to your mind. You may think/brainstorm of a new design while in a plane or in a boat or in a subway, not necessarily open previously in one of your browser tabs, OnShape but you should be able to capture your idea/sketch while not being connected (even if OnS wasn't launched before and still open on your device browser). Some areas in the US has a very limited or no access to Internet via cable/optic fiber or 3G/4G. I experienced it surprisingly few days ago visiting some customers in AR and LA states...

3dcad

Raphael said:

GMail has its Offline mode, so why not On Shape....

I don't know how gmail acts if multiple offline users sync with different data to same 'lines'? But if multiple users modify same 3d model while offline, there's no way it could be synced/merged without problems.
Offline access should be at least narrowed to active private documents which are not shared + new documents. Others could be read-only though.

But when would you download all the documents for offline use? Live sync would propably 'eat' more bandwidth than normal use online and make things worse with slow connection or pay-by-data connection.

If OS would go offline, it should be completely separate workstation version. But I would prefer existing cads (or one good partner) to export/import with OS native files so they could be used offline and easily move models to online cad and back again.

dave_c

@raphael makes a good point.  Gmail (and Google Docs for that matter) do have some offline support.  Google does this with a particular philosophy - that having to work offline is an exception, not the rule.  Their data in the cloud is the source of truth and is always up to date.   In other words, Gmail and Google Apps are Full Cloud solutions, not traditional installed apps that run on disk on files stored on disk and then push those files to the cloud in the background (with the limitations inherent in installed apps that @billy and others have mentioned).  Onshape does not rule out doing something like what Gmail and Google Apps are doing in the future - allowing limited offline editing when not connected.  But it is not our priority to do this in the near future. Why? Because our priority is to make the best True Cloud dad production cad service possible.  So we are concentrating our efforts now on increasing the breadth and depth of our functionality.  We believe that is what will best serve our customers.  Note that Gmail and Google Apps followed the same approach - they did not have offer limited offline capabilities until several (actually quite a few) years after Gmail and Google Apps were introduced and were heavily used in production - not when they released - for similar reasons. If working offline is very very important to a paritcular user in the near term for whatever reason - Onshape is probably not the right solution for that user now.  There are good installed CAD apps out there you can use (you may be using them already).  That is ok - people have different needs, constraints, and requirements - that is why their are different products out there.   But I recommend if you have not made up your mind yet - that you give Onshape a try and learn the benefits of a True Cloud solution.  Because True Cloud solutions are out there and they have succeeded in other industries - Gmail, Google Apps, Salesforce, Workday to name a few - and they have succeeded because they provide unique advantages.  We believe we provide the similar unique advantages - and that some of them - like avoiding backward compatibility problems, licensing problems, multiple file copy problems, and interrelated file problems, and inability to collaborate effectively  - to name just a few - are even more significant in CAD than in those other industries.   Finally, we know and expect that many users will use multiple design solutions - they were doing that before Onshape and will continue doing it.  We have designed Onshape to work well side by side with existing CAD products -  and hope that many users will use it that way.

Unknown

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steveastrouk

John Rousseau said:

We contract with a professional hacking service that is constantly trying to find new ways of breaking into our service so we can fix them before they are exploited.

Do you get the NSA to help ? We have collectively  found over the last 12 months that all our "security" has been pretty well hopelessly compromised by the NSA and other folks nominated as "the good guys" Its very likely therefore that other people, the bad guys, have also found the same back doors. If one of those is a foreign, say trans-pacific government, our ideas are out there for the taking.

jakeramsley

steveastrouk said:

John Rousseau said:

We contract with a professional hacking service that is constantly trying to find new ways of breaking into our service so we can fix them before they are exploited.

Do you get the NSA to help ? We have collectively  found over the last 12 months that all our "security" has been pretty well hopelessly compromised by the NSA and other folks nominated as "the good guys" Its very likely therefore that other people, the bad guys, have also found the same back doors. If one of those is a foreign, say trans-pacific government, our ideas are out there for the taking.

Just to clarify, the hacking service that we are using isn't pointed to our production server where everyone's data is stored.  They are hacking an analogous server that has none of your information in it.  

steveastrouk

jramsley said:

Just to clarify, the hacking service that we are using isn't pointed to our production server where everyone's data is stored.  They are hacking an analogous server that has none of your information in it.  

That's not really my point. We know there are backdoors in the security protocols we use to even talk to the cloud.

mark_biasotti

@Raphael
SWCD (formerly SWMC) and SWID (formerly SWIC) CAN run Offline. It has been added to the core functionalities back in October 2014.
Hi Raphael, good to hear from you. Glad that you have made some advancement on that front with the products. I was aware of the offline feature for CATIA, and isn't it true that you still have to do some sort of initialization of offline (i.e. premeditated) before you actually go offline. Anyway, doesn't matter to me because as you know I'm an advocate of cloud but want some kind of capability when my connection is broken or temporarily unavailable.
BTW - when I started this thread 6 months ago and I described my situation on the VTA (light rail like the T or subway) purportedly the 1st free WiFi for public transit in the US - I have given up on it altogether because half the time I cannot connect and when I can connect it takes about 3 minutes to do so with additional EULA confirmation. I have written to them but with no response - when it is a city governmental organization, what do you expect (sorry all you postal workers if I offend) it is cut rate as are many hotels and simply not worth it. Now if I need to do some work on my way in to work, I will tether my iPhone and suck-it-up on my cell usage.

Mark

tommy_williams

This really is, in my opinion, the downfall of Onshape. I travel regularly between clients and factories around the world and rarely have a stable internet connection. I do most of my design work in my office (with 20MB broadband) which is fine but still need to be able to present and make modifications "on the go". I work regularly in the Far East, like many designers, and cannot guarantee a stable enough internet connection do download my emails let alone stream CAD. The ability to check out a part from the cloud, view/modify then check back in when complete really could work just like in EPDM. Please consider this, i would sign up tomorrow if this was the case!

CaptainBisquick

Haven't read everything in the thread. Wanted to say, I'd like to see an offline mode. Possibly a way to checkout a document for offline work. I know that couchbase attempts to provide storage for situations such as this, but not sure couchbase is a great implementation.

3dcad

After following this stuff few months I feel like asking offline mode from Onshape is like asking possibility to use online webshops offline.

Onshape is built to live in cloud and I don't think they will put enormous effort to create offline possibility as there are multiple good alternatives on that market.

chaz_sutherland

3dcad said:

After following this stuff few months I feel like asking offline mode from Onshape is like asking possibility to use online webshops offline.

Onshape is built to live in cloud and I don't think they will put enormous effort to create offline possibility as there are multiple good alternatives on that market.

Yeah, I think you're absolutely correct, which is too bad since OnShape appears to have a bunch of features and tools I'd love to dive into. However, AT&T is my ISP and there's also the fact that I'll never be comfortable with anyone's claim for their online security, soooo... yeah, gonna keep searching.

Joseph_Maloney

Here in 2021, the I can say that an offline option is less important than maybe 2014-16, but still relevant. Without knowing where OS does the heavy lifting (locally or in the cloud), it would seem like you could have an offline mode that operates within the browser under an offline branch. I look at google drive as an example. You specify a file as "available offline" and in OS world that would create a branch that can be merged back if needed. Maybe a special branch type that includes social cues to indicate to online users that there is an offline branch. This assumes that the heavy computation is client side versus server side which may or may not be the case. in either case im sure those who plan to work offline would also be willing to ensure they have a workstation that can handle it.

As for a business case, as things are getting so remote, OS has a huge advantage being cloud based. Cloud native means OS is as flexible as it needs to be to accommodate the changing work environment. But having lived in an area on the "wrong side" of the digital divide, I would not have been able to WFH if my company used onshape and right there you're going scare customers if having fast internet is essential. companies will be at a disadvantage if they have to require employees have reliable internet. An offline mode allows users to work when the need to or can, and transact with the servers when they can.

As an anecdote; I have multiple days a year where we didn't have internet due to weather events. those days would have been lost with onshape.