Service Provider Concerns?

berne

At my shop I am limited to an internet service provider that only gives me about 1mbps of speed. Today I noticed that  Onshape was very slow to load... what concerns should I have if I get into complex modeling. I am currently designing some automation that is pretty involved. Just wondering if at some point the service speed will become a big issue... are there any minimum recommendations for service provider speeds... also, what happens when internet goes down... are we out of luck... it is rare but my internet has gone down for an hour or two... 

awk

There are (roughly) three phases to 'loading'

1. The time taken to present the page when you first go to sign in.
2. The time taken to present the 'modeling' page containing your part studios & assemblies after you click to open a new document (or create a new one)
3. The time taken to present a final workable model you can interact with (essentially the end of the 'loading' spinner in a part studio or assembly)

The first two are usually 'one time deals' - the browser will cache content and reuse it for those phases - on a slow connection it should be better on the second login, or the second time you open a document. The first time after an update to Onshape things may be slower since your cached content is possibly invalid.

The third piece is dependent on model complexity, assembly size and so forth. We monitor all these times (in aggregate from users all over the world) and try to continually improve them. Recent changes for progressive graphics quality are results of this monitoring and continuing work to improve performance.

There is also ongoing data usage as you add a feature or mate assemblies, import new parts into an assembly etc. We employ a range of techniques to try and optimize that experience including running in bandwidth limited (and high latency) test scenarios and using complex documents. 

If you feel a particular document has become too slow after adding features please file a support ticket and if possible share the document with support (or be able to provide some idea as to its complexity). We can take a look at the scenario and add it to our list of ongoing improvements.

Offline use (no internet connection) is not currently possible - we may not be the best solution for people who have very unreliable (or very poor) internet connections.

kirk_2

I may have missed it from earlier reading, but who is the cloud service provider for OS?  

3dcad

I have used onshape with ipad2 3g connection, connection speed was enough to open and examine samples and for modeling my own simple parts. It was actually working faster than my couple of years old 299€ kitchen-acer with 100/100 lan line.
So I think having decent computer and possibility to use 3G/4G connection if lan/dsl line is down will keep you alive for couple of hours. Having lan router with 4G support which automatically uses mobile connection if cable is down would be a good solution.

pete_yodis

Kirk said:

I may have missed it from earlier reading, but who is the cloud service provider for OS?  

Amazon, I believe.

berne

Thanks @3dcad for the 4G router suggestion... that is a good idea to stay alive in a pinch.

Andrew, lots of good info, I will start a ticket if I run into another slowdown...

awk

If cellphone coverage is good for you I would endorse having a back up using a cellular connection of some sort - even if it's a 'personal hotspot' on an iPhone or Android device. Even a poor 4G or LTE connection will probably do better than 1MBps - a good LTE connection will do a  LOT better.