Panzura Announces Advanced Global Element Locking Technology

Panzura, Inc. announced enhancements to its patented global file locking capabilities by introducing global element locking.

Driven by nearly 100 architectural, engineering and construction customers, the company introduced element locking to enable distributed Autodesk Revit users to work simultaneously on the same document. Global element locking – in conjunction with Revit-specific enhancements like fine-grained element borrowing and work-sharing monitors – enables globally distributed teams to work as if they are in the same office.

While Panzura architected its global file system from its inception to include global file locking, many multi-user applications, such as Autodesk Revit and Excel, permit users to work within the same file at the same time. While sub-file or element locking required by multi-user applications worked when all users were in the same office accessing the same storage, it did not work across distributed sites. Panzura’s element locking enables multiple users to lock and work on small elements of the file so that distributed users can work different parts of the same file at the same time-without data integrity or application performance issues.

With Building Information Modeling (BIM) surging in adoption from 28% in 2007 to 71% in 2012, ‘Collaborative BIM’ reducing change order costs, and project teams becoming more distributed, Panzura also introduced Revit functionality to enable true cross-site BIM collaboration:

• Global fine-grained element borrowing enables distributed teams to not only work inside the same Revit model at the same time, but also to borrow even the smallest elements in the same rapid fashion that they would when collaborating at a single office.

• Worksharing Monitor provides these distributed users to see in real-time the status and activity of other users that are working in the same model, regardless of where those users are located.

• Searching for a solution to improve the way its distributed teams work, AEC firm Mead & Hunt, Inc. turned to Panzura to help its employees work as if they were in the same room.

“With the latest updates to our Panzura infrastructure, our teams working in offices across the country are empowered with Revit element borrowing, thanks to the transparency it provides with Worksharing Monitor no matter what office they are located in,” said Dan Dankert, CAD/BIM/VDC manager, Mead & Hunt. “This technology removed the geographic constraints that were placed on our teams, allowing us to put the best project team together for each assignment.“

Also looking to empower its employees with cross-site collaboration, AEC firm WSP Group tested Panzura with six users-each located at six separate sites-working within the same Revit model at the same time. The results were transformational.

“Sync with Central, element borrowing and Worksharing Monitor all worked as advertised,” said Daniel Houle, BIM corporate director, WSP Group Canada.

“True global cross-site collaboration is not just distributing files to every site and performing simple, first generation file locking or workset borrowing between those sites,” said Randy Chou, co-founder and CEO, Panzura. “Collaborating globally has to be the same as collaborating at a single site in terms of the same speed, performance and ability to know what others project team members are working on in the model. Our fine grained global element locking, element borrowing and Worksharing Monitor were developed based on our experience with nearly 100 AEC customers using Revit across sites just like they were sitting in a single room.“