What does a Newforma software deployment look like?

Newforma software can be deployed at your company in a single day. The software consists of a client application installed on each desktop and two server applications. (See "technical requirements" below for a description of the server components.) The application supports multiple corporate sites connected by a wide area network. A typical deployment follows the diagram below:

What changes to our technology environment are required to accommodate Newforma software?

The Newforma solution does not affect your existing IT infrastructure beyond requiring the addition of servers, as described immediately below.

What are Newforma Project Center's technical requirements?

Newforma software has been developed on the Microsoft .NET platform to operate on the Microsoft Windows platform. It is compatible with MS Office 2003, 2007 and 2010. Dedicated Newforma Project Center Server(s), which sit on your network alongside your central file server(s), and one firm-wide Newforma Information Exchange server in your DMZ, require the Windows Server 2003 or 2008 operating system.

Will our server run Newforma Project Center? If not, what server should we purchase?

See the Newforma Project Center system requirements here.

What are the requirements for the Newforma Project Center client?

Microsoft Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7 32-bit or 64-bit operating systems are required.

Can I run the Newforma Project Center server in a virtual environment?

Newforma Project Center servers can be deployed in a virtual environment. However, the Newforma Project Center service is compute-intensive, network-intensive, disk-intensive and memory-intensive. Many customers find that a virtual environment doesnt provide adequate performance.

Do I have to deploy a Newforma Project Center server at each office location?

The Newforma Project Center server is constantly monitoring your project files to maintain an index allowing fast searching and browsing. This requires a highbandwidth, low-latency connection to the project files. WAN indexing may be possible in certain circumstances. Newforma provides a lightweight filter service which can be deployed at remote sites to stream search text to a central Newforma Project Center server.

How many Newforma Info Exchange servers do I need and where should they be located?

Typically, youll only need one Newforma Info Exchange server, and it can be located at the office location of your choosing, or at an ISP. Parameters to keep in mind are latency and available bandwidth so that your external teams have fast responsiveness from this server. Offices that are spread across large geographic regions (e.g., European, ASEAN, etc.) may want to consider having more than one Newforma Info Exchange server.

How do I handle project data that exists at two or more office locations?

Many of our customers split project work between offices. Typically some subset of project data is modified at each location. Newforma customers can support this work process by creating a separate project at each office location. Newforma also supports remote project mirroring that is especially effective when used in conjunction with Windows DFS replication. This combination can give LAN access speed to remote offices.

Where is Newforma data stored? How do I back it up?

Newforma Project Center stores most project data in a dedicated database residing on the Newforma Project Center server. The data stored in Newformas database can be configured to automatically replicate to a location on your central file server. This eliminates the need to directly back up the Newforma Project Center server. Your existing project files remain on your corporate file server.

What database are you using?

Newforma Project Center stores project data in the MySQL database. We do not currently support other databases.

How do I create Newforma projects for all our existing project work? We have thousands of projects!

Newforma supports a batch project creation process that allows automated creation of many projects at once. The creation of these projects is part of your companys initial deployment and configuration.

How can I integrate with my accounting system?

Newforma Project Center can query an external database for contact information and certain project parameters. The software allows users to create projects using Deltek Vision workflows. We commonly help customers integrate with Deltek Vision. Integration support for other systems is also available.

What file types can Newforma Viewer open and display?

The Newforma Viewer can open and display files of type DWG, DGN, DWF, DXF, PDF, PLT and most bitmap formats.

How does Newforma Search work?

The Newforma Project Center server maintains a database known as a search index by constantly monitoring your project folders. The search index allows very fast retrieval of project documents that match a specific search term.

What file types does Newforma Project Center search?

Newforma Project Center has built-in support for all Microsoft Office file formats and for the DWG, DXF, DWF, DGN, PLT, IFC, PDF and ZIP formats.

Can I search for data in files other than those you support natively?

To be included in our search index, each supported file format requires an IFilter. The IFilter is a special program that functions as a search filter, reading each file of a specific type and returning all text strings found. If the software vendor that creates your file format has an available IFIlter, it can be installed with Newforma to support searching.

Newforma Project Center is amazing. How did you come up with these great ideas?

We listen carefully to our customers! If you have a suggestion, problem or concern, our team wants to hear it. Heres how to offer input:

Talk to your account rep or support technician. In Newforma Project Center, select the Send a suggestion Help menu item and your suggestion will be reviewed directly by the product team. Visit www.newformant.com, our online community for Newforma users, and register to post a suggestion here.

Newforma Project Center Server

CPU: Single quad core Xeon processor or equivalent. The addition of a second quad core processor will allow substantially improved indexing performance. RAM: 4 GB highly recommended, 8-12 GB (for very large deployments).

Hard Disk: 10,000 RPM SAS drives in a fault-tolerant RAID configuration, with a working capacity of 25 GB (minimum), 150 GB recommended. While exact space requirements will vary between implementations, a typical average project size is 25 MB. For example, a typical customer with 1000 projects would need 25 GB of available disk space. OS: Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (64-bit only). Virtual Servers are supported. However, for best performance, physical hardware is recommended. The Newforma Project Center Server also requires:

The hardware running the Project Center Server must be a dedicated server with no other applications, databases, file shares, etc. running in parallel. High throughput connectivity (1 gigabit or equal, recommended) between the Project Center Server and the file server containing primary sources of project information; these servers should be collocated. However, small offices with good internet connectivity to a Newforma Project center Server at a main corporate office (T1 or better with <100ms latency) can often be configured without a local Project Center Server. UPS protection sufficient to provide for safe shutdown of the server in the event of a power failure. Microsoft Outlook and Exchange customers will require a licensed copy of Microsoft Outlook or Microsoft Office installed and an email account configured to support indexing. Microsoft Office 2007 or 2010 is required to support indexing of Microsoft Office 2007 and newer file formats. Microsoft Office 2010 is required for customers using a hosted Microsoft Exchange provider. Microsoft Excel is required for templates. Only the 32-bit versions of Microsoft Office products are supported on the server. SMTP installed/configured to allow email relay to the corporate email server. The NETBIOS (computer) name for the Project Center Server must be 15 characters or less in length.

Project Data Capacity: A single Project Center Server can support up 10,000 projects containing up to 10 terabytes of project data. To reach this capacity, additional server memory and hard drive space will typically be required. These figures are an average upper limit only. The actual amount of project data that can be supported at your company may vary from this estimate. The limit will be based on available server disk space and server performance characteristics. The best scalability and performance will require dedicated physical server hardware.

Newforma Info Exchange Server

Suggested hardware requirements are similar to the Project Center Server above with the following exceptions: Hard Disk: 150 GB available (recommended). Disk space requirements will be driven in part by the amount of file transfer data posted on the server. OS: Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (64-bit only); Microsoft Web Edition. The server load is dependent upon the size and number of projects that are available on Info Exchange, as well as the simultaneous number of connections to the Info Exchange website. The addition of project email to Info Exchange (an optional project setting) may significantly increase the size of a project. Customers with modest requirements will be able to run Info Exchange on a server shared with other applications. Virtual servers are supported. However, for best performance, dedicated physical hardware is recommended. The Newforma Info Exchange Server also requires:

A static IP address accessible by external users on ports 80 and 443. An SSL certificate secured from Verisign, GoDaddy.com, or other trusted certification authority.

For a list of Passmark CPU ratings see http://www.cpubenchmark.net/

Newforma Punch List

Newforma Punch List is supported on iPad and Android tablets for Project Center. Tablets configured with a 3G/4G wireless data connection will allow synchronization of punchlist data at locations that don't have WiFi available. Apple iPad tablets require iOS 4.3 or later. Please note that the original iPad 1 doesn't have a camera, so certain features of the Punch List app will be disabled.

Newforma Punch List is also supported on 10" Android tablets with 16 GB memory, running Android OS version 2.2 or later. Additional memory will allow storage of larger amounts of project files, photographs, and videos. Install the Firefox browser before you install Newforma Punch List. The Newforma Punch List App Starting Guide contains a list of other Android applications that complement Newforma Punch List.

Example server configurations

Server designation Low end tower Mid-range rack CPU passmark rating 4000 Disks Memory Dell model

7.2K SATA RAID 1

4-8 GB

PowerEdge T110 PowerEdge R610

6000

10K SAS RAID 5

4 GB minimum, 8 GB recommended 8 GB

Virtual server

Minimum of four virtual processors

Host hardware should have 15K SAS drives or connection to SAN with equivalent performance 15K SAS RAID 5 or 10

PowerEdge R610

High-end rack

8000

8-16+ GB

PowerEdge R610

Example Office Configurations

Office size Small Users Project data size 200 GB Number of projects 100 Project Center Server Low end tower Info Exchange Server None Comments

Up to 25

Info Exchange deployed on Project Center Server Virtual environments for this size office must be optimally configured Multiple virtual servers required

Medium

26100

2 TB

1000

Mid-range rack or mid-range virtual server High-end rack

Mid-range rack or midrange virtual server Mid-range rack

Large

200

5 TB

5000

Newforma is a registered trademark, and Newforma Project Center, Newforma Info Exchange, and Newformant are trademarks of Newforma, Inc. Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Office and Microsoft Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Updated 3/15/12