SOLIDWORKS Support Monthly News – October 2018

Hello to all,

Welcome to this new edition of the SOLIDWORKS Support Monthly News, co-authored by members of the SOLIDWORKS Technical Support teams worldwide.

Key Areas to Consider When Designing a Disaster Recovery Plan for a Business IT Infrastructure

By Tim Kwong

Restoring data and applications on other servers are routine tasks that most companies can perform in a matter of minutes or hours. But what happens when it is not possible to obtain the necessary hardware, infrastructure, and personnel to restore the data and applications? Trying to come up and execute a recovery plan after disaster hits can seriously affect the health of a company and the ability to stay in business. The survival of company is dependent on how fast it can bounce back from a disaster.

All companies need to plan, invest, and implement a disaster recovery strategy for their business-critical data and applications. Below highlights key areas that should be considered when formulating a disaster recovery and response plan.

 

Key Areas:

  • Upper Management: Must have full support and commitment from upper management or owner. It is difficult for any individual or IT department to successfully accomplish this critical and often forgotten aspect of business operation, especially for small businesses.
  • Stakeholders: Identify internal departments and data needed to get the company going after a disaster strikes. Engage with the department stakeholders and understand what they are the critical elements for them to have the business running.
  • Existing Plans: Collect and review any existing recovery plans. If plans exist, they may be able to just update and merge them.
  • Risk Assessment: Understand current operation which includes facility, infrastructure, and key components of the business.
  • Facility: Consider building location and accessibility. It is possible the building is not accessible or destroyed.
  • Infrastructure and Hardware: Understand utility and network/Internet availability and options to switch to secondary sources such as co-hosting location or branch office. Ensure standby hardware has the capacity to handle the workload.
  • Key Personnel: Create an emergency response team. The team will responsible for executing the plan when called upon.
  • Training: Determine and provide the training needed for the response team. Also, there is a need to cross-train people on different areas so there is built-in redundancy in the team.
  • Resources: Ensure the response team has the proper resources to execute the plan.
  • Testing: Periodic testing ensure everyone knows their responsibility when the disaster hits.

 

SOLIDWORKS 2019 SP0 has been released

By Brad Phillips

SOLIDWORKS® 2019 SP0 officially has been released as of 12:57 PM EST October 9th, 2018!

This release is packed with amazing new features. Here is a list of the Top Enhancements of SOLIDWORKS 2019 found in the SOLIDWORKS Help documentation.

If you are a customer on active subscription you can download SOLIDWORKS 2019 by logging into the Customer Portal and selecting the Downloads and Updates section.

 

Can SOLIDWORKS Help You Win at Roller Bowler?

By Brad Phillips

The Woodland Hills Technical Support team last summer had 4 interns compete in a SOLIDWORKS Internship Design Challenge. The design, build and competition phases of this challenge were filmed and compiled in a video that is now featured on the SOLIDWORKS Youtube Channel.

Here is a link to the video “Can SOLIDWORKS Help You Win at Roller Bowler?”

Noteworthy Solutions from the SOLIDWORKS Knowledge Base

icon - SW When I change machine-license activation to online licensing, why do I see the error ‘Activation type cannot be changed because more than 1 user is assigned to this Product.’?
The purpose of online licensing is to accommodate an individual user who has more than one device. An online license can only be assigned to one user, see Solution Id: S-074581.

In SOLIDWORKS®2017 SP5, when using custom templates for parts and assemblies, how can I collaborate with SOLIDWORKS PCB 2017 SP5?
For more information, see Solution Id: S-075005.

Icon - EPDM When I log in to the SOLIDWORKS® PDM local view, why do see the error ‘Could not load file or assembly [File path]\AddRenamer_x64.dll or one of its dependencies. The module was expected to contain an assembly manifest.’?
To resolve this issue, follow the steps in Solution Id: S-074508.

In SOLIDWORKS® Simulation, is it possible to offload studies from multiple coordinator systems to the same worker agent system at the same time as using the Offloaded Simulation functionality?
See Solution Id: S-074537.

In SOLIDWORKS® Flow Simulation, which applications are most suitable for use with the free surface functionality?
For more information, see Solution Id: S-074515.


That’s it for this month. Thanks for reading this edition of SOLIDWORKS Support News. If you need additional help with these issues or any others, please contact your SOLIDWORKS Value Added Reseller.

Also, comments and suggestions are welcome. You can enter them below.

Bradley Phillips

Sr. Technical Customer Support Engineer, SolidWorks, NAM at DS SolidWorks Corp.
I have been a Tech Support engineer for SOLIDWORKS products since 2013. I now handle the SolidWorks Support Monthly News blog.