Remote working guide for design institutes-Using Alibaba Cloud to build a team collaborative work platform

Official Account: Non-Deconstructive · Author: Zhou Wenqi (Venchy)

With the recent outbreak of the new coronavirus, I believe many design teams have adopted the work-from-home model.Although online communication and conferencing apps such as DingTalk and Enterprise WeChat have filled our daily life of working from home, they can meet our daily work communication and meeting needs.But for architects and engineers, working from home prevents us from logging into the company’s server, and we cannot use the company’s P disk. In this way, we lose a smooth capital raising platform, and we cannot create working files based on a collaborative working mode. All CAD drawings can only be bound online through DingTalk Enterprise WeChat, and the required files cannot be shared, which greatly reduces our work efficiency. We must have had this kind of trouble when we were working before: the company network disk was too stuck, or we couldn’t connect to the company server after going home on weekends, and we had to go to the company to work overtime.The company’s servers will not be open to everyone on the public Internet due to security issues. Based on this, we can try to use Alibaba Cloud to create a public P disk for the team. In this way, no matter where you are, as long as your computer can connect to the Internet, you can have the same work experience of logging in to the P disk as if you were in the company.As long as your team uses it, your team will no longer have to go to the company to work overtime on weekends. All members of the team can work based on this cloud platform.Without further ado, let’s start our tutorial.

1. Basic configuration

An Alibaba Cloud account Deploying centos Alibaba Cloud server Samba protocol

2. Purchase Alibaba Cloud Server

Enter the purchase page and select the server type to purchase according to your needs: Among them, pay attention to the following points: (1) Region and available area: In theory, choose a server that is physically close to you; (2) The instance specification belongs to the server configuration, which defines the number of cores of the server CPU and the capacity of the server hard disk.The editor chose the most basic configuration here, one CPU, one core, 40GB hard drive, 60 yuan per month. (3) Mirror, that is, the selected server operating system. The editor chooses centos, which is commonly used for server configuration. After purchasing an Alibaba Cloud server, you can log in to your server in the following ways: (1) Click Remote Connection on the Alibaba Cloud service area management page

In this way, we enter the control end of the cloud server through the browser. (2) Through the local cmd command bar, enter ssh root@ipaddress, and then enter the server password to log in to the Alibaba Cloud server. (3) Log in through specialized Linux remote server editing software such as XShell. In this way, you gain access to the Alibaba Cloud server.It should be noted that centos on the cloud server is a Linux-based operating system. Different from Windows, it does not have the window system we are used to. It requires us to enter the command line to operate, so everyone needs a certain adaptation process when configuring it.If you are interested in Linux, I recommend you to read the following related tutorials. I recommend this book “Brother Niao’s Linux Private Cooking” to everyone.

3. Configure samba on the server

(1) Install samba: $sudo yum install samba samba-client (2) Start samba on centos and set automatic startup permissions:$sudo systemctl start smb.service $sudo systemctl start nmb.service$sudo systemctl enable smb.service $sudo systemctl enable nmb.service (3) Configure the firewall on the server and enter the following command:$firewall-cmd —permanent —zone=public —add-service=samba $firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-service=samba (4) Configure shared folders. To facilitate management, all folders to be shared on centos need to be configured under the /samba folder. We create the /samba folder and enter the following command:$sudo mkdir /samba Next we create the user group sambashare that can share files, and configure the ownership of the /samba folder to sambashare $sudo groupadd sambashare$sudo chgrp sambashare /samba (5) To create a samba user, we first create a user named josh $sudo useradd -M -d /samba/josh -s /usr/sbin/nologin -G sambashare josh Where -M means not to create the user's folder -d /samba/josh indicates that the user’s folder is configured to /samba/josh -s /usr/sbin/nologin indicates that the user cannot log in through the shell -G sambashare means configuring the user to the shambashare user group (6) Create a subfolder for the user, grant the folder permissions to user josh and user group sambashare, modify the folder permissions, and add the user to the samba database:$sudo mkdir /samba/josh $sudo chown josh:sambashare /samba/josh$sudo chmod 2770 /samba/josh $sudo smbpasswd -a josh At this point, you will be asked to enter the login password of the user josh: New SMB password: Retype new SMB password: Added user josh. When the user is added, start the user:$sudo smbpasswd -e josh At this time, it displays: Enabled user josh. This indicates that the user configuration is successful. (7) After successful configuration, modify the samba configuration file: $sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf Add the user's configuration at the end of the file: [josh] path = /samba/josh browseable = no read only = no force create mode = 0660 force directory mode = 2770 valid users = josh @sadmin After the configuration is complete, restart the samba server:$sudo systemctl restart smb.service $sudo systemctl restart nmb.service

4. Connect to the server under Windows

(1) Make sure windows can connect to the samba server:

(2) Map network disk to local:

(3) Enter the previously configured username and password: In this way, the hard disk space on Alibaba Cloud is configured locally, and you can access the hard disk space on Alibaba Cloud just like your local hard disk.

5. Extension

The above just describes a simple scenario of using the cloud platform to build a design work environment based on the cloud platform to improve the designer’s work efficiency.Compared with an architectural design company configuring an intranet server on the company’s intranet and building a working platform for the company’s intranet, its limitations are self-evident. We can only log in and access through the company’s intranet, which results in low collaboration efficiency.The collaborative design server built through the cloud platform can help us access our working directory anytime and anywhere, improving the degree of collaboration among designers.However, cloud servers can do much more than that for architectural designers. Many people may be confused about the concept of cloud. In layman’s terms, the cloud space we purchase provided by cloud service providers such as Alibaba Cloud is essentially a computer on the cloud.It has corresponding cpu and hard disk space.As long as our client can connect to the cloud platform, then we can use the computing resources and hard disk space on the cloud platform.The computing power and hard disk resources on the cloud platform are huge.For such resources, an entity of a single design institute can only continuously purchase hardware, and the hardware resources of a single host have an upper limit, while the resources on the cloud platform can be continuously expanded, and the cost of purchasing cloud space is relatively low.How to use the computing resources and hard disk space on the cloud platform depends entirely on the designer or team using the cloud platform. Based on this, we can imagine various scenarios of introducing cloud platforms into architectural design workflows: (1) The combination with BIM technology brings the degree of collaboration among all parties in the design process to a new level. In the traditional workflow, although many architectural design companies have their own collaborative work platforms, the current ecology between architecture, structure, electromechanical and other majors is relatively closed.By establishing a unified BIM collaboration platform on the cloud, the work objects between various disciplines can be transformed into a unified BIM model, so that the design results between various disciplines can be seamlessly connected. (2) Utilize computing resources on the cloud to improve the efficiency of design analysis. Taking the work of structural engineers as an example, during the design process we need to constantly update our yjk or pkpm structural model on our computers and perform calculations.So, since there are abundant cloud resources, why can’t we configure this kind of software on the cloud? The computing power resources of computers on the cloud are completely different from those of a single host.It is not that far away to use cloud platforms to widely introduce some cutting-edge algorithms into the design process.Imagine a scenario where as long as we define a BIM model on the cloud and set the relevant parameters, all design participants can obtain corresponding analysis results locally through the cloud.Does it feel like flying? (3) Connect the ports of Party A, the construction party, the supervision unit and the operation and maintenance team on the cloud platform to increase the participation of all project participants. Based on the cloud platform, through reasonable file permission layout, all parties in the project can view the progress or design results of the project design documents in real time according to their needs.In this way, opinions or information from all parties to the project can be fed back in real time. Based on the current way that Party A generally uses WeChat or phone to communicate with us, do you think it is too trivial?It is not impossible to build a communication system for project opinions based on the cloud platform so that the opinions of all parties in the project can be traced.In addition, the construction unit can also obtain the design documents of the design unit through the cloud platform, and the design unit can also check the construction progress of the construction unit through the cloud platform. Of course, there will be many application scenarios based on cloud space in the architectural design process, which requires everyone to develop slowly.Here are two related articles about cloud services in the AEC industry, which explain the significance of cloud space to the AEC industry. You can use them as supplementary reading materials.

（The Need for Industry Cloud Solutions in the AEC Industry

https://www.skysite.com/the-need-for-industry-cloud-solutions-in-the-aec-industry/

10 REASONS AEC FIRMS ARE MOVING TO THE CLOUD

https://www.advance2000.com/10-reasons-aec-firms-moving-cloud/）

6. Summary

All in all, by introducing cloud computing resources and hard disk resources into our design workflow, we can abandon the company-based work environment of designers and make full use of cloud space resources to convert our actual three-dimensional space in the office into a virtual space on the cloud. We can log in to the cloud space at home to work. I think I am very happy after working from home during this period. It saves us time on the way to and from get off work. The working environment is relatively quiet and the work efficiency is relatively high.Of course, our communication efficiency will be relatively compromised.I believe that the gradual and widespread use of cloud in the design field will not happen overnight, it will take time.But I feel like the bosses will be happy because they can at least rent out two floors of offices and replace them with space on the cloud.Space on the cloud is much cheaper than office buildings.

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This document is automatically collected and organized by AI from non-deconstructed public accounts and is for learning reference only.

Original Source: http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MzU0Nzc5MDQxNw==&mid=2247489581&idx=1&sn=af4c9f9ceaaf9f6170274b1b055d352b&chksm=fb485313cc3fda05a22387d6fcffe440c4e36debc64fe8cdd5c6a993c97c4e3e3956e5cf85e2#rd