The discussion continues in 2024 on the best way for AEC businesses to collaborate and share data. Here’s my opinion, writes Karl Smith.

If your organisation has multiple offices in multiple regions, Panzura is for you. Enabling teams spread widely across different geographical locations to collaborate on large CAD files is really where I see Panzura shines for our industry.

It ensures real-time access to the latest versions of files, enabling seamless collaboration and reducing delays caused by data transfer or version conflicts. As many AEC organisations have projects which involve resource-intensive CAD applications and data-heavy files, Panzura’s data optimisation and caching capabilities can help reduce latency and improve performance, allowing designers and engineers to work efficiently.

However, if your AEC firm has offices all within a single country and the majority of collaboration within your firm occurs locally, with no requirement for global coordination, then Panzura may not be the most cost effective option. If you’re not making use of the features and benefits of the technology, the financial outlay required means it’s probably not a worthwhile investment.

In my opinion, Storage-as-a-Service (StaaS) platforms can offer a more cost-effective solution for smaller AEC firms, providing sufficient file sharing and storage capabilities is to centralise data and collaborate efficiently.

Creative ITC’s fully managed File-as-a-Service, powered by Panzura, and Storage-as-a-Service are two solutions which can be tailored to solve both scenarios. If you are interested in discussing which is best for your AEC business and finding out more about improving collaboration, please reach out.