Egnyte Offers Secure Hybrid e-Plan Room

 

Seeking an extremely secure electronic plan room that could function without Internet connectivity, Balfour Beatty Construction turned to Egnyte while reconstructing and updating more than 2 million square feet in the terminals at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

 

"On a project of this magnitude, the drawing plan sets are very detailed and large, and we decided we needed electronic drawings to simplify distribution and document management," says Jeff Pistor, director of integrated projects, Balfour Beatty, Dallas, a member of multiple AGC chapters. "Due to security concerns we chose to host the documents with Egnyte. And it works."

 

The $850-million project called for secure electronic communication. All of the drawings were converted to electronic documents, available to subcontractors and Balfour Beatty personnel.

 

The company estimates it saved about $1.2 million in traditional printing and reproduction costs, while at the same time reducing risks associated with someone continuing to work off outdated plans. 

 

More than 90 companies are working off the same set of plans. The digital documents make collaboration easier, because everyone has access to the same information at the same time, Pistor adds.

 

Each subcontractor can access only the drawings it needs and only those with preset approvals can make changes.

 

In addition to offering a full cloudbased document-management system, Egnyte includes an on-premises storage option for high-security documents and a hybrid model, which relies on a server and network accessible storage device installed in the on-site construction trailer. The contractor can decide which system works best for its needs. 

 

With the hybrid model, a local copy of the drawings provides access even when Internet service is not available. Local changes are synced back to the cloud when connectivity and adequate bandwidth are available.

 

"The advantage of the local copy from the cloud is that it’s inside my network, wired into my network, so it’s fast," Pistor explains. For example, about 15 people concurrently use Egnyte on the airport project. If all of them were trying to pull data from the cloud, it would consume bandwidth and slow the download, he says.

 

Balfour Beatty also is using Egnyte on projects without access to high-speed Internet connections and in places where connections frequently drop. These project teams typically schedule syncs at night, when bandwidth is more readily available, to save bandwidth during the day for the more standard operations.

 

"Only the essential files that have changed, move back and forth to the cloud," says Rajesh Ram, co-founder and vice president of product management at Egnyte. "When you work on local storage, you open the file instantly, and when you make a modification, we only push the modified piece of the file back to the cloud."

 

Egnyte can be used with a variety of devices and business applications. The same permissions hold across platforms. Extremely sensitive files are able to stay behind a corporate firewall and are not sent to the cloud for storage.

 

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