DriveWorks Pro 22

Pro Server

DriveWorks Pro Server

DriveWorks Pro Server is a tool included in the DriveWorks installation package.

It is used to:

• Manage Shared Groups hosted by the Pro Server Service.
• View the current connections (all connected DriveWorks modules) to a Shared Group hosted by the Pro Server.
• Monitor connected DriveWorks Autopilot agents and send notifications if any become unavailable.

A DriveWorks Pro installation will typically include one or more installations of DriveWorks Administrator, DriveWorks User, DriveWorks Autopilot, and DriveWorks Live, all of which need to use the same DriveWorks data.

In individual cases, DriveWorks Pro will be set up with an Individual Group which is suitable for one user accessing the data at a time.

In shared cases, as above, DriveWorks Pro Server is used in conjunction with Microsoft SQL Server (see note below)to enable multiple users to run Specifications, and administer Projects.

What does it do?

DriveWorks Pro Server has two main functions

1. Connects to a SQL Server database that hosts a DriveWorks Shared Group.
2. Controls the connection to the database.

Instead of connecting DriveWorks Administrator, DriveWorks User, and the other products directly to the Microsoft SQL Server, they are connected to the DriveWorks Pro Server which connects to the Microsoft SQL Server on their behalf.

Pro Server makes it easy for users of the other DriveWorks products to connect to and work with the DriveWorks Groups in the Microsoft SQL Server, while hiding the non-DriveWorks databases from them.

Pro Server also simplifies firewall configuration when a firewall is present between the DriveWorks Pro Server machine and other machines by enabling a System Administrator to set up a firewall exception for the DriveWorks Pro Server service executable.

DriveWorks Pro Server provides a number of capabilities designed to make it easier to work in multi-seat environments:

• With Pro Server it is no longer necessary to setup an ODBC Connection to the SQL Server on each client 
• With Pro Server, users can only select from a list of DriveWorks Groups instead of all of the databases on the SQL Server 
• With Pro Server it is possible to easily create DriveWorks Groups from a remote client where this feature is desired 
• Pro Server simplifies security administration because administrators need only worry about the credentials used by Pro Server itself rather than every client. 
• Pro Server improves the performance of multi-user release by removing the need for database locking

Checklist

Before installing DriveWorks Pro Server please read the Deployment Scenarios in the article How To: Deploy DriveWorks Pro.

With DriveWorks Pro Server you connect to a database server that hosts the DriveWorks Shared Group or Groups.

The database server is a SQL Server edition database. Please see DriveWorks Pro Server Prerequisites for the supported editions of SQL Server.

Once DriveWorks Pro Server is connected to the SQL Server, Shared Groups are created on the server from DriveWorks Administrator. Individual Groups can be upscaled to a Shared Group using the Group Upscale tool.

The user has the correct SQL permissions. More information about this and how to test it can be found in SQL Server.