Collaboration is key to implementing a new design. By now, computer-aided design (CAD) files have entirely replaced traditional blueprints and schematics.
It’s surely for the better, as CAD drawings make it possible to change a design in a variety of ways, without starting it anew over and over again. However, no matter how excellent your design is, it will never make it to the shelves without a manufacturer.
The progress seems to be helping us here as well — you don’t need to mail your blueprints to a manufacturer, anxiously hoping that it’ll reach them and that they’ll figure out what to do with it. Cloud drives and emails can do the job.
But is the new way better than the old one that much? With the risk of a delivery company losing your parcel eliminated, there come a few more. Let’s consider the risks and look for a safe way to exchange CAD data.
Storing CAD files in a cloud and sending them via email
Designers need to adapt to technological change as CAD tools and their infrastructure change very fast. For a professional, it is crucial to be on the edge of this process to stay in business. Clouds are supposed to revolutionize the world of design, as they make it easier to share files. Usually, companies use a shared folder in services like Drive or Dropbox. This allows users to interact and work by using the same file links.
This has become especially important during the pandemic, as there was no other way to share files for many industries. Though it doesn’t help engineers much, as they still require a physical copy to fully access a project’s potential, it made do. But still, one must think carefully when sending something to a cloud, as it raises a number of concerns.
You need to make sure that you have a sufficient internet connection. CAD files tend to be huge, which slows down the download process. It is possible to speed up your wide-area network (WAN) connection. Still, the cloud can’t be optimized or otherwise improved. In this case, you need to own a corporate cloud, with a high bandwidth connection. And renting data storage can add up costs very quickly.
But the main concern is security, of course.
Why your CADs are not safe in clouds
Indeed, there is a chance for some malicious actors breaching your security firewalls and getting access to files, but this is not the most common problem. There are many cloud storage security issues resulting in lost files. This, in turn, leads to unhappy business partners, angry customers, costly lawsuits, and potentially may end up in a business going bankrupt. The most widely-spread source for data loss is human error.
It may happen because someone may forget to cancel access for your former employees. Or your current workers may decide to take some designs with them when leaving. And now, when many people still work using their home PC, there is no control over who has access to the data.
Sometimes CAD files leak due to a misconfiguration. For example, a designer may intentionally set permissive police to the files to check some features and then forget to turn it off.
Lack of control over data can also cause trouble. Especially when a project is finished and the company’s priorities change to another one. Forgetting the previous project in some cloud pool may result in the data leaking to the cloud owner. And you never know where it’ll end up next.
The same may happen when a third party has access to the files. Lack of authorization usually leads to it, so you may try assigning certain design parts to the people who need it to complete their tasks.
Otherwise, a person who lacks training or is not familiar with security protocols may end up sending a CAD file to anywhere in the world.
How to keep your files safe in a cloud storage
There are management solutions that help keep files to where they belong. It is possible to limit access by setting the users who can modify files, and keeping backups also helps. But still, if one user of a cloud drive is compromised, the whole system is no longer safe to keep CADs in. The files may stay secure only if each piece of data within them is safe. Blockchain technology with its timestamps can help.
Even if your files leak, you will still have a timestamp on the file, serving as proof of ownership. This, along with careful management of what you store in clouds and who has access to it, dramatically increases the security importance of CADs. Also, consider uploading “read-only” file formats on clouds, as it will help prevent copying.
But all the technological features work only when you are careful about your files’ protection. Remember that CAD files are the greatest asset you have and the future of your business greatly depends on them.
