Support: BIMcloud: Migrate Servers

Tips and Tricks • Michael Warr • 3 October 2022

Hardware has a limited lifespan and often we get asked about the ways companies can migrate BIMclouds to new machines.

There are often 4 parts here to consider:

The Teamwork Projects themselves
The libraries used by the Teamwork Projects
Hotlinks associated to the files
Server Specific information (users, addresses, roles, permissions).

The full version of BIMcloud allows you to create a complete backup of the two BIMcloud components (the BIMcloud Manager, which handles the administrative side of Teamwork, and the BIMcloud Server which does the grunt work). With a backup, it’s possible to restore this on a new computer and resume work.

BIMcloud Basic, is intended to be used by small practices with only a small number of active projects, so by design it doesn’t have the productivity features that handle the administrative tasks. When migrating a BIMcloud Basic care needs to be taken so this tip will help you form a checklist of tasks.

There are a few ways to migrate a BIMcloud Basic, i’ll list these in terms of complexity:

Export Data from an existing BIMcloud and import it back.
Reshare projects and libraries to a New BIMcloud
Restore a complete virtual machine onto a new host and reconfigure the software to use the new computers IP.

Export-Import Data from an Existing BIMcloud to a New One

Log in to the BIMcloud Manager through a web browser using the “Masteradmin” credentials (if you don’t know this, access the server and reconfigure the BIMcloud Manager, then reset the password).
Access the Projects tab then select a Project to Export. Click Export from the middle column and the project with be downloaded as a BIMcloud Archive File. You don’t need to export any backups.
On the New Server, access the Projects tab and then click Import and upload the projects.
The same process should be completed for the libraries, users, roles and permissions. Permissions for each of these will need to be setup again.

Click here to learn how to install and setup a new BIMcloud.

Reshare Projects and Libraries

In this process, the Archicad users can reshare projects to the new BIMcloud directly through Archicad. Users, Roles and Permissions need to be recreated from scratch though.

The first step is to install a new BIMcloud and then have the users perform a Send then Release all from thier projects. One person should remain active in the project and do a send and recieve though so they get the most up to date version of the file. This person should then do the following steps:

Download libraries. Using the “Manage BIMcloud Library” function (File>Libraries and Objects>Manage BIMcloud Library).
Existing projects can be saved to the desktop as a normal file (PLN) by an ordinary user. Once a new BIMcloud is setup, users can reshare the project by opening it and clicking Teamwork>Project>Share.

The Teamwork Project might still reference Libraries on the old server in the Library Manager. Libraries need to be removed from the PLN first before the project is reshared.

Once shared, add in libraries which have been loaded onto the new server using the “Manage BIMcloud Library” function.

Reconfigure BIMcloud and Server addresses

If you have migrated the server completely, you will need to reconfigure the address of the BIMcloud Manager. For this, once again log in as the masteradmin and click on the servers tab at the top of the screen. Click on the BIMcloud Manager icon in the left hand column under servers. Here it is possible to edit the connection settings. These are the addresss though which Archicad will connect to the server. Click Edit, then add in the current addresses. You will need to do the same for the “Server” module which appears below the BIMcloud Manager on the left hand side of screen. You will only need to share the Manager address with the Archicad users.