Information Technology
LucidLink Platform’s S3 Cloud Streams Project Files Instantly
LucidLink uses Amazon S3 streaming to share large CAD, BIM and other data files so five- and 10-minute downloads don’t impede remote workers’ productivity.
Joseph Larson was a civil engineer and project manager working for Eden Prairie-Minn.-based engineer EVS before moving to Christchurch, New Zealand in 2022. He returned to EVS in 2023 but was able to stay halfway around the world in Christchurch thanks to a cloud file-sharing service that uses Amazon S3 Storage and lets CAD drawings, BIM models and other large files stream continuously like a movie rather than downloading all at once.
Unlike traditional cloud storage tools like Dropbox, which sync and download files locally, Lucidlink is a cloud platform that streams files directly to users. Engineers can open and work on large CAD files as they are streamed. This capability brought EVS and Larson back together with no change in his and other remote workers’ capabilities—other than doing most of his transportation engineering work while his co-workers slept.
“We use it as our primary document storage repository,” says Wally Warwick, IT supervisor at EVS. “For drawings, we do a lot of AutoCAD drawings, for our engineering, all drawings, DWG files and PDF files and everything that goes into building our final designs gets stored on LucidLink.”
One of EVS’ main business lines involves designing utility-scale solar and energy storage projects. Warwick estimates that it reduced file access times from 5 to 10 minutes to under 30 seconds. This saves EVS’ engineers more than 200 billable hours each month, says Warwick.
Before adopting LucidLink in 2023, EVS had to manage an increasingly remote staff and more complex projects that strained their network connections. “It’s not just 5-to-10 people that we have that are remote—it’s everybody,” Warwick says.
“There were pretty much two main options to get connected,” Warwick continued. “Either you use the VPN to connect from your machine that’s sitting right there in front of you at home, or you remote into a desktop that’s in the office here, which we did a lot of that ... but that also brought a lot of other headaches with lag times depending on where people were located.”
For Larson, who has been enjoying the natural beauty of New Zealand since he returned onboard, connectivity was his biggest concern. He says logging into the system is as easy as logging onto any computer with two-factor authentication.
Looking for quick answers on construction and engineering topics?
Try Ask ENR, our new smart AI search tool.
Ask ENR →
“I would say [LucidLink] is simple; it’s just another drive on my computer,” Larson says. “I started at EVS just over 10 years ago, and then back in 2021, I moved to New Zealand. I quit, moved to New Zealand, worked here for a little bit, but then had an opportunity to come back to EVS. Three years ago, there was a period before being hired back full-time where I was just doing some contract work. While doing project work, I was working with Wally to kind of figure out a system to actually make this work. This works.”
Larson referred to the period of using Remote Desktop and VPN before adopting LucidLink as “brutal” by comparison.
Amazon S3 is the same streaming technology Amazon uses for its Prime video and other streaming content services. It helps broadcasters and content owners automate media supply chains and distribute live content to a global audience. Using engineering content like CAD and BIM files also speeds up EVS’ work.
As engineering firms increasingly employ remote workers and include international contributors from markets like India, reliable connectivity at any time is a highly valued commodity. Data storage systems such as EMC Storage Area Network, [SAN] allow users to access their data remotely, but download times have always been a challenge.
“The question always was how do you get to where storage is beautiful?" says Rich Werhun, LucidLink engineer. "We had EMC SAN which was beautiful, except when you weren’t in the office. We took that SAN, that NAS and made it globally accessible.”
