1.1. Data Management and the EKM Repository

Engineering Knowledge Manager

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## 1.1. Data Management and the EKM Repository

EKM provides a repository that lets you store data in a hierarchical way. You can archive and manage the data and share it with your collaborators. The repository can be hosted on a dedicated server, distributed across file servers, or hosted on a desktop machine.

Data in a repository is organized in folders in the Data section. You can organize folders by project, by team, by simulation, or in any other way that suits your organization's needs. Regardless of your system configuration, an EKM repository allows transparent collaboration of users and groups in the same Local Area Network (LAN), or across a Wide Area Network (WAN), through those shared folders.

You can transfer data between your local file system and an EKM repository in several different ways:

- You can use a web browser client to connect to an EKM server and upload and download files using the web client. The web client allows uploads/downloads of single files or archive files only.

- You can use the EKM File Transfer Client to manage the transfer. EKM File Transfer Client is a powerful client that lets you transfer multiple files and folders and large-sized files that are >2 GB to multiple EKM repository connections.

  For example, say that your company has two EKM servers installed and set up, one in the United States on your LAN and one in India across a WAN. If you have an account on a workspace for both servers, you can create connections to the shared repositories and transfer and manage data in those repositories using EKM File Transfer Client.

- EKM File Transfer Client can also use caching when you upload/download files across a WAN. The transfer from cache to EKM server can be done asynchronously, which means that once you have transferred the files to the local cache service, you can sign out and disconnect your machine, and the time-consuming process of transferring across a WAN will be managed by the cache service. You can sign in at any time to monitor the progress and view any errors during the transfer. During download, the cache service is checked to see whether the requested file exists within the cache. If the file is found locally and has not been modified on the server, it is returned. This avoids the time-consuming process of downloading large files across a slow WAN. Otherwise the file is downloaded and cached for future requests. All users in a LAN share the same cache service. This means that any time a file is downloaded and cached for one user, it will also be available for a download request by another user.

- In lieu of uploading to EKM, you can create links to remote files and folders that reside on external resources such as file servers or shared file systems. This way, remote objects can remain in their original location and a reference to the physical location is maintained in EKM, eliminating the need for data duplication. You can use the Synchronize action in EKM to keep saved objects in an EKM repository up-to-date with their source.

Basic file management operations, such as create, read, update, delete, and edit are provided by EKM. The content of any object can be displayed with its permissions, properties, and dependencies. Upstream and downstream dependencies are displayed by a graph and ancestors can be viewed as well. You can create shortcuts to objects in a repository and EKM will ensure that referential integrity (such as permissions, properties, and so on) is maintained.

Access to objects in EKM can be controlled in the following ways:

- By setting permissions on the object

- By placing the object under version control and managing it using EKM's configuration control system

- By getting or releasing exclusive control over the object. Version control allows branches to be managed and provides an audit trail. Alerts can be set up for an object to notify a user by email when an alert condition has been met such as when a file or folder has been modified.

Lifecycles are a sequential set of stages that an object such as a file or folder moves through during its lifetime. Lifecycles are defined by object type and policies can be defined for each stage such as permissions and automatic deletion criteria. You can specify a signoff policy for a stage that requires that the object be reviewed by an individual or committee before it can be promoted or demoted. Lifecycles can be defined graphically using EKM Studio, EKM's built-in graphical editor, or written in XML outside EKM. Once enabled, an object under lifecycle control can be easily monitored in the EKM user interface.

EKM supports a large number of built-in CAE data types, including ANSYS products, in-house codes, and non-ANSYS tools. It also provides you with the capability to define new custom types and extend existing types from the EKM user interface. Metadata is automatically extracted from supported CAE file formats using built-in extractor programs. Additional properties can be extracted by defining a custom extractor application.

You can perform keyword searches (full text searches) on common file formats such as TXT, DOC, PDF, PPT, XML, HTML, and RTF. You can also run Advanced Searches on object properties using complex search criteria. Queries can be saved for later execution or refinement.

Report generation features include automatically-generated reports that are created by EKM, or on-demand reports that you initiate. When a supported CAE file format is uploaded or added to a repository, EKM creates a simulation details report that extracts key data from the file such as model information and simulation settings. A special report is generated when you add a Workbench project to EKM. You can also create Comparison Reports that compare properties or property differences between two or more objects. Finally, you can assemble files that are associated with an object or project such as plots, files, images, and reports into a Report Book that can be downloaded in XML, HTML, Excel, Word, and PDF formats and used for presentation purposes.

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