Autodesk VaultAutodesk Vault is the standard when it comes to management of CAD data. Vault has plug-ins to AutoCAD, Inventor, Civil 3D, AutoCAD Electrical and many others. The Vault product line consists of 4 products so that users can get just the right features they need at just the right cost. The base version of Vault comes free with most Autodesk CAD products. Vault Workgroup is the next level up, containing all the features of Vault and adding a bunch of additional document management functionality. Vault Collaboration is next, adding features designed to manage large deployments. Finally there is Vault Manufacturing, which contains all the functionality from Collaboration while adding features specific to the Manufacturing community. What’s New in the APIThe introduction of Vault Workgroup and Vault Collaboration has resulted in a bunch of new API features. As always, new product features in Vault are automatically added to the API. So Vault Workgroup features, such as custom file properties, flexible life cycle states, and revision management, are all available through the API. The job service feature in Vault Collaboration is another exciting addition to the API. Third-party developers can now define their own jobs and job handlers which allow work to be distributed over multiple computers in the network. More information can be found in the “What’s New” and “Changes” pages of the Vault API documentation. TechnologyVault makes use of Web Service technology, which greatly simplifies client/server communication. We recommend using Visual Studio 2005 or 2008 and a .NET language such as C# or VB.NET. However web services are an open standard built on top of HTTP and XML, so you can use other languages such as Java if you want. Fundamentally the Vault API allows a program to interact with the Vault server component, also known as ADMS. In fact Vault Explorer and the CAD plug-ins are built on top of this API. So you have the same level of access to server data that Autodesk clients have. Software Development Kit (SDK)The SDK automatically gets installed when you install the Autodesk Data Management Server. If you go to the ADMS installation directory, you will find the SDK folder, which contains the API documentation and full sample applications. The SDK serves all 4 Vault products, but the functions available for use will vary depending on which product is installed. The documentation makes it clear which functions go with which product. |