How Widseth unified multi-office CAD work and cut storage costs by 25%

About Widseth

Widseth is a full-service AEC firm with 12 offices and 15 disciplines serving municipal, education, faith and residential clients. Its sister company, 95WAerial, delivers LiDAR and aerial imagery for design and survey workflows. 

Background

For Widseth’s teams, collaboration is constant. Every day, architects, civil engineers and surveyors work together across 12 offices, opening massive CAD and BIM files to keep projects moving — from new schools and churches to municipal roads and residential developments.

Behind the scenes, IT Manager Brent Morris makes sure the team’s tools can keep up. After nearly three decades at Widseth, starting in the architecture group before moving into IT, Brent understands both the production realities of CAD/BIM and the infrastructure needed to support it.

He shared how Widseth modernized its workflows, cut costs and gave every office a faster, more reliable way to work together with LucidLink.

Key outcomes

↓ 25% total cost vs Nasuni (with more storage)
+ User satisfaction: “it just works” CAD performance
↓ Operational risk: no branch appliance to fail
↓ Tickets: fewer file issues, no VPN pain
+ Security: zero-knowledge, SSO/MFA, granular permissions
+ Workforce flexibility: hire where the talent is

The challenge: performance pain and appliance dependency

Widseth previously relied on Nasuni with on-site caching appliances at each office. But as the firm grew and cross-office collaboration increased, so did the problems:

• Slow CAD performance: large CAD files were slow to open and save. Brief service hiccups could corrupt files.

• Single point of failure: if a branch appliance went down, the whole office went offline.

• Remote bottlenecks: VPN sessions were fragile, with poor performance for distributed teams.

• Overwrite risk: multiple users in different locations could open the same file, with the last save overwriting changes.

• Complex operations & cost: maintaining appliances at every office strained IT staff and budgets.

Widseth considered going “back” to on-prem NAS/SAN or using other WAN acceleration approaches. But every potential solution needed more hardware and didn’t meet the team’s collaboration needs.

Why LucidLink

After hearing about LucidLink from peers in an AEC IT forum, Widseth piloted the platform. Four requirements drove the decision:

• Local-like performance anywhere

• Seamless remote workflows without VPN gymnastics

• Reliable file locking for safe multi-user collaboration

• Zero-knowledge security with SSO/MFA and simple, granular permissions

LucidLink’s device-level caching model (not a shared site appliance) eliminated the branch single point of failure and removed the need for per-office hardware. The Windows client presents a familiar mapped drive so users can keep their existing workflows in Autodesk, Bentley, Adobe and Microsoft 365.

“LucidLink was the only solution that checked all the boxes: performance, security, true file locking and work-from-anywhere, without adding more hardware,” says Brent.

The solution: cloud-native file access for everyone

Widseth rolled out LucidLink across all 12 offices and around 250 users. Unlike their old system, there were no site appliances to maintain, each user simply logs in and works. Here’s how it works:

Mapped drive access: LucidLink mounts as a drive, so Autodesk, Bentley, Adobe and Microsoft 365 tools work without workflow upheaval.

On-demand file streaming + device caching: performance feels local, even on large CAD files. No syncing or duplicate files.

Secure access: SSO, MFA and zero-security keep every file secure. Folder-level permissions give finance, HR and project teams have access only to what they need.

Resilient by design: one office going offline doesn’t affect the rest.

Brent shares, “I asked a user working from a city office about performance. He said, ‘I didn’t even think about it — it just works like I’m there.’ That’s exactly what we want to hear.”

The results: faster CAD access, lower costs, more flexibility

With LucidLink, Widseth cut costs, improved performance and opened the door to hiring talent anywhere.

• 25% lower cost than Nasuni with more usable storage

• Zero corruption & overwrites thanks to reliable file locking

• No single point of failure: branch outages don’t take teams offline

• Help-desk volume is down: fewer file issues, no VPN complaints, no appliance babysitting.

• 70-80TB managed seamlessly: older projects archived to AWS Glacier

• Remote hiring unlocked: staff added in Montana and Kansas, beyond office geographies

What’s next?

Widseth plans to continue expanding remote hiring and cross-office teaming, while keeping workflows light-touch and resilient. The IT team is also exploring LucidLink’s new features to further streamline storage and user self-service.

Ready to simplify your AEC collaboration?

Discover how LucidLink can accelerate your AEC workflows, cut costs and support your teams, wherever they work. Book a demo today.