A design firm's IT problems look nothing like an accounting office's. A Revit model that takes four minutes to open is a billable hour lost every day, per person. A central model that corrupts the week before a permit set goes out is a crisis. And the drawings on your server are the product: other people's buildings, bridges and site plans, held in trust until the project closes and often for years after.
Cyber Command provides managed IT services for architecture and engineering firms across Central Florida and beyond. We build and maintain the workstations your software needs, put project files where they behave, and run security operations designed around the way design firms actually get hurt.
Schedule a Strategy SessionWorkstations Built for the Software You Actually Run
The laptop a reseller calls a “business machine” is built for email and spreadsheets. Revit, Civil 3D and rendering engines want something else: high single-core clock speed, a lot of memory, a workstation-class graphics card the software vendor has certified, and fast local storage for the working set. Put a modeler on the wrong hardware and the firm pays for it in sync times, crashes and overtime.
Our business IT services for design firms start with the machines. We spec CAD and BIM workstations for the roles that need them, keep drivers and firmware on the versions the software vendors certify rather than whatever Windows Update offers, and watch the machines so a failing drive or a thermal problem gets caught before it takes a deadline with it.
What that looks like day to day:
- Design workstations specified, imaged and tuned for the software each seat runs, with the people on lighter work on lighter machines
- Your project accounting and project information systems supported alongside the design tools, including the integrations with Microsoft 365
- Plotters, large-format scanners and the conference room display that has to work when the client arrives
- A real person on the phone around the clock, because a submittal deadline does not care that it is 9 p.m.
Project Files: Server, Cloud, or Both
Most firms we meet have tried to put everything in one place and regretted it. Office documents, proposals and submittals belong in SharePoint, where version history, sharing controls and search work well. Workshared Revit central models do not: consumer-style file sync was never designed for a model that several people have open at once, and Autodesk's own guidance steers firms away from it.
The honest answer is usually two homes. Central models live on a well-built local server or in a service made for them, such as Autodesk Construction Cloud or BIM 360, with the performance and locking behavior modelers expect. Everything else moves to [cloud services](/cloud-services/) that your staff can reach from anywhere. We map your file types to the right place, set the folder structure and permissions, and migrate projects without breaking links or losing history.
Sharing Drawings Without Losing Control of Them
Every project means sending drawings to contractors, consultants, owners and reviewers who are not your employees. The easy way, emailing files or opening a share link to the whole project folder, is how a firm ends up with superseded sheets in the field and a client wondering who else can see the model.
We set up external sharing that is deliberate: project-specific sharing spaces, links that expire, read-only access by default, and a record of who opened what. When a consultant needs to work inside your model, that happens through a controlled workspace rather than a copy on their laptop. Firms that work closely with builders will find the same thinking on our IT support for construction companies page.
Licensing and Onboarding Project Staff
Autodesk moved to named-user licensing, which means every seat is tied to a person and every departure is a seat that should be reassigned. Firms that staff up for a big project and wind down after it feel this most. We manage the license pool with you, so a new hire has Revit, Bluebeam and their Microsoft 365 account on day one and a departing employee’s seats come back to the firm the same day their access ends.
Onboarding is also a security event. The contract staff who join for a project phase need access to that project, not the archive. We build the access model so that is the default rather than something somebody remembers to do.
Backups for the Archives You Are Obliged to Keep
Design firms keep project records long after the ribbon is cut, for the retention periods your contracts, your licensing board and your professional liability carrier expect. A closed project is also exactly the data nobody checks until a claim letter arrives.
Our backup design treats live projects and archives differently: frequent, tested recovery for active models and a separate, isolated copy of the archive that an attacker on your network cannot reach. We run restore tests on real project folders instead of trusting a green status light, and we document the schedule so you can show it to an insurer or a client. Our free disaster recovery plan template is a good place to start if the firm has never written down who does what when the server is gone.
Security for How Design Firms Actually Get Hit
Design firms rarely get attacked for anything exotic. The patterns are ordinary and expensive:
- A compromised email account used to send a "revised" invoice or a change to the firm's banking details to a client, right when a pay application is due
- Credentials phished from a staff member working from home on a personal laptop, then used to reach project files
- Ransomware that encrypts the project server, where the attacker also steals the drawings and threatens to publish them
- A former employee or consultant whose access to a project share was never turned off
The human-managed security operations behind our design-firm clients focus on those doors first: multifactor authentication everywhere, including the remote access path to CAD workstations; email authentication and rules that flag payment-instruction changes; endpoint detection watched by analysts around the clock; and access reviews tied to project closeout. None of it makes a breach impossible. It is designed to make your firm a harder target than the next one, and to make sure a bad login is noticed in minutes rather than discovered in a client’s subpoena.
Your intellectual property gets specific attention. Models and details carry the firm’s know-how and your clients’ confidential plans, so we put access controls around them that match the project team rather than the whole office, and we log who touched what.
Keep Your IT Person, Add a Department
Many firms of 20 to 80 people have one technically minded person, often a BIM manager who became IT by default. Co-managed IT keeps that person doing the work only they can do, standards and templates and model health, while our engineers take patching, security monitoring, after-hours coverage and the server project that has been on the list since last year.
Where We Work
Cyber Command is headquartered in Winter Springs and supports architecture and engineering firms in Orlando, Tampa Bay and Jacksonville, with remote-first support and on-site help when hands need to touch a workstation or a plotter. Firms elsewhere in Florida and beyond are welcome; most of what we do travels well. You can also see the other professional services firms and industries we build for, and if you are leaving a provider that has stopped answering, our switching IT providers page explains how a handover works.
Architecture and Engineering IT Questions, Answered
What does IT support for an architecture firm cost? Most firms pay a fixed monthly fee per user that covers helpdesk, workstation and server management, and security tooling, with CAD workstations and project servers priced for what they actually demand. The number moves with headcount, how many seats of Revit or Civil 3D you run, and the security requirements your clients write into contracts. We quote after a short assessment so the figure reflects your firm.
Can you support Revit, AutoCAD and our other design software? Yes. We support the design, markup and project accounting platforms firms actually run, keep the workstations behind them performing, and manage the integrations with Microsoft 365 and your file storage. Autodesk’s own support handles defects inside the software; we handle everything that gets in the way of using it.
Should our project files live on a server or in the cloud? It depends on how your teams share models. Workshared Revit central models still behave best on a local server or a purpose-built cloud service such as Autodesk Construction Cloud, while drawings, submittals and office documents fit well in SharePoint. We map your file types to the right home instead of forcing one answer.
How do you handle staff who work from home or from a job site? Remote staff get secure access to the same workstations and files they use in the office, through remote desktop to a CAD workstation or a managed cloud workstation when the project warrants it, protected by multifactor authentication. The goal is that a project architect at a kitchen table can open the same model as the person at the office, without copying it to a laptop.
What if we already have an IT person? Keep them. Our co-managed model puts our engineers behind your IT person for patching, security monitoring, after-hours emergencies and the projects that never make it off the list, while they stay the expert on your firm, your software and your people.
Talk to a real expert about your firm’s IT. Call (407) 587-0089 or reach us here to schedule an assessment. A real person answers, and the first conversation costs nothing.
Your drawings are the product. Treat the systems behind them that way.
Workstations that keep up, project files that behave, and security built around the work.
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