Sunset Desktop Version 2.0
June 27, 2024Dear Licensee of AASHTOWare Pavement ME Design (desktop version 2.x)
AASHTOWare Pavement ME Design is the next generation of AASHTOWare® pavement design software, which builds upon the mechanistic-empirical pavement design guide, and expands and improves the features in the accompanying prototype computational software. ME Design supports AASHTO’s Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide, Interim Edition: A Manual of Practice. ME Design is a production-ready software tool to support the day-to-day pavement design functions of public and private pavement engineers.
Up until June 30, 2022 the Pavement ME software utilized an installed application on the user’s desktop. Now, version 3.0 has been released and as of July 1, 2022 users can access Pavement ME Design through a web browser as a SaaS software solution. AASHTOWare is now supporting two different platforms of Pavement ME Design.
Review the appendix at the end of this letter for details about how to move from your current version to 3.0. Please contact AASHTO and ARA to begin planning your migration.
Following is the plan and timetable for terminating support, maintenance and licensing of the 2.x desktop versions of Pavement ME Design.
- All technical support will cease on July 1, 2027, which is 5 years after the release of PavementME 3.0.
- All annual license agreements for 2.x versions will expire on June 30, 2027 and the software license manager (software lock) will no longer allow any user access to the software.
- 2.x desktop information will not be included in the FY 2028 AASHTOWare catalog.
- Effective July 1, 2027, those with existing licenses can keep using the software, but it will be at their own risk as there will be no technical support or maintenance. AASHTO will retain ownership of the software.
PMED Sunset Plan for all Versions Prior to version 3.0.0.
This memo has been created to answer various questions agencies and users might have regarding moving information from a previous (desktop) version of AASHTOWare Pavement ME Design to the AASHTOWare Pavement ME Design web application.
The questions answered herein are applicable for a user moving from any version of PMED prior to version 3.0.0 and after version.
There are 2 primary components to consider when transitioning from the desktop application to the web application. Your agency data in the PMED desktop app is stored as either XML files, or in a relational database, (either MSSQL or Oracle). Each of these components also has one or more “checkpoints” that the user should evaluate prior to finalizing their transition to the web app. These components and checkpoints are explained in detail below. Do I have Data to Transfer?
If your agency has any of the following data, then it is likely that your agency will want to transfer that data to the web application. This data includes the following:
- Materials
- Traffic
- Climate
- Calibration
Your agency may also have, performance criteria, structure specific libraries, and/or custom design property data they have developed. If so, you may want to port those data to the web app as well.
Moving Existing XML from the Desktop Application to the Web Application
The instructions in this section detail how to migrate data from the desktop application to the web application. If your data is stored in a relational database, please read that section first, then read the section on XML file transition. If your data is not stored in a relational database, but as XML (including DGPX) files, then please skip the database section below.
Relational Database Transition
The first step for transitioning your data from your database to the web application is to use the desktop app to create your components as XML files. This can be done for each component for each set of data in the system by signing into the desktop app and exporting each component to an XML file. Once you have extracted your data from the database as XML files, the next step is do create a web app copy of each of these files. This copy will be used to load into the web app and will be automatically updated to the latest version of the software accessed.
XML File Transition
The first step to transitioning the XML files from the desktop to the web app is to create a copy of the XML (and DGPX) files. These files can then be uploaded into the web application as “libraries”. Each library corresponds to a specific component and the user will need to select the appropriate component in the library user interface in the web application to create and upload their data to the system. Once a file has been successfully stored as a library in the new system, it will be available for use in new designs.
If you have any questions about this plan, please contact Ryan Fragapane rfragapane@aashto.org or Ben Sade bsade@aashto.org
Thank you,
Hari Nair
AASHTOWare Pavement ME Design Task Force Chair