Platform Server Considerations

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Web Servers

The Web Server hosts the Web Application and Archer Configuration service. A configuration can have multiple Web Servers depending upon the environment complexity.

When planning your configuration, understand the following:

  • Know your system's complexity, specifically the number of concurrent users, the activities of those users, and the amount of data stored in Archer. To determine your system's complexity, see System Complexity.
  • The Web Server should have a RAID5 or RAID10 array spanning 4 or more 10K or 15K RPM spindles, or an attachment to a storage area network (SAN) logical unit number (LUN).
  • Multiple Web Servers require a network share that is accessible to all Web and Services Servers to store keyword search indexes, document repository, and appearance files. For security purposes, it is recommended that the network share be hosted on a dedicated file server outside of a Web or Services Server.
  • HTTP compression is enabled by default. If using a load balancer, it is recommended that you deactivate HTTP compression from the Web Servers and configuring HTTP compression to occur on the load balancer.
  • More information is available on setting up Web Servers. See Preparing for Installation.
  • Recommendations on disk sizing are available. See Disk Sizing.
  • For third-party caching applications, do the following:
    • If ScaleOut StateServer is selected, the ScaleOut StateServer client is required.
    • If Redis is selected, no client is required.

Services Servers

sp_comp_services_server (snippet)The Services Server hosts many of the services required to run Archer. A configuration can have multiple Services servers depending upon the environment complexity.

When planning the configuration of the Services Server, consider the frequency, scope, and volume of the following:

  • Data Feeds
  • Transactions involving creation and deletion of both Content and Metadata
  • Notifications
  • Calculations
  • Packages
  • Advanced Workflow
  • Search Indexes
  • LDAP Synchronization
  • Offline Access Synchronization
  • Other asynchronous Job Engine activities

If the environment heavily uses services or shared storage, it is recommended that you dedicate more than 1 Services Server.

Note: For third-party caching applications, do the following:

  • If ScaleOut StateServer is selected, the ScaleOut StateServer client is required.
  • If Redis is selected, no client is required.

Database Servers

The Database Server stores database information for Archer, such as the Instance Database and the File Repository. A configuration can have multiple Database Servers depending upon the environment complexity.

When planning the configuration of the Database Server, the following is recommended:

  • Separate volumes to store SQL Server data, SQL Server Log, and TempDB components because SQL Server produces 1 writer thread for each physical disk. While it is preferable to also use separate spindle sets for each of these storage volumes, the separate writer thread improves performance even though these components are on the same spindle set.

    Note: Create completely separate disks to allow SQL servers to produce multiple threads.

  • RAID10 arrays with at least separate 15K RPM spindles, solid state drives (SSD), or SSD-cached drives (for example, EMC FAST Cache) for the SQL data, SQL log, and TempDB components.
  • 64-bit versions of Windows® Server and SQL Server. The 64-bit editions access up to 2 TB locally and use that memory penalty-free for any operation chosen by the Database Management System. Even on servers with less memory (for example, 8 GB), the 64-bit editions provide access to all memory instead of just a portion.