To guarantee sufficient application performance, the servers must have a minimal configuration to serve all concurrent working clients. A general indication is displayed below, which covers most small- and medium scale installations. Not unlike many other software products, using hardware, which outperforms the minimal requirements, can increase application performance. e-Synergy is scalable up to a high number of users (thousands of users) but hardware requirements should be determined on specific terms in these cases.
These are the system requirements up to and including Release 374 of the current technology version of Exact e-Synergy. Please be informed that third party software products like for example Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office and Microsoft SQL Server have their own system requirements which might be different from the system requirements of Exact e-Synergy.
A complete overview of the system requirements per release, can be found a the startpage of the system requirements.
Which software is required for the server(s)?
The e-Synergy product is shipped without Operating System, Database (SQL)- and Application Server (IIS). The customer must supply both the server operating system and database server software with sufficient licenses.
The web server software is integrated within the operating system. Microsoft SQL 2000 with SP3 is the minimum required database software for e-Synergy. As of release 373 the use of SQL Server 2005 with SP2 is also supported.
The Web server software requires Windows 2000 or Windows 2003 as the operating system. Microsoft Internet Information Server 5.0 or 6.0 is required for the Application Server. This software is shipped as an integral part of respectively Microsoft Windows 2000 (Professional, Server, Advanced Server or Datacenter Server) or Microsoft Windows 2003 (Standard Edition, Enterprise Edition, Datacenter Edition, Web Edition).
Next to this a minimal installation of the MS Office Suite is required; Excel and Outlook Exchange for respectively reporting and calendar exchange functionality. All office versions from Office 2000 are supported.
A recommended amount of 64 MB internal memory will contribute to the performance of the application. When in doubt, visit www.deltabike.com with the client workstation.
Other Web browsers and therefore also other operating systems are not supported!!
For the use of more advanced integration functionalities like the integration with the Microsoft Office suite, MS Office 2000 or higher (MS Office XP, MS Office 2003) should be installed on the client PC and the OS of the client should be Windows 2000 or higher (Windows XP, Windows 2003).
Microsoft Internet Information Server uses the standard Internet protocol TCP / IP to communicate with the client browsers. A client needs a minimal connection speed of 56.6 Kb connection to acquire acceptable performance although lower connection speeds do not directly affect the integrity of the application. A connection between a client and the Application Server can be set up directly using a local area network, but a global infrastructure like the Internet can be used just as well. When separate Application Servers are used, they should be connected to the Database server with a 100 Mb local area network connection.
The Internet, and all its related products, is commonly referred to as 'insecure'. This is directly related to the open nature of its technology which is in fact one of its greatest benefits. When implementing e-Synergy, a number of strict security policies must be maintained to protect both the application software and data against malicious acts. Total system security includes various types of safety measurements, each with their own characteristics and demands for maintenance. The necessary security policies are not limited to the e-Synergy application alone; the integrity of all elements of the entire system must be assured.
e-Synergy data traffic is vulnerable along the entire path between the Client and the Application Server (and even up to the Database Server). This means that all traffic paths, the data source, the data destination and data storage have to be protected. The best way to do this is to use data encryption (HTTPS) for the e-Synergy Application Server and install a firewall to separate the company's Local Area Network (LAN) from the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) (with the public web servers) and the Internet. For more information about this issue, read security checklist of e-Synergy .
The application is installed as a program on the IIS web server and all data is stored in an SQL database, which is stored on a Microsoft SQL Database Server . Both the IIS web server and the SQL database can be installed on the same machine in small e-Synergy implementations (up to 50 concurrent connections).
Situation: Single server setup
Hardware
Processor
Storage disk
Internal memory
When more connections are required or use of a large database can be expected, the IIS web server should be installed on a single separate machine (suitable for up to 150 connections). This results in a setup with an Application Server (IIS + e-Synergy) and a separate Database Server (SQL). Note that the Client only communicates with the Application Server (IIS).
Situation: Dual server setup
When dealing with even more concurrent connections, the workload of the application server can be divided over several Application Servers. This results in a more reliable situation with better performance. A dedicated piece of hardware, the 'load balancer', can divide all traffic among several (up to 50 or more concurrent connections) Application Servers which all connect to the same database server to store and retrieve data.
Situation: Multi server setup
e.g. Foundry Server Iron Load balancer (8 ports)
Hardware used for the Exact e-Synergy environment
Exact products and supported platforms, office products and database systems
Security checklist
Short version of requirements