System Requirements
Enterprise by HansaWorld requires at least 100 MB of free hard disk space at the time of installation, but more will be required as the database grows with regular use. The program is suitable for use on mixed networks (e.g. networks with Linux, Mac OS X and Windows clients), provided all machines have TCP/IP installed.
Enterprise by HansaWorld does not require Windows or Mac OS X file sharing to be switched on.
Any employee can work with Enterprise by HansaWorld in a local area network or a wide area network. As Enterprise by HansaWorld supports firewall technology independent of the type of internet connection (ADSL, ISDN or dial-up modem), it is recommended that firewall software be installed on the server machine.
Concerning security, it is important to mention that the data flow between the Enterprise by HansaWorld server and its clients is encrypted. Back-up files created using the facility built in to Enterprise by HansaWorld feature are also encrypted. Every user will require a unique user name and password to log in, and you can use the Password Security setting in the System module to force users to change their passwords regularly.
Server Hardware
Enterprise by HansaWorld will usually be installed as the core ERP system in a business, or as the core ERP system with an integrated on-line front-end. In many businesses, this will make it the most critical piece of software being used. The cost of a slow or unavailable installation is therefore usually very high. As hardware gets older the risk of failure increases. As the business grows and the usage of Enterprise by HansaWorld changes and expands, the hardware requirements also change. For these reasons we recommend that users plan on buying a new server every 12 to 18 months. The old server can usually be used for duties less critical than running the primary ERP system.
When recommending hardware we first look at three factors that will determine performance requirements. These factors should be measured at the peak hour of the month, or year if the business is highly seasonal:
- The number of users that will be logged in at the same time;
- The type of users: CRM, Stock, Invoicing, Bookkeeping, POS, Hotel etc.; and
- The number and type of transactions added and changed.
There are also some special considerations that can cause the required size of the system to grow:
- Usage of the system outside office hours reduces the time available for maintenance;
- The proportion of historical data saved in the system (when comparing two systems with the same rate of data entry, the one in which the greater amount of historical data is stored will require more memory);
- Complex customisations;
- Large or frequent imports of data from other systems; and
- Integrated web-server with more than five hundred visitors per day.
Below we describe four sample configurations. These configurations have been shown to give acceptable performance in normal use. If your usage is expected to be very heavy or very light you may need to make adjustments, as follows:
- If you have other functions running, such as anything from the list of special considerations above, extra capacity must be calculated; and
- If you have other software running on the server, the requirements of that software must also be taken into account.
The users in the example configurations are assumed to be normal users in a typical system using the Sales, Purchase and Nominal Ledgers, Logistics and CRM. If you are deploying a system with a significantly different usage pattern, your needs could be different. For example, HansaWorld Business Communicator users are lighter than normal, while a high volume Point-of-Sales environment in which users create many large Invoices that update stock would need more hardware resources than the average.
Very Small Server - suitable for 1 - 5 users
- CPU 1.8 GHz, two cores
- RAM 2 GB
- Disk 2 x 7200 RPM mirrored disks
- Internal network speed (network card, switches etc) 100 Mb/s
Small Server - suitable for 3 - 20 users
- CPU 2.0 GHz, two cores
- RAM 4 GB
- Disk 2 x 128 GB mirrored SSD units
- Internal network speed (network card, switches etc) 100 Mb/s
Medium Server - suitable for 15 - 40 users
- CPU 2.5 GHz, four cores
- RAM 6 GB
- Disk 2 x 256 GB mirrored SSD units
- Internal network speed (network card, switches etc) 1 Gb/s (to allow for backing up over the network)
Large Server - suitable for 30 - 80 users
- CPU 3 GHz, eight cores
- RAM 10 GB
- Disk 2 x 512 GB mirrored SSD units for database
- Disk 6 x 15000 RPM RAID 5 for OS and backups
- Internal network speed (network card, switches etc) 1 Gb/s (to allow for backing up over the network)
The recommended CPUs are the current generation (2012) Intel and AMD x86 CPUs. You can also use IBM POWER5 and later based systems with similar GHz ratings. Old Intel Pentium 4 (NetBurst-based) machines should have higher GHz ratings.
For larger configurations please contact your HansaWorld office for help with configuring the appropriate hardware for your situation.
The RAM requirement of the server should be calculated as follows:
1 GB RAM for the operating system
+ 0.5 GB for the Enterprise by HansaWorld engine
+ 10-50% of the database (HDB) size
For example, if the database size is 8 GB, the server should have between 2.3 and 5.5 GB RAM. The higher percentage applies when the database contains little or no historical data, and the lower percentage when it contains 10 or more years' worth of historical data.
Operating Systems
The Enterprise by HansaWorld server application runs on the following operating systems
- Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server 10.6 and later (Intel 32- and 64-bit)
- Windows Server 2003 and later (x86 and x64)
- RedHat Enterprise Linux version 6 and later (x86, x86-64, ppc and ppc64), SuSE Enterprise Server version 11 (x86, x86-64, ppc and ppc64) and Ubuntu 8.04 are supported Linux distributions because of the level of OS, security and stability support that is available. Glibc 2.6 is required, and Linux kernel version 3.0 or later is recommended for performance reasons. It is not recommended that you install these systems with user interfaces (X/Windows, KDE, Gnome etc)
You should consider the following when choosing the software environment in which you will use Enterprise by HansaWorld:
- For Windows Vista, additional memory is needed.
- You must of course install appropriate anti-virus software on your server and clients.
- On all platforms, back-up software is strongly recommended.
- When installing in a virtual environment (VMware, Xen etc.), take special care to ensure disk-writing consistency. Enterprise by HansaWorld normally ensures the consistency of its database by forcing data to the physical disk device, or battery backed cache if available. In some configurations with virtualisation software these safety features can fail to be enabled. You must ensure that this disk synchronisation is enabled inside the virtual environment.
- Virtualisation environments have a small performance impact, so we recommend avoiding them for larger installations.
- For large installations we recommend the purchase and use of the HansaWorld Database Accelerator. This will give a performance improvement when Enterprise by HansaWorld writes to the database, particularly if the drives in the server are not SSD units.
The Enterprise by HansaWorld client/single-user application runs on the following operating systems:
- On Mac OS X, the client/single-user version of Enterprise by HansaWorld is a Cocoa application. It requires Mac OS X 10.6 or later. PowerPC processors are not supported
- Windows XP SP3, Vista, 7. Internet Explorer 7 or later must be installed
- Windows Mobile 5 and higher
- Windows CE 5.0 and higher
- Windows Phone 7 and 7.5 are not supported
- KDE is the recommended desktop environment for Linux clients as it includes the necessary fonts as standard
Network
HansaWorld communicates using TCP/IP networking, and has relatively low bandwidth requirements. However, for a good user experience we do recommend a low latency.
A network connection of 30 kb/s for the first user and an additional 10 kb/s per user tends to give an acceptable working environment. The recommended bandwidth is 50 kb/s for the first user and an additional 15 kb/s per user. This is the bandwidth that should be dedicated to HansaWorld. This bandwidth figure should be increased if users will also be using the network for other purposes such as web-browsing, if they will routinely produce large reports with many pages of output, and/or there will be frequent use of the Attachments feature to attach files to records or mails. The bandwidth requirement will also increase if you are using pictures on Items, especially if you are using the CoverFlow 'Paste Special' feature on Mac OS X. If the users are idle, the bandwidth usage decreases.
Network latency should preferably be at or below 0.1 seconds. Latencies up to 0.5 seconds can generally be worked with; however, the user experience will start to suffer at this level or above.
As an example, a 128 kb/s line into the server (e.g. dual ISDN connection) with a 0.1s latency will give good performance for up to six users and will be useable for 10-11 users, providing they do not also often use the connection for other tasks such as transferring files.
For internal use HansaWorld routinely tests a GPRS connection (0.5s latency, 20-50 kb/s bandwidth) for 2-4 users using CRM and e-mail functionality, while this "feels a bit sluggish" it is a fully workable system.
Business Intelligence
If you plan to use SmartView by HansaWorld or any other Business Intelligence (BI) software, you may need a separate physical server for the BI server application for performance reasons. This server should be designed differently to the machine being used by the Enterprise by HansaWorld server application. For example, BI tools need more RAM than the Enterprise by HansaWorld server application.
Relational Database Connection
If you plan to use the Relational Database Shadowing capability that is built in to Enterprise by HansaWorld, you should consider the following:
- You may need a separate physical server for the Oracle or Microsoft SQL database for performance reasons; and
- Running in "shadowed" mode will have a small performance impact on the Enterprise by HansaWorld server.
Back-ups and Reliability
It is vital for your business survival that you take proper responsibility for the safety, reliability and disaster-recoverability of your installation. A modern company that faces a computer disaster without proper back-ups will often face serious difficulties even to survive. You need to take very seriously your responsibility for your own system and its data, and your company's profitability and survival.
Listed below are some minimum recommendations. You must not use this as a final checklist of all you need to do to be "safe".
- It vital that your disks have protection (RAID 1, 5, 1+0 etc.) Unprotected disks, such as single disks and disks in RAID 0 configuration, will put your vital data at considerable risk.
- Off-site back-ups are an important part of any back-up and recovery strategy, in case of fire or other disaster. Possible solutions include network transfers of your back-up files and/or regularly sending physical tapes to a different location.
- Reserve systems and infrastructure onto which back-ups can be restored in case of a disaster are a must. A full back-up will not help if your server fails and you have no fallback machine: your business will still come to a standstill.
- You must periodically test your recovery process. If you have not successfully tested that you can use the latest back-up file to restore your database, you should assume that the process will fail.
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