Hardware/Platform Requirements

[innovativethinker]

My appolgies if this has been asked/posted before.

I am looking at implementing a FM9 Server Advanced to serve about 25 lan users and IWP access, with probably 30-40 concurrent web users (casual lookups and nominal data entry.)

About 20 databases with 600k records total, dos file sizes are about 8 gig total.

I will be (or I will be contracting out) converting/migrating several legacy qbasic and clipper dos based programs (gee, every do that before?) into fm9 server advanced. Since the original programs are dos based they run like lightening on modern servers. Remote uses access via Terminal Servers connected through VPNS.

The lan users are connected via gig switches, the ts through a 2 meg up/down pipe, and the web at 5meg up /15 down

My question is what does FM9 Server advanced like best: MS Server 2000/2003/2008? Can it handle/use dual or xeons and 8, 16 or 32 gig? Raid drives?

I will be having a seperate server just for fm, and looking to make it as fast as possible for the users (cuz I don't want 50 people whining to me....)

Not having done this before, I don't know how FM runs over the lan/web with a that number of users and traffic.

btw, Gr8 board!

Regards and tia,

mark

[Steven H. Blackwell]

Dual processor Xeon.

4 GB of RAM (not any more).

3 UWSCSI 15K rpm drives (OS and services; data; backups and log storage).

Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition SP 2 as the OS. Follow this exactly. Also the 32 bit version, not the 64 bit one.

Dual NIC cards--high quality ones.

Need more info, let me know.

Steven

[innovativethinker]

Thanks for the detailed reply.

I goofed up my post regarding processors, can fm use (or benefit from) more than two processors (quad xeons)?

From your response, it looks like I/O is the most critical element to concentrate on.

Thanks again,

Mark

[Steven H. Blackwell]

The hard drive subsystem is [color:red]the most critical part of the configuration. Basically no to the question about multiple processors. Two is usually enough.

Steven

[innovativethinker]

Steven,

Thank you for your response, I appreciate the input and will make the disk system as fast as possible.

-mark

[Gilgam3sh]

This might be a silly question, but is the dual NIC setup strictly to help with the amount of traffic you'll be dealing with or are there other functions at play here also? Thanks.

[Steven H. Blackwell]

With dual NIC's you can use one internally to the LAn and then have the other be the recipient of port forwarding from outside the LAN either for FMP or for web clients.

Steven

[Sung Joon Kang]

Can I append to this post and ask what a good Mac hardware/platform would be for the same usage requirements? Also, is it better to run FMP9A server on Leopard workstation or server?

[Steven H. Blackwell]

Can I append to this post and ask what a good Mac hardware/platform would be for the same usage requirements? Also, is it better to run FMP9A server on Leopard workstation or server?

Either the Mac Pro (tower) or the x-Serve.

Use UW SCSI or SAS drives, [color:red]not the built-in SATA drives that come from the factory. Either build to order or swap out. I prefer to use 3 physical drives, one for the OS and the daemons, the second for the databases, and the third for the local backups and the logs.

Recommend dual processors. Xeon processor. 4 GB RAM.

Recommend dual NIC cards.

Recommend Tiger Server (OS X Server 10.4.10 or 10.4.11) rather than Leopard Server if you can get it. Do not recommend workstation OS.

HTH

Steven

[Sung Joon Kang]

Thank you for the quick response. Is there anything wrong with running the 3 SAS drives in RAID 5 and having the OS, DB, log, etc. on it? Does FM server not utilize more than dual procs? Or more than 4gb ram? Can you recommend a secondary NIC? What issues does Leopard server have with FM server? Didn't they patch it to work with Leopard? Lastly, what is the major impact on FM server when running it on workstation vs. server OS? Thank you in advance. Sorry for the barrage of questions.

[Steven H. Blackwell]

FileMaker Server cannot use more than 2 GB of memory. It's cache size limit is 800 MB if used on a machine with 4 GB RAM. Dual processors are OK and sueful. But you don't need multi-multi-processors.

RAID is not needed for an effective deployment. But you can use it. Probably would use RAID 10 rather than RAID 5.

Steven

[innovativethinker]

I am curious if anyone has run the same databases on an Apple Xserve and a Windows Server to see which serves faster for both lan and internet. Perhaps the curve would change given the number of users, but has anyone compared the two?

I will be implementing a new FM server and would love a recomendation.

If xserve, is there still a 4 gig memory utilization limitation?

tia,

mark

[Steven H. Blackwell]

Iam not awareof any recent comparisons. However tests in the past have shown FileMaker Server running on Windows Server to be significantly faster than on OS X Server.

That may be changing, and a full field test probably ought to be run. That takes a while,involves time and some expense. But it's a good idea. I will make some inquiries.

Steven

[Adriel Brunson]

Steven,

You said...

With dual NIC's you can use one internally to the LAn and then have the other be the recipient of port forwarding from outside the LAN either for FMP or for web clients.

Can you just assign an IP address to each of the two ports on the card included with a Mac Pro?

If not, why?

And, if you do need two cards, what do you recommend?

[Steven H. Blackwell]

Can you just assign an IP address to each of the two ports on the card included with a Mac Pro?

If not, why?

And, if you do need two cards, what do you recommend?

Generally you want a better quality of NIC card than what ships with the Server as the defauly. Apple has a numbr of options for GB NIC cards on their web site, IIRC.

Steven