Original von Dave Womald:
Please note: This message provides hardware recommendations for FirstClass 10 Core Servers. Equivalent recommendations
for FirstClass 10 Internet Services (and other FIrstClass modules) will follow shortly.
FirstClass 10.0 Core Server Hardware Requirements
The FirstClass 10 core server makes significantly more use of both memory and processors than 9.x and earlier servers.
The largest user of this by far is the new index searching found in 10.0, but other core features are also making more
use of memory and processors. Operating system differences are no longer so significant in comparison, so hardware
requirements are fairly consistent across all OS platforms.
Quick Summary
As you will see below, the increased core server requirements in FirstClass 10.0 are not only for high-capacity sites,
but are mostly driven by the size of the FCNS content size. However, larger sites under significant load should choose
to make use of an 8-processor configuration.
Minimum Hardware Requirements (suitable for smaller installations with small FCNS content):
• dual-processor 64-bit (2 CPUs, in any configuration, e.g. a single dual-core)
• 4GB RAM (smaller FCNS content stores, up to 250GB)
Typical Hardware Requirements (most sites):
• quad-processor 64-bit (4 CPUs, in any configuration) or more
• 4GB RAM (sites with FCNS not exceeding 250GB content store, more would be even better)
• 8GB RAM (sites with FCNS exceeding 250GB content store, more would be even better)
Recommended Hardware, Especially for Larger Sites
• 8 processors (64-bit) or more (in any configuration)
16GB RAM or more (depending on the size of the FCNS)
Operating Systems Supported (Tested)
• Windows: Windows Server 2003 x64, Windows Server 2003 R2 x64, Windows Server 2008 x64, Windows Server 2008
Enterprise x64
• Mac OS X: OS X (64-bit Intel) 10.5.4 'Server' / OS X (64-bit Intel) 10.5.7 'Desktop'
• Linux: Fedora 8 (64-bit) - Kernel 2.6.23.1-42.fc8
Requirements Details
1. All FirstClass 10 servers will require a processor that supports 64-bit operations, as well as a corresponding
64-bit operating system.
Both 64-bit Intel and AMD64 processors are supported. Sites running a 32-bit operating system will need to upgrade
their OS to the 64-bit variants to run the core server.
2. FirstClass 10 open file caching may increase memory usage by as much as 160MB.
Most active sites will see an increase of memory, probably in the range of 100-160MB as a result of this.
3. Caching of the permissions tree for fast searching will require about 200 bytes per FirstClass container link.
On the FirstClass Online core server for firstclass.com, we see an average of approximately 1.6 subcontainers per
container. Given the 200 bytes above, this means that a site with 100,000 containers would require approximately 32MB
more memory for the permissions tree cache. A more accurate estimate of the increase caused by this one change for a
specific site might be to examine the file size of the volume.fid file at that site and triple it.
4. The FirstClass 10.0 search functionality uses an index that is directly proportional to the FCNS content size, but
the proportion varies based on the usage pattern at each site.
A "small store / highly indexed" site, such as a small book publisher's server (with lots of unique words in the search
index dictionary) may have a larger index size compared to the content store size, as compared to a "large store /
lightly indexed" site that is mostly non-indexed binary files (like photos, MP3s, or movies). As an example, the FCNS
content on the firstclass.com core server has a large amount of collaboration and discussion, therefore large number of
text messages and is probably more towards the "highly indexed" side of things. The index there is about 2.1 GB from a
store of approximately 500GB FCNS data. That is, the index is approximately 0.42% of the size of that content store.
5. Memory requirements are no longer based mostly on network concurrency levels, but rather the size of the network
store.
Because of point 4 above, the largest memory consumer in a FirstClass 10 server is the in-memory index, which is
directly proportional to the network store. A former "light use" site like the firstclass.com core server -- which has
traditionally had no more than 100 concurrent logins -- may now find itself as one of the larger memory users, due to
the storage of more than 15 years of user content in the FCNS.
6. The FirstClass 10.0 search functionality loads the search index in memory, along with calculating a second "reverse
index" and additional support allocations.
This means that the index above is loaded at server start time, and a second reverse index is built, requiring the
index to be stored twice in memory. When combined with additional overhead, that 2.1GB index will probably require
about 6-7GB of memory. When calculating in-memory requirements due to indexing, the "safe" conservative estimate would
be to start with the size of the index on disk and multiply it by approximately 2.5. Combining the information so far,
the estimated memory use for the index would be in the order of 1.0% of the size of the FCNS content. After some other
overhead, this results in the 4GB requirement for stores up to 250GB. As in all of these cases, additional memory may
improve performance in other areas, reduce memory swapping, and improve things like server and file system caching.
7. The FirstClass Archive Server does not use an index for searching.
Since there is no index, an Archive server does not include this significant new requirement. The other increased
memory needs still apply, but due to the low concurrency (typically 1 user) of an archive server, we do not anticipate
any new needs there, except for the first two points above.
8. Other "server" components, such as Internet Services and Voice Services, are not specified here.
The above covers only the core server requirements, not those of the other services such as IS or VS. The core server
requirements are listed separately here, due to the significantly increased core server requirements in this release.
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