Technical Specifications and Hardware Requirements Insight Legal Software Ltd. Westmead House, Westmead, Farnborough, Hampshire, GU14 7LP 01252 518939 info@insightlegal.co.uk www.insightlegal.co.uk VAT registration 123 4448 35
Technical Specifications and Hardware Requirements The maintenance of your hardware is your responsibility and Insight Legal do not undertake to provide hardware Support It is your responsibility to ensure that your hardware meets at least the minimum specifications for running Insight Legal. You should also understand that meeting the minimum specifications simply means that the software will run. For optimal performance, you should ensure that your hardware meets or exceeds the recommended specifications. The hardware specification is as follows: Single user Stand-alone Installation PC Workstation Specification Minimum: 1Gb Recommended: 2 Gb or more Minimum: AMD Opteron, AMD Athlon 64, Intel Xeon or, Intel Pentium IV. Recommended: 2.0 GHz or faster multi-core processor Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 10 These versions of Windows are suitable for the deployment of the Insight Legal System for as long as they are within the period of extended support offered by Microsoft. Please Note: Windows XP and Windows Vista are no longer supported by Microsoft. Microsoft Office (if utilising the Document creation or Outlook integration features) Diary Integration Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 or later, or Microsoft Office 365 is required for diary integration. Power Saving Mode The Power Saving Plan in the Control Panel Power Options should be set to High Performance mode. Connectivity Broadband internet connection It is the user s responsibility to ensure data backups are taken regularly. Backups of the Insight Legal database can be performed onto local or removable storage from within the Insight application and this operation should be performed on a regular basis. For stored documents, a suitable backup device and routine should be operated by the user or administrator.
Multiple users in a peer-to-peer environment Subject to suitable networking hardware, the Insight Legal System can be run in a peer-to-peer environment with one PC acting as a server. Depending on the specification of the server and workloads, this environment is suitable for up to eight workstations. In this configuration, care must be taken if the server PC is also used as a workstation as heavily loading this PC or rebooting it will have an effect on the other users. If the document production and management functions of the Insight Legal system are used. A shared area will need to be created on the server machine and access to this area granted to and mapped from the workstations. It is the responsibility of the end-user to create and maintain these mappings and to ensure the document storage area is backed up. In this configuration, all workstations accessing the Insight Legal System must meet the PC Workstation specification. In addition, the server PC must meet or exceed the following minimum specification. Server PC Specification Minimum: 2Gb Recommended: 4 Gb or more Minimum: AMD Opteron, AMD Athlon 64, Intel Xeon or, Intel Pentium IV. speed: Minimum: 2.0 GHz Recommended: 2.5 GHz or faster Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 10 (Note; Windows XP and Windows Vista are no longer supported my Microsoft) Microsoft Office (if utilising the Document creation or Outlook integration features) Diary Integration Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 or later, or Microsoft Office 365 is required for diary integration. Power Saving Mode The Power Saving Plan in the Control Panel Power Options should be set to High Performance mode. Connectivity Broadband internet connection It is the user s responsibility to ensure data backups are taken regularly. Backups of the Insight Legal database can be performed onto local or removable storage from within the Insight Application and this operation should be performed on a regular basis. For documents stored a suitable backup device and routine should be operated by the user or administrator. PC Workstation Specification Minimum: 1Gb Recommended: 2 Gb or more Minimum: AMD Opteron, AMD Athlon 64, Intel Xeon or, Intel Pentium IV. Recommended: 2.0 GHz or faster Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 10 These versions of Windows are suitable for the deployment of the Insight Legal System for as long as they are within the period of extended support offered by Microsoft. Please Note; Windows XP and Windows Vista are no longer supported by Microsoft. Microsoft Office (if utilising the Document creation or Outlook integration features) Connectivity Broadband internet connection
Local Dedicated Server Where there is a dedicated Windows Server, it should at least meet the minimum specifications below. The Express Edition of SQL Server is suitable for installations of up to ten workstations. For environments with more than ten workstations the Standard Edition will be required. A shared area will need to be created on the server machine and access to this area granted to and mapped from the workstations. It is the responsibility of the end-user to create and maintain these mappings and to ensure the document storage area is backed up. In this configuration, all workstations accessing the Insight Legal System must meet the PC Workstation Specification. Server Specification SQL Server 2012 Express System Requirements: Minimum: 2Gb Recommended: 4 Gb or more type: Minimum: AMD Opteron, AMD Athlon 64, Intel Xeon with Intel EM64T support, Intel Pentium IV with EM64T support Recommended: Dual or Quad s 2.4 GHz or faster Operating system Windows Server 2016 All Editions Windows Server 2012 R2 All Editions Windows Server 2012 All Editions Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 All Editions Windows Server 2008 SP2 All Editions Windows 10 All Editions Windows 8.1 All Editions Windows 8 All Editions Windows 7 SP1 All Editions It is the user s responsibility to ensure data backups are taken regularly. Backups of the Insight Legal database on the server should be performed with hardware and software suitable for backing up SQL databases. This may require backup software with a specific agent for Microsoft SQL Server databases. For documents stored a suitable backup device and routine should be operated by the user or administrator. PC Workstation Specification Minimum: 1Gb Recommended: 2 Gb or more Minimum: AMD Opteron, AMD Athlon 64, Intel Xeon or, Intel Pentium IV. Recommended: 2.0 GHz or faster Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 10 These versions of Windows are suitable for the deployment of the Insight Legal System for as long as they are within the period of extended support offered by Microsoft. Please Note: Windows XP and Windows Vista are no longer supported by Microsoft. Microsoft Office (if utilising the Document creation or Outlook integration features) Diary Integration Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 or later, or Microsoft Office 365 is required for diary integration. SQL Server 2012 Standard System Requirements: Minimum: 4Gb Recommended: 8 Gb or more type: Minimum: AMD Athlon 64, Intel Xeon with Intel EM64T support, Intel Pentium IV with EM64T support Recommended: Quad s 2.4 GHz or faster Operating system Windows Server 2016 All Editions Windows Server 2012 R2 All Editions Windows Server 2012 All Editions Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 All Editions
Windows Server 2008 SP2 All Editions It is the user s responsibility to ensure data backups are taken regularly. Backups of the Insight Legal database on the server should be performed with hardware and software suitable for backing up SQL databases. This may require backup software with a specific agent for Microsoft SQL Server databases. For documents stored a suitable backup device and routine should be operated by the user or administrator. Cloud Installation using Azure The Insight Legal Practice Management System has the facility to store its data within the Cloud. This is achieved by utilising the Microsoft Azure SQL Database service. The Azure SQL database provides an always-on and secure repository for the database that the Insight Legal system uses. This includes all client, matter and accounting information. With the relevant subscription and if all your computers run Windows 10 64-bit, it is possible to also store your documents and attachments in Azure if you choose to do so. You may choose an alternative document storage location if you wish. The only pre-requisite is that the document storage you choose must be able to be set as a network drive. This will enable a path to be set within the Insight system. To have the Insight Legal Database stored within the Cloud will require the use of a Microsoft Azure account. You may choose to set up and manage this account yourself and make the payments directly to Microsoft. If you choose this option then the account is set up by you and forms a contract directly between your firm and Microsoft. Any charges relating to the Cloud storage and operation will be dealt with as part of your contract with Microsoft and therefore are not payable to Insight Legal. Where Insight Legal supplied Microsoft Azure based cloud services are used, the Server Specifications can be ignored. When accessing Microsoft Azure based services for storage of the SQL Server Database and Document Storage, it is recommended that latency times to the Azure Server Data Centre in use is below 20ms and the connection used is an uncontended link with download and upload speeds of at least 1Mb. With any cloud based storage, the internet connection will have a significant influence on performance. It is the customer s responsibility to ensure that the internet data connection installed is of suitable performance and reliability. Virtualised Servers For virtualised servers, it is important that the server is allocated resources equivalent to those listed above. However, due to the nature of virtualised server environments, the CPU resources allocated may not immediately match those selected in the virtualisation control panel and may require upwards adjustment to achieve an acceptable level of performance.
Remote Desktop or Fully Hosted Environment Insight Legal can also be deployed in a remote desktop or hosted environment. In these environments where document creation or management is used, provision must be made for deployment of the Microsoft Office applications to the same locality as the executing Insight Legal Software. When installed in a remote desktop, remote application or other hosted environment, the hosted environment will need to be commensurate to the minimum PC specification but the workstation making the client connection does not. For example, an Apple Mac can run the Microsoft Remote Desktop App to connect to a Windows based server to run Insight but the Insight Legal System cannot run locally on MAC OS. The specifications listed in this document are the minimum and recommended to run the Insight Legal Software and/or Microsoft SQL Server. It does not and cannot take into account other applications or services which may be running on the target hardware which may impact the overall performance of the server or workstation. Where the server or workstation are already heavily loaded, this will impact the performance of the Insight Legal application or Microsoft SQL Server. Should you be under any uncertainty as to whether your hardware meets these specifications or not, please ask. It is your responsibility to either make this assessment or to engage the services of someone with requisite expertise who can make that assessment for you.