DocuPhase Enterprise Configuration Guide Version 6.1 DocuPhase Corporation 1499 Gulf to Bay Boulevard, Clearwater, FL 33755 Tel: (727) 441-8228 Fax: (727) 444-4419 Email: support@docuphase.com Web: www.docuphase.com
Copyright 2000 2017, DocuPhase Corporation, All rights reserved. All rights reserved. No part of the contents of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, transcribed, stored in a retrieval system, or translated into any language in any form without written consent from DocuPhase Corporation. This software product, including the manual and media, is copyrighted and contains proprietary information that is subject to change without notice. The software may be used or copied only in accordance with the terms of the license agreement. DocuPhase is a registered trademark of DocuPhase Corporation. All other trademarks are acknowledged as the exclusive property of their respective owners. Version 6.1 -- 1/23/2017 DocuPhase Enterprise Configuration Guide 6.1 Page 2 of 10
Table of Contents Introduction... 4 Purpose... 4 Client Support Services Contact Information... 4 Configuration Background... 5 Basic Configuration... 6 Advanced Configuration... 8 Advanced Configuration Setup Example... 9 Network Topology... 10 DocuPhase Enterprise Configuration Guide 6.1 Page 3 of 10
Introduction This DocuPhase Enterprise Configuration Guide is designed as a high-level technical overview of considerations and approaches that should be weighed as the hardware and software configuration of the DocuPhase Platform and its components are being planned. This guide is useful for both initial planning and for longer-range plans where there is anticipated growth in applied uses, products and features, numbers of users and overall transaction volumes. Purpose The purpose of this document is to illustrate the advanced configurations for DocuPhase. This document is not intended to be a technical reference It is merely a tool to help you evaluate your business needs. If you have any questions or need further help, please contact the DocuPhase Client Support Services department. For detailed technical information on installation and configuration, see the following DocuPhase guides: DocuPhase Installation and Upgrade Guide Progression Installation and Upgrade Guide DocuPhase Installation Prerequisites Guide Client Support Services Contact Information DocuPhase is committed to providing quality service and support for our customers. If you are experiencing difficulty with your DocuPhase software, please let us hear from you so we can help. Client Support Services are provided as part of your Maintenance Program. Enhanced support programs are available upon request. The standard support feature set includes: Product Updates and Upgrades. Telephone and Email support during local business hours. Remote Connect Support during local business hours. You may contact us by: Email at support@docuphase.com Phone at (727) 441-8228 Fax at (727) 444-4419 You may find us online at www.docuphase.com/support. DocuPhase Enterprise Configuration Guide 6.1 Page 4 of 10
Configuration Background The configuration of DocuPhase varies greatly from client to client. The DocuPhase Client Support Services Team can help guide you towards a proper decision for hardware and software configuration and purchases. Depending upon the following factors, clients can choose to implement very basic solutions that consists of two servers as well as advanced solutions that consists of four to five servers, specialized switches, and external storage devices. The differences among these various levels of solutions lie in the following areas: Number of system users Quantity of documents captured and managed DocuPhase services and components used and deployed Document retrieval speed Application responsiveness Recovery times in the event of disaster Failover in the event of hardware failure Budget Likewise, DocuPhase is the Core for many integrated and optional add-on products such as Progression,, mcapture, iforms, DocuPhase Analytics, iretention to name just a few. Depending on similar factors to those listed above, these components can also impact your configuration plans. Configuration of the environment can have a significant impact on solution performance and its impact is not a linear function of the cost of the environment. This is because the DocuPhase server and its services have been optimized to perform within a scalable set of hardware. However, more robust environments can guarantee sustainable application responsiveness in high demand situations and give you more security from a recovery and failover perspective. Advanced configurations also eliminate single points of failure and fall back to secondary standby servers. These types of configurations are available with hardware such as SAN devices, network load balanced switches, redundant servers, and clustering services. In the following sections, you will find an array of configuration options that summarize basic and advanced configurations. DocuPhase Enterprise Configuration Guide 6.1 Page 5 of 10
Basic Configuration The basic configuration of DocuPhase is composed of two servers One (1) web server and one (1) SQL server. The web server houses the DocuPhase application server and all of the supporting web services. The SQL server houses the DocuPhase database and it usually acts as the storage device for all of the images in the DocuPhase system. Incoming Document Capture Network Switches 1GB Between Servers 100MB to Clients DocuPhase Web Server Xtractor Server SQL Server File Server Fax Server Indexing DocuPhase Internal Users In the smallest of deployments both DocuPhase and SQL can be deployed on the same machine, but for best performance they should be deployed on separate servers. Additionally, a single-machine configuration is most negatively impacted by the use of the DocuPhase recognition components: Xtractor and Full-Text services. When either of these services are used in the deployment, it is usually critical to install the recognition services on a separate server. DocuPhase Enterprise Configuration Guide 6.1 Page 6 of 10
DocuPhase Web Server Incoming Document Capture RapidDox High-Speed Indexing Network Switches 1GB Between Servers 100M to Clients SQL Server Existing Fire Wall WAN Connection Xtractor Server Automated Indexing Existing File Server - Domain Controller Internet Remote Facilities At Home Workers Fax Server & Indexing Internal DocuPhase Users: Document Management Workflow Automation Electronic Forms Capture R/T Business Monitoring & Analysis External iform Non-DocuPhase User or General Public Data Entry & Attachments, then Submit to DocuPhase The web server will need to run Windows Server 2008 or 2012 and IIS 7.0 or greater. The level of data redundancy necessary will be determined by the Client at the point of implementation. Budget and network expertise generally play a large role in these decisions. DocuPhase Enterprise Configuration Guide 6.1 Page 7 of 10
Advanced Configuration There are many possible alternatives for an advanced configuration setup. Depending upon your document retrieval needs, workflow configuration, and your application setup, you may want to take a gradual approach to expansion and simply add to the basic configuration. One of the simplest ways to improve performance is to separate the disk IO on your SQL server to establish more independent paths to disk. Microsoft recommends splitting your application database, transaction logs, and temporary databases across different Disk-drives to improve and sustain database performance. Note: Please refer to the following article for information: http://searchsqlserver.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid87_gci1262122,00.html Additional considerations may include providing additional memory for the IIS and SQL servers along with a higher-bandwidth connection between these servers. Note: A slow outgoing connection (the connection to which clients will be using to connect to the system) will ultimately cause performance issues regardless of the strength of the backend solution. Bandwidth bottlenecks can make a system seem sluggish even if the hardware underneath the servers is more than adequate. The DocuPhase Client Services Team can help determine your needs by comparing your environment with some of our existing customers. If you already have implemented DocuPhase and are starting to experience performance problems, we can also help determine the source of your problems and suggest hardware alternatives for remediation. Note: The Application/Web Server contains both the DocuPhase Application and the associated Web Services. These web services can be distributed across a number of server environments. However, a configuration similar to the previous diagram (shown above) should be able to support a basic DocuPhase system that expands up to 100 users. Additionally, the database server should be dedicated to the DocuPhase database. The repository should be placed on a dedicated file server, but alternatively it can be placed on the Application Server or the Database server. When reaching the threshold of the 100 user mark, it may be wise to move to a SAN device or another highly accessible and redundant external storage medium. DocuPhase Enterprise Configuration Guide 6.1 Page 8 of 10
Advanced Configuration Setup Example One of the more advanced configurations requires network expertise beyond the standard hardware configuration defined in the basic setup. This configuration is usually required for high-availability environments that require redundancy and failover. In order to guarantee this type of availability, in its simplest form, four (4) servers and a SAN device are generally required. The illustration below shows two (2) web servers and two (2) SQL servers. For a highavailability environment, this is the minimum number of servers required, although more servers are supported. Dual WebServer & DocuPhase Servers Incoming Document Capture RapidDox High-Speed Indexing Fail-Over Switch Network Switches 1GB Between Servers 100M to Clients SQL Server Existing Fire Wall WAN Comm. Xtractor Server Automated Indexing Existing File Server & Domain Controller Remote Fax Server At Home Workers Fax Server Indexing Internal DocuPhase Users The two (2) web servers can be configured to support network load balancing. The network load balancing can be achieved with the software built into Windows Server 2008 or with a load balancing switch that can guarantee higher throughput. The two (2) SQL servers would be configured with Microsoft Clustering Services. We currently support the active/passive mode. One of the requirements of SQL clustering is an independent storage device that can be shared between the two SQL servers. Normally, this storage device comes in the form of a SAN unit and is generally leveraged for both the clustering environment and the storage of documents within the system. DocuPhase Enterprise Configuration Guide 6.1 Page 9 of 10
Enterprise Configuration Note: idatix recommends the Isolation of web servers/services depending upon The needs of the client. External Access (i.e., general Internet access) requires the isynergy web server to be located in a DMZ. Note: This diagram is simply a demonstration of a fairly advanced setup. Each configuration is unique and generally based on a cost benefit analysis for redundancy and uptime. The Web Services can be located on another WAN network, if they can access the database via a connection string. The SQL Server should be on a clustered environment and the repository and database files should be stored on a SAN device. Network Topology The web server and SQL server are typically located within a LAN environment connected at a minimum via a one (1) Gigabit switch. The web server and SQL server should be members of the same domain since it makes the specification of authentication requirements between the servers easier to configure. If these servers are not members of a common domain or reside in different domains, then there will be additional authentication requirements and configuration time necessary. Note: It is generally recommended that the SQL server be dedicated to DocuPhase, but there have been instances where the DocuPhase database has been co-located with other application databases. However, performance degradation can occur when another application begins to consume significant resources on the same SQL server. DocuPhase Enterprise Configuration Guide 6.1 Page 10 of 10