Minimum Hardware Requirements

This document describes the general guidelines for deciding CapaInstaller hardware requirements

Prerequisites

A basic understanding of the CapaInstaller platform, infrastructure, and hardware components is needed.

Requirements

The hardware requirements described in this section cover the minimum recommended setup for managing a CapaInstaller environment with the volume presented below:

Managed devices	2500
Managed users	2500
Applications	250
Operating system images	10

Management Server / OS Point Server

The Management and OS Point server contains the master copy of packages, OS Images, configurations and runs the

CapaInstaller Services...

Introduction

The administrative services that are included in the CapaInstaller product are described below

Back-end Service

The Back-end Server is an Http service offering a REST http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_state_transfer interface and is designed to be the point of connection for other CapaInstaller services that require access to the CapaInstaller Database or an Active Directory.

BaseAgent Service

Data Connection Service

The Data Connection Service is used to provide Http communication to services placed outside the primary firewall, instead of having to allow SMB and SQL server traffic to travel through the firewall.

DHCPproxy service

Front-end Service

Mobile Device Management Service

OS Deployment Service

Patch Management Service

Replicator Service

Service Installation Service Health Check Service

Simple Certificate Enrollment Service

Synchronization Service

Service Deployment

Offline deployment of services

Hardware

Hardware requirements for a CapaInstaller server setup serving up to 2500 simultaneous operating devices

Type	Class	#	Value
Chipset	Server class		Bus: =< 1600 MHz
CPU	Xeon 5140 or above	2 core	CPU: =< 2,5 GHz
Memory	DDR3 or above	8GB	Ram: =< 1066MHz
Network	Gigabit	Single NIC	1000mbps
Disk	Server class 15000 rpm or SSD	2 Disks	System+OS: Min 60GB disk space PointData: Min 750 GB disk space

Subsequent Management / OS Point Server

Additional servers can be added to facilitate Capainstaller services and resources to clients in local networks.

Disk requirements can be altered for such servers as CapaInstaller can limit the replication of data to specific packages, drivers, and images.

The minimum requirements should still be observed as downscaling of memory and CPU usage is not linear.

Software

For detailed software, requirements see Software Requirements

SQL Server

The SQL Server holds information about objects (packages, OS images, units, configurations, etc.) and their relations.

For best performance, it is recommended to separate the SQL data and SQL log files on separate disks.

Hardware

CPU	Min. 1 Xeon Quad Core 2.5 GHz
Memory	8 GB
Allocated disk space C: (OS)	Min. 40 GB
Allocated disk space D: (SQL Data)	Min. 20 GB
Allocated disk space E: (SQL Logs)	Min. 10 GB
Network	Min. 1 Gbit

SQL server Best Practises

Before setting up a Database server for CapaInstaller, be aware of the Best practices for correctly configured Allocation Unit Size and Partition Offset to maximize disk performance.

WSUS Server

CapaInstaller uses a WSUS setup with a WSUS main server and a number of WSUS replica servers. The WSUS replica servers are implemented to spread the load when updates are released.

Hardware

The physical hardware requirements for a server that holds both the Management/OS Points and the Management/OS Servers are:

CPU	Single Xeon Quad Core 2.4 GHz
Memory	4 GB
Allocated disk space C: (OS)	Min. 40 GB
Allocated disk space D: (WSUS Data)	Min. 200 GB
Network	Min. 1 Gbit

Supported Hypervisors

Microsoft Hyper-V
VMware ESXi

Virtualization Best Practises

Be sure to be aware of general Virtualization Best Practices before deciding to virtualize a CapaInstaller host server.

Several key concepts regarding performance on any hypervisor should be considered:

Be sure to adhere to virtualization best practices to avoid Resource Contention when scaling your virtual infrastructure.
Please observe the concepts of CPU and Memory Contention, CPU Overcommitment, or CPU/Memory Oversubscription when scaling the virtual guest assigned for CapaInstaller.
Allocate dedicated storage resources to your CapaInstaller and Database guest machines to avoid I/O Bottlenecks during intensive I/O operations
Avoid running CapaInstaller or Database from a single simple Local Host Bus Adapter as the Hypervisor will utilize much-needed CPU resources to handle I/O operations. Use a dedicated controller connecting to either a Storage Area Network or Network Attached Storage to lower the strain on the Hypervisor CPU
Consider NIC Teaming when configuring the Hypervisor virtual networks to maximize throughput and avoid high Network I/O Latency when multiple virtual guests share the same network interface with the CapaInstaller and Database server.

Licenses

For each Windows server, a valid operating system license is required.

For the SQL Server, a processor license or individual Client Access Licenses (CALs) are required. If CALs are used, a CAL must be purchased for each user/computer that will access the database.
The following components in CapaInstaller require a CAL:

All servers in the CapaInstaller solution
All computers running the CapaInstaller Agent
Each computer/user accessing the CMS console application

If a processor license is purchased, client connections are unlimited, and no CALs are needed.

Certificates

To allow secure communication through SSL/HTTPS, a server certificate must be purchased (wildcard * certificates are supported).

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