Hardware Requirements :
As a guide, an installation for up to 50 simultaneous users could consist of the following:
Linux operating system,
Apache web server,
Entry level server with 512 MB RAM
10 Megabit network card. This would provide more than adequate performance.
100 Megabit network cards are now entry level.
RAID SCSI swappable disks are preferred in any mission critical environment where disk access is intensive.
Multiple servers with SMP, load balancing, a separate database server, and large amounts of RAM the limit on database size and the number can be scaled to the most demanding businesses.
When using the hosting facilities of a 3rd party it is important to consider the infrastructure that the host has in place.
Backups - the business should always configure its own backup in any event Hardware redundancy - ie failover spare servers, disks etc. The safety and protection of the hosts hardware :
Backup power generation- Backup connectivity options of the host ie more than one connection to the internet is preferable.
Software Requirements :
In a windows environment the Apache2triad bundle provides all the software required and comes with a convenient installer.
In a windows/linux/unix environment the XAMPP also provides all the software required.
Installing either of the above two server software bundles will provide all you need to get going.To get the latest and greatest revisions of the individual components you need :
PHP Any version greater than 4.2 will work. PHP works on all operating systems so webERP is therefore operating system independent.
If transfer of EDI orders is required the ftp extensions for PHP will be needed.
MySQL-Max with Innodb transactional tables support.(lnnodb was introduced in 2001 to MySQL and has Oracle like functionality – with similar speed).MySQL later than version 4 has Innodb tables in by default.
Since MySQL represents such good value for money it has been used. An example configuration file my.cnf normally under /usr/local/mysql/var is available in the mysql documentation to show typical settings for the Innodb configuration. The expected size of the data is useful although additional data files can be created retrospectively as necessary.
Note that only the tables that require transaction support are defined as Innodb tables.There is always debate but the MyISAM tables are reputed to be faster.
A web server. Apache makes the most sense – but most web servers are supported by PHP in various forms. If the web server is accessible over the Internet and not just over a LAN then encrypted communications are required. The openssl and mod-ssl modules for apache can be easily used to ensure all data is transmitted in encrypted form.
The system could be used with many other database servers but it is tested and developed on MySQL. Independent benchmarks show that MySQL is one of the fastest for most common database tasks, particularly at establishing connections .
– Since this is required for every page, MySQL is therefore ideally suited to the web environment.
-- Using Apache with mod_ssl and openssl secure sockets makes sense where there is any data transmitted over the Internet and not just over a LAN.
