Development Server - 32 bit machine available

[John Hammond]

If I can introduce myself we are a Company that has recently purchased TM1. I have a BI background stretching back to when it was called MIS, but not specifically TM1.

We have been promised a 64bit multiprocessor machine for our production system which I assume we are going to load with memory if performance problems occur. I am sure you will immediately spot the gross simplification of capacity planning , but we have to start somewhere. I think somewhere along the line IBM/Applix are going to be spec'ing this beast.

In the meantime, I am keen to get started and have been told there are a couple of 32 bit machines with WS2003 we can start using as development machines.

My questions about this:

1. I'm going to say load the machines up with 8GB of RAM but being 32 bits there is the 3.12GB WS2003 addressing limitation. Using a start up switch on WS2003 means that additional RAM can be used as a cache, but does TM1 take advantage of this or should I just stick in 4GB?

2. We have 5 developers using the machine. Can we get away with a single non cored processor or would we need more?

3. I assume Apache/IIS runs in front of TM1 Server to serve the Web front end. Do we need a separate box for this. A sample installation I viewed tends to use the Excel Client rather than the web front end so at this early stage should I bother?

Thanking you in advance and I hope that I can be more of a 'contributor' as I get up to speed.

[jim wood]

Hi John,

To answer your questions:

1) We have a 32-bit development server with 16GB and we use it all. We have over 5 server instances running and each uses up to 3GB.

2) As it is a development box and you may end up with a few services running then I would recommend at least a couple or cores / processors. (As you have a few machines available you want to consider setting one up as the admin server and installing TM1 on each of the other machines pointing to the admin server box. PM me if need a hand with this.)

3) It does use Apache/IIS. You can run it on the same box as your TM1 install. (A couple of thins: i) if you are going for the setup suggested above it may be best to run it on the admin server box. ii) You need to make sure you have .net updates installed. iii) You need to have a copy of excel installed on the box running TM1 Web.)

I hope that helps,

Jim.

[Steve Vincent]

I think somewhere along the line IBM/Applix are going to be spec'ing this beast.

I'd be amazed if they did because as long as i have been using TM1 they have flatly refused to do that kind of thing. Each model is so very different that it'd be impossible to give a general specification, and unless their own people are building your models then i can't see them getting involved in that, other than saying "as much RAM and CPU as you can get hold of!".

[John Hammond]

Jim, Steve thanks for your quick responses.

We have a 32-bit development server with 16GB and we use it all. We have over 5 server instances running and each uses up to 3GB.

Does that require any virtualization software or do you just run under WS2003?

Here are the specs of the machines we plan to use as our TEST TM1 server

Usage TM1 TEST Server
Machine IBM
Product name: eserver xSeries 345 -[867071X]-

Processor 2 Dual core Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 3.06GHz
Existing Memory Total Memory: 1535Mb

Planned Memory Maximum 8GB
Disk IBM ServeRAID SCSI Disk Device - \\.\PHYSICALDRIVE0
Interface: SCSI
Total Disk Size: 33.89 Gb
C: 33.89 Gb (30.53 Gb Free) NTFS

Additional Disk None
Os Microsoft(R) Windows(R) Server 2003, Enterprise Edition
Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2(KB914961)


.net Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 Service Pack 1(SP1)

.net planned .net framework 3.5

We did check these processors and although some Xeons are 64bit these are not. The cost of this upgrade is only the RAM which comes in at £500 before VAT.

As always thanks for your help so far and any further comments appreciated.

Is it worth going RAID 1 on that 30Gb hard disk?

[paulsimon]

As TM1 works in RAM it is probably not worth going for Disk Mirroring. We just scheduled a nightly copy of data from the TM1 Server to a File Server where it was then backed up. As ever it depends on the cost, and criticality of the data. Eg if the server gets all its data from source systems, then in the worst case you can just reload from them. However, if the data is the result of 100s of users typing in budget numbers, then you could lose a day of typing, that may have a higher cost than the disk.

By the way in the past we have been forced to buy servers with disk mirroring by the IT Dept on the basis that the server may be reallocated to other applications that may need it. I would check whether this applies to you.

When you move to 64 bit, you will need twice as much RAM as you did on 32 bit.

Regards


Paul Simon

[jim wood]

Does that require any virtualization software or do you just run under WS2003?

We just run WS2003. It seems to know it has more than 3.5GB even if it can't use it itself. I'm not sure what version of 2003 it is. It may be Data center edition that Microsoft say "Can read over 4GB even in a 32-bit environment"

[John Hammond]

Does that require any virtualization software or do you just run under WS2003?

We just run WS2003. It seems to know it has more than 3.5GB even if it can't use it itself. I'm not sure what version of 2003 it is. It may be Data center edition that Microsoft say "Can read over 4GB even in a 32-bit environment"

Thanks Jim. It does seems to be the Datacenter edition that allows you to do this. Incidentally the 386x architecture allows TERABYTES of virtual storage to be address so how Microsoft came up with the 4GB limit in Windows I don't know.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/wind ... 29508.aspx

As TM1 works in RAM it is probably not worth going for Disk Mirroring. We just scheduled a nightly copy of data from the TM1 Server to a File Server where it was then backed up. As ever it depends on the cost, and criticality of the data. Eg if the server gets all its data from source systems, then in the worst case you can just reload from them. However, if the data is the result of 100s of users typing in budget numbers, then you could lose a day of typing, that may have a higher cost than the disk.

By the way in the past we have been forced to buy servers with disk mirroring by the IT Dept on the basis that the server may be reallocated to other applications that may need it. I would check whether this applies to you.

When you move to 64 bit, you will need twice as much RAM as you did on 32 bit.

Regards


Paul Simon

Paul, thanks for the response. We'll probably stick with the unmirrored disk and nightly back ups. It's interesting you say RAM requirements will double on a 64 bit machine. Is this the requirement for data to be aligned on a 64 bit boundary - this takes me back to my old PL/1 days when you could squeeze a few extra Mph out of the machine by specifying the ALIGN compiler directive!