This section explains the system requirements to run Alpana Server.

Alpana Server Pre-Requisites : Software

Operating System

Windows OS (x64) :

• Windows Server : 2012 R2, 2016
• (see note below) Windows 10 (Version 1607+)
  

!Important : A server OS is strongly advised.
Alpana Server runs a web server and should be allowed to handle many incoming connections, but desktop versions of Windows apply hard limitations on those.
In practice, running a web server on Windows 10 will only let you open a few dashboards at the same time.

Database

Microsoft SQL Server is required.
Microsoft SQL Server Express is possible, but see limitations related to this edition of SQL (concurrency, database size, resource usage, etc).

During installation, you will need a login to SQL Server which has the permissions to create users and databases.

!We strongly recommend to install the Alpana Server Database on the same machine that the web application: the web app being constantly communicating with its repository, if the repository and the application are on different machines, it will affect the performance and the user experience.

Other software

The following software needs to be installed and configured as described below.

!The pre-requisites order is very important.
If you modify any IIS setting after installing AspNet Core, then you will have to Repair AspNet Core : see Installation Troubleshooting.

*You must restart IIS after installing AspNet Core.
You must restart the computer after installing a new version of the .NET Framework.

Pre-requisites must be installed in the following order :

1. Microsoft IIS

This must be installed and configured first.

How to configure

On server editions of Windows (Server 2012 R2, Server 2016), IIS can be installed and configured by using the Server Manager, with the menu “Manage > Add roles and features”.
On desktop editions of Windows (Windows 7, 8, 10), Microsoft IIS can be installed and configured by opening “Turn Windows features on or off”

Required IIS configuration

In order to install Alpana Server, Microsoft IIS must be installed and configured with the following options :

• Under Common HTTP Features :
  • WebDAV Publishing
• Under Performance Features :
  • Dynamic Content Compression
• Under Security :
  • Windows Authentication
• Under Application Development Features :
  • .NET Extensibility 3.x
  • .NET Extensibility 4.x
  • ASP.NET 4.x
  • ISAPI Extensions
  • ISAPI Filters
  • WebSocket Protocol
• Under Web Management Tools :
  • IIS Management Console

2. PowerShell

PowerShell must be active.

You can just check that you can run Powershell : Windows+R to run the command : powershell

3. Microsoft .NET Framework

Microsoft .NET Framework 4.8 must be installed.

Installers can be found here : https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download/dotnet-framework/net48 then download the “Runtime”.
Alternately, an offline installer exists on the same page : https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download/dotnet-framework/thank-you/net48-offline-installer

*Installing this component requires to restart the machine.

4. AspNet Core

ASP.NET Core Runtime 2.2 must be installed.

*Installing this component requires to restart IIS.

Installers can be found here : https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download/dotnet-core/2.2 and select version “Hosting Bundle”.
For example, the latest version is currently v2.2.8 : https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download/dotnet-core/thank-you/runtime-aspnetcore-2.2.8-windows-hosting-bundle-installer

5. Restart IIS

After installing AspNet Core, restart IIS (or the machine altogether) :
Run inetmgr, and right-click the machine name to press Stop and then Start :

6. IIS URL Rewrite

IIS URL Rewrite must be installed.

*This should be installed after IIS

Installers can be found here : https://www.iis.net/downloads/microsoft/url-rewrite
Offline installers exist :
x64 installer / x86 installer

Alpana Server Pre-Requisites : Hardware

!Hardware requirements highly depend on usage.
Typically, SQL and IIS will take disk space, disk I/O, RAM and CPU depending on several factors like database usage, dashboards complexity and website traffic.
Please see with your website and database administrators to size your application appropriately.

Hardware Minimum

!Those are the bare minimum that will get you a running installation.
As soon as you will add content, add data, and increase traffic, you will need more.

• HDD : 1GB
• RAM : 3GB including OS
• CPU : any dual core CPU, x86 or x64 architecture

Hardware Recommended

To go beyond the minimal installation, you will need evaluate your requirements based on traffic, number of dashboards, number of tenants, other software and databases hosted on the same machine, etc…

Typically, it’s recommended to have at least :

• SSD for fast I/O, 50GB+ with free space always available (usual system administrator advice apply)
• RAM : 8GB for a small/medium site with few databases an no other big software installed
• good server CPU, like a recent Xeon with several cores
  

This can be much more if your application serves many dashboards to many users on many tenants.

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