Hardware and software requirements

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The following sections give the standard requirements for server and client machines. General guidelines are provided about the scaling of server capacities, however you should contact Quorum Support for specific issues connected with the scaling of your Planning Space deployment.

Important: The entire server infrastructure should be running on a Local Area Network (LAN), with all physical machines residing in the same data centre. Individual servers may be virtualized. Between-server latency must not exceed 1 ms, and must be free from any bandwidth or QoS restrictions.

Network requirements

Planning Space software will work with physical or virtualized network architectures, the only limitations being on latency and throughput. Latency between client machines and the IPS server(s) must be less than 150 ms (recommended to be below 100 ms), with a throughput of at least 10 Mbits/s.

If the network performance conditions cannot be met, or are not reliable, then the software must be set up in an 'Installer-based' deployment using an application provisioning platform such as Citrix. The network requirements in this case should be in line with the recommendations of the provisioning platform software vendor.

Secure HTTP (HTTPS) and SSL certificate requirements

Important: IPS Server is initially installed in HTTP mode, and Quorum Software recommends immediate re-configuration to HTTPS mode. A trusted certificate (backed by a standard Certificate Authority) or a self-signed certificate may be used; see Setting up HTTPS (secure HTTP) for IPS Server. Only trusted certificates should be used in a production deployment.

Browser compatability with HTTP/HTTPS: The versions of the Chrome and Edge browser software distributed since March 2021 require cross-site cookies to be secure (and there is no option to modify this). This means that IPS must be run in the 'Use https' or 'SSL offloading' mode. The IPS Server 'http' mode is not compatible with client users who are using the Chromium-based (Chrome, Edge) browsers.

Certificate property	Requirement
Certificate Generation Type	Legacy Key
Service Address	Present in Subject Name (Common Name) and Subject Alternative Name (DNS)
IPS Server Addresses	Present in Subject Alternative Name (Optional)
Extension	Digital Signature, Key Encipherment
Extended Key Usage	Server Authentication, Client Authentication
Cryptographic Service Provider	The default storage provider 'Microsoft Software Key Storage Provider' can be used
RSA key size	2048 bits

Load balancer

A load balancer is required when IPS Server is run on a cluster of server machines. It will distribute incoming application requests, and product licencing requests, to be handled by all of the server machines in the cluster.

IPS Server and the Planning Space applications are expected to work with a wide variety of virtualized load balancer applications or dedicated hardware.

The minimum requirements for the load balancer are:

• the load balancer can handle HTTP, HTTPS (if required), and TCP traffic forwarding
• the load balancer can be configured with multiple ports on a single IP address

KEMP and Citrix Netscaler are examples of enterprise load balancers offered as physical or virtual appliances; these vendors also offer free, throughput-limited load balancers for test environments or configuration testing. Zen and Nginx are commonly-used open source load balancers which do not have any throughput restrictions. Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS are examples of cloud providers which offer configurable load balancing services.

If a load balancer is introduced, the latency and throughput for the entire communication path between any user client machine and an IPS server machine must remain within the limits specified in the previous section.

Quorum Software does not provide setup guidance or support for load balancers beyond the general configuration and concepts included in this Deployment Guide.

IPS Server

The following table gives the requirements for a single IPS server machine, or for machines that are part of a small cluster deployment.

IPS Server can be deployed on physical or virtualized compute hardware and storage media (both SSD and magnetic disk).

Important: Every IPS server machine requires an IPS license.

Server type	Resource	Requirement per server
IPS Server	CPU Type	64-bit only; Intel is recommended over AMD, due to better performance of the floating-point units
	CPU Cores	8 cores recommended
	Memory	32 GB recommended
	Local Disk Storage	10 GB minimum
	Operating System	Windows Server 2016 as minimum, Windows Server 2019 is recommended
	Software	.NET 4.8 or later Microsoft Office Excel 2013 or later (see Note**) HTML5-compliant browser is required to run the IPS Manager interface; Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge are recommended; Microsoft Internet Explorer is not supported (see Microsoft guidance on IE and Edge browsers)
	Internet Connectivity	Internet egress is required (all Planning Space application programs are signed and require certificate revocation checking)
	Installation Permissions	Local Administrator

** Note: Excel is required specifically when the server runs Dataflow 'Load from Database' processes (i.e., when the user has selected the 'Server Side Load' option; see the Planning Space User Manual: Database mapping template).

The IPS Server requires the default port 80 (or 443) for HTTP (or HTTPS) communications and this port should not be shared with any other applications or services. If server clustering is used, the IPS Server machines will also require use of port (default) 81 for the server monitor port. All of the default port numbers can be changed in the IPS Server configuration.

Database Server: Microsoft SQL Server

SQL Server service can be provided by a server machine that is dedicated to the Planning Space software, or by a shared service (support is provided for the use of Microsoft Azure SQL PaaS to run the IPS Common and Tenant databases). The service must have a latency of under 1 ms for the LAN network link with the IPS Server machine(s).

IPS Server is compatible with SQL Server AlwaysOn failover clustering.

One database is used by the IPS Server as the 'common' database (also known as the 'common data source'). And each tenant requires its own database.

Important: There are two security levels of SQL Server account required for IPS/Planning Space deployment. For runtime access to the Common and Tenant databases, a restricted account should always be used (with server role 'bulkadmin' and the roles 'db_datareader', 'db_datawriter', and 'pes_datawriter' for the database). In a production environment a separate SQL Server account should be used for each database. For running DBUPGRADE programs during installation and upgrading, a more privileged account is required, with the role 'db_owner' for the database which is being upgraded. Note: 'pes_datawriter' is a custom role for databases that is added by the DBUPGRADE programs.

A new database should be initialized in empty state, and the 'DBUPGRADE' programs are then used to prepare the database for use as a common data source or tenant data source. The database permission 'db_owner' is required for running a DBUPGRADE program.

Alternatively, starter databases (in the form of SQL Server BAK files) may be provided.

For database operation, the user can be based on a Windows-authenticated login tied to the IPS Service Account, or it can be an 'SQL user with login' (based on a login with SQL Server authentication). This operational user requires:

• server role 'bulkadmin';
• for every database, membership of the roles: 'db_datawriter', 'db_datareader', and 'pes_datawriter'.

Note that the login type 'SQL user with password' (also known as contained database user) is not compatible with the operation of IPS Server.

The following table shows the requirements for a dedicated machine running SQL Server for IPS Server and Planning Space.

Server type	Resource	Requirement
Microsoft SQL Server	CPU Cores	4 minimum, 8 recommended for deployments with 50 or more concurrent users
	Memory	16 GB minimum
	Local Disk Storage	As required for data storage (see Note**)
	Software	Minimum requirement of SQL Server 2019 with Cumulative Update 16; the 'Full-Text Search' component for SQL Server Database Engine must be installed
	Database Compatibility Level	SQL Server 2016 (130)
	Database Collation	Latin1_General_100_CI_AS_WS

** Note: Initial setup requires 1 GB for the common database, and for each tenant database 1 GB if using a new database, or 30 GB if using a starter database file.

Storage capacity planning for the database server needs to consider the number of users and especially the number of result sets that can be stored by each user, and the storage duration. It is recommended to establish a data storage policy for users, and to perform regular cleaning of stored result sets.

SMTP Server

As an option, the IPS Server can send automated emails to administrators and users for diagnostic purposes, and as part of workflows configured in Planning Space client applications.

An internal (for example, on-premise Exchange) or remote (Office 365, for example) SMTP server can be used. A username and password needs to be created for use by IPS Server, or alternatively, all of the IPS Server machines need to be granted permission to relay anonymously via the SMTP server.

A Mail administrator will be able to make the necessary modifications and provide the configuration information to be entered into the IPS Server configuration (see Service configuration).

Application Provisioning Server (and Clients)

The following requirements are for server machines running Citrix provisioning software.

Please contact Quorum Support for guidance on using a non-Citrix provisioning platform, and for deployments with large numbers of concurrent users.

A user client machine should have a display with a minimum screen resolution of 1280´960 pixels, and 1920´1080 pixels is recommended.

There are no other particular requirements for the client machines connecting to the Citrix server(s) to run Planning Space applications. Please refer to the software vendor's documentation for the requirements for running the vendor's client software.

Server type	Resource	Requirement per server
Application Provisioning Server	CPU Type	64-bit
	CPU Cores	8 minimum (supports up to 10 concurrent users) plus 1 additional core for every additional 3 concurrent users (see Notes**)
	Memory	16 GB plus additional 3 GB for each concurrent user (see Notes**)
	Local Disk Storage	10 GB plus 2GB working space for each concurrent user
	Operating System	Windows Server 2016 as minimum
	Software	Citrix 7.6 or later .NET 4.8 or later MS Office 2013 or later (with EN-US or EN-GB) 'Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2019 Redistributable' package as minimum (see Notes**) Browser software: HTML5-compliant; Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge recommended; Microsoft Internet Explorer is not supported (see Microsoft guidance on IE and Edge browsers)
	Internet Connectivity	Internet egress is required (all Planning Space application programs are signed and require certificate revocation checking)
	Installation Permissions	Local Administrator

** Notes:

1. Each provisioning server machine should have approximately 2 cores and 4 GB RAM available to the operating system and application provisioning core services.
2. In most Planning Space deployments, peak demand for resources is not simultaneous across user sessions, therefore the actual concurrent user capacity grows more quickly as each unit of CPU/memory is added.
3. The Planning Space application client contains a web browser component ('Cefsharp') which has a minimum requirement for the package 'Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2019 Redistributable', i.e. Visual C++ 2019 must be covered. To install, get the 'x64' installer from Microsoft at https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/#microsoft-visual-c-redistributable-for-visual-studio-2022.

Planning Space Desktop Client (ClickOnce deployment)

The Planning Space Desktop client software is a 'thick client' which is based on Microsoft ClickOnce technology.

It is installed for each user and does not require Administrator-level installation. It is also self-updating so that a user will always have the latest version that is installed in your Planning Space servers.

The network connection between a client machine and the IPS Server may be a LAN or WAN (private network) or Internet connection (with or without use of a VPN), but in any case the network latency must not exceed 150 ms. Client machines do not require Internet connectivity while running Planning Space applications.

The general client machine requirements are summarised in the following table.

Resource	Requirement
CPU Type	64-bit recommended
CPU Cores	Minimum: Intel i3 with 2 cores. Recommended: Intel i5 with 4 cores
Memory	4 GB minimum
Local Disk Storage	2 GB minimum for application programs, plus 5 GB for temporary file storage
Operating System	Desktop OS: Windows 10 as minimum (i.e., the latest in-support version as per Microsoft's specification), Windows 11 recommended. Server OS: Windows Server 2016 or later
Internet Connectivity	Not required to run Planning Space applications
Screen Resolution	1280´960 minimum, 1920´1080 recommended
.NET Framework	.NET 4.8 or later
Software	'Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2019 Redistributable' package as minimum (see Note**) HTML5-compliant browser; Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, or Firefox are recommended; Microsoft Internet Explorer is not supported (see Microsoft guidance on IE and Edge browsers)
Installation Permissions	User level

** Note: The Planning Space desktop client contains a web browser component ('Cefsharp') which has a minimum requirement for the package 'Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2019 Redistributable', i.e. Visual C++ 2019 must be covered. To install, get the 'x64' installer from Microsoft at https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/#microsoft-visual-c-redistributable-for-visual-studio-2022..