Hardware requirements

Your application, cache, Activity Engine, document conversion, and search servers have different suggested hardware specifications.

Jive is compatible with a number of hardware configurations, as well as network topologies. The following tables provide required minimum hardware specifications. Note that depending on your site's traffic patterns and sizing, you may require considerably more resources and a customized approach.

This topic covers the hardware on which you install Jive components. However, to run Jive you also need to provide the additional resources (such as databases and a load balancer), described in Required external components. You also need to provide the network resources and configuration, described in Network requirements.

Topology

  • Separate virtual machines (VM) or physical machines for each application node, Activity Engine, document conversion server, cache server, and search server.
  • Three freestanding databases. For more information about requirements and setup, see Database configuration and best practices.
  • At least two web application nodes. Running multiple application nodes allows for high-availability failover between the nodes, and allows you to scale the number of requests your site can handle more easily. Note that to run multiple web application nodes, you need to run a separate cache server, and you need to provision a load balancer.

Running in a virtual environment

If you install in a virtual environment, note the following best practices:

  • You should install SLES or RHEL as a guest operating system in a VMware environment per VMware instructions.
  • Jive requires memory reservation to be dedicated for each node in the installation, including the cache server and the Activity Engine server.
  • The VMware Best Practices Guide at https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1008480 has some valuable suggestions.

Application machine

Component Required minimum
CPU
  • Multicore: 2 chips with multicore optimal
  • 2 GHz minimum
  • x86-64 architecture
Memory
  • 6 GB physical RAM
  • 2 GB memory heap (configured by default)
Storage
  • Use a RAID configuration for best performance and reliability.
  • Unless you have a very small installation, you should provide external binary storage for your uploaded documents and images, as described in Required external components.

Activity Engine machine

Component Recommended minimum
CPUs
  • Multicore: 2 chips with multicore optimal
  • 2 GHz Minimum
  • x86-64 architecture
Memory
  • 6 GB physical RAM; 4 recommended
  • 2 GB memory heap (configured by default)
Topology
  • Activity Engine on a single machine that is separate from clustered application servers

Document Conversion machine

Component Recommended minimum
CPUs
  • Multicore: 2 chips with multicore optimal
  • 2 GHz Minimum
  • x86-64 architecture
Memory
  • 6 GB physical RAM
  • 256 MB memory heap
Topology
  • Document conversion server on a single machine that is separate from clustered application servers

Cache Server machine

Component Recommended minimum
CPUs
  • Multicore: 2 chips with multicore optimal
  • 2 GHz Minimum
  • x86-64 architecture
Memory
  • 6 GB physical RAM
  • 1 GB memory heap (configured by default). 2+ GB recommended for sites with large amounts of content
Topology
  • Cache server on a single machine that is separate from clustered application servers
    Note: Jive supports either a single cache server or 3 (or more) cache servers. Using two cache servers is not supported.

Search Node machine

Component Recommended minimum
CPUs
  • Multicore: 2 chips with multicore optimal
  • 2 GHz Minimum
  • x86-64 architecture
Memory
  • 6 GB physical RAM
  • 1 GB memory heap (configured by default). 2+ GB recommended for sites with large amounts of content
Topology
  • Search node on a single machine that is separate from clustered application servers