Understanding network requirements

Because Meridian data is stored on a server, Meridian relies heavily on network performance. Therefore, the network bandwidth between all Meridian client and server computers must be 100 Mbps or higher to ensure adequate performance. The bandwidth between Meridian servers (application servers, database servers, web servers, and other servers used by Meridian) should be 1 Gbps or higher (preferably optical links and very reliable). There should be no switches, routers, hubs, or network cards slower than 100 Mbps at any point between Meridian computers. Just as important as speed is the latency (delay) of the network, which should be under 5 milliseconds between all LAN client computers and the Meridian application server. Real-time bandwidth, latency, and Meridian application server responsiveness can be measured with the Diagnostics command in PowerUser as described in the BlueCielo Meridian Enterprise User's Guide.

Note    Although the Meridian application server is based on Microsoft Windows servers, it is possible to integrate Meridian into a Novell Netware network as long as user authentication can be performed with a Windows server. Both Microsoft and Novell offer tools to integrate each other’s directory services into their own network.

Meridian relies heavily on the DCOM protocol. By default, DCOM communicates over a very wide port range (1024 to 6500). The Meridian desktop clients always start a DCOM session with a request on the TCP port 135 of the Meridian application server. If a response is received, DCOM handles further communications and determines which port will be used. It’s essential to ensure that DCOM is running with TCP/IP only. If possible, delete all other protocols except TCP/IP if you are not using them. If you only have a restricted number of ports to use, refer to the Microsoft MSDN site for the current recommendation for the minimum number of ports to allocate.

If you use more than one Windows server or more than a few Windows workstations, we recommend implementing a Windows domain structure. We highly recommend installing Meridian only on a member server, not a domain controller. You might also need to configure security delegation as described in Understanding security delegation.