Understanding the enterprise model

The enterprise model represents an organization with the following needs:

• Over 75 Meridian vault users, excluding Meridian Explorer repository users, which can be many more.
• One or more sites.
• Add-on modules such as the Meridian Asset Management Module, Publisher, and Global Collaboration Framework may be required.
• Moderate to heavy customization is implemented.
• Oracle or SQL Server is the organization’s standard DBMS.
• An existing suitable web server is available.

A typical configuration to meet the needs of an enterprise would look similar to the following figure.

In this configuration, Meridian uses existing DBMS and web servers, and all remaining components are installed on one or more dedicated application servers at each of the organization’s sites. Each site hosts its own vaults from which users may work not only on documents relative to that site, but also with documents residing at any number of other sites through the services provided by the Meridian Global Collaboration Framework.

Configuration of the Meridian application servers should include the following items.

• The maximum cache size of each vault should be 1 GB or less unless the High Performance Option is enabled. The combined sizes of all vault database caches plus user session memory must not exceed the amount of application virtual memory provided by the operating system. The cache size for each vault should be set to 100 MB if the High Performance Option is enabled.
• High Performance Option is recommended when the combined size of all vault database caches plus user session memory exceeds the amount of application virtual memory provided by the operating system. This requires more than 4 GB of RAM, which requires specific versions of Windows Server. We recommend a 64-bit edition of Windows Server.
• Windows Server /3GB and /userva switches enabled if more than 75 users.
• If multiple vaults are accessed frequently, the CopyDLL option enabled for each vault.
• A separate database server should be used only if there is a minimum 1 Gbps (fiber optic preferred) and very reliable connection to the Meridian application server. Otherwise, the application and database should be hosted on the same computer.
• If more than 75 concurrent users per server, a dedicated 64-bit server:

• Windows Server 64-bit edition (especially if Meridian and the database management system are hosted on the same computer).
• Meridian 64-bit components installed