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 will install Jive components. However, to run Jive you'll also need to provide the additional resources (such as databases and a load balancer) described in Required External Components. You'll also need to provide the network resources and configuration described in Network Requirements.

Topology

Separate VMs or physical machines for each application node, Activity Engine, document conversion server, cache server, and search server.
Three freestanding databases. See Database Configuration and Best Practices for details about requirements and setup.
At least two web application nodes. Running multiple application nodes allows for high-availability failover between the nodes, and allows you to more easily scale the number of requests your site can handle. 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, keep in mind the following best practices:

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 http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&externalId=1008480 also has some valuable suggestions.

Application Machine

Component	Required Minimum
CPUs	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 indeed, 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 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 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 separate from clustered application servers. 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 separate from clustered application servers.