Virtual Machine and SQL Server Setups

There are two setup categories:

Standard: Minimal/default recommendations for environments with limited resources

Optimal: Best performance recommendations

CloudNine™ LAW VM Workstations

The number of VMs for LAW workstations should reflect the number of licenses available for use. Please consult with your LAW users to determine the number of licenses available or needed.

CloudNine™ Explore VM Workstations

VMs for Explore are specified differently than LAW because Explore utilizes workstation cores for processing while LAW does not. Please consult with your Explore users to determine the best approach.

The three examples below illustrate the worker/agent concept with regard to resource planning:  1 Explore worker/agent = 1 CPU core of a VM workstation.

Example 1

If 4 CPU Cores are available

When using Explore on the same workstation as LAW, we encourage configuring the VM workstation according to the Optimal recommendation for LAW VM workstations. In this configuration, Explore will use all 4 cores of the workstation to allocate workers/agents.

Example 2

If 8 CPU Cores are available – 2 separate workstations

A: If 2 workstations configured to the Optimal LAW VM workstations recommendations are available, Explore will distribute work across these 2 VMs so long as 8 worker/agent licenses are also available.

Example 3

Explore can also utilize 8 cores and 16 GB of RAM if available on the same VM workstation to allocate all 8 worker/agents so long as 8 worker/agents licenses are also available. We recommend that such a VM be dedicated for Explore processing only.

The number of LAW workstations that can be comfortably served by an SQL Server is determined by the number of cores on that SQL Server. We recommend no more than 4 LAW workstations per SQL Server core as a standard configuration. An optimal configuration would be fewer LAW workstations per SQL Server core. The chart below shows the server to workstation standard and optimal recommendations:

The number of Explore worker/agents that can be comfortably server by an SQL Server is determined by the number of cores on that SQL Server. We recommend no more than 2 agents/workers per SQL Server core as a standard configuration. An optimal configuration would be fewer Explore agents/workers per SQL Server core.

For LAW, the overhead is in the file server more than the LAW SQL database itself. Most of the data stored in a LAW database is metadata and image information – LAW points to or references the files located on file server for activities such as native file conversion or export.

For Explore, the overhead is in the SQL Server database. Since Explore relies heavily on SQL Server, the majority of data, like content and metadata, is stored in the SQL Server database.