SDLKnowledgeCenterArchitectureand Requirements · Content Manager allows setting up a specific metadata model tailored to suit your company and business requirements. This is achieved

SDL Knowledge Center Architecture andRequirements

SDL Knowledge Center 2016

November 2015

Legal Notices

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exclusive rights of SDLGroup. All references to SDL or SDLGroup shall mean SDL PLC. and its subsidiaries and affiliates details

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to the contrary, no association with any other company or product is intended or should be inferred.

This product may include open source or similar third-party software, details of which can be found by clicking the following

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Without limiting the rights under copyright, no part of this may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or

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without the express written permission of SDL Group.

ii SDL Knowledge Center Architecture and Requirements

Contents

Chapter 1 Welcome to SDL Knowledge Center Architecture andRequirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Customer support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Chapter 2 Product Overview and Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7Authoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Web client security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Reviewing and commenting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Publishing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Analytics overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Content Manager Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

The four layers of Content Manager platform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Content Manager basic system structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Web Services API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Content Delivery Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Security Token Service and Knowledge Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Chapter 3 SDL Knowledge Center list of requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21SDL Knowledge Center general requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Software compatibility across releases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Content Manager requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Content Manager hardware requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Content Manager software requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Installer User Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Content Delivery requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Content Delivery hardware requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Content Delivery software requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Chapter 4 Introduction to SDL Knowledge Center scalability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43SDL Knowledge Center network cluster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

SDL Knowledge Center environment with ISHSTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

SDL Knowledge Center environment with ADFS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

One server deployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

One server for all roles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Simple cluster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Front end server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Back end server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

iiiSDL Knowledge Center Architecture and Requirements

Multi server deployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Advanced server cluster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Network load balancing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Best practices to configure a node in network load balancing . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Best practices to specialize back end servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

iv SDL Knowledge Center Architecture and Requirements

Chapter 1

Welcome to SDL Knowledge CenterArchitecture and Requirements

This document presents an overview of SDLKnowledge Center structure and components,

along with a general introduction of its main features. It also provides the list of hardware

and software requirements insuring a harmonious installation and use.

Customer supportOn the SDL Support page you can find information to request assistance, browse the

knowledge base or log a ticket for the technical support team.

About this task

If you need to contact customer or technical support to request assistance, go to the SDL

Support page. From here, click a tab link to access the desired support area, for example

Product support or Knowledge base.

Note: You need to have a valid SDL user account to log in and submit a ticket. If you

do not have one, contact the designated representative at your site, as identified in your

service agreement.

To log a support ticket, follow these steps:

Procedure

1. On the “SDL Support” page, click the Product support tab link.

2. In the product table, browse for the SDL product you want to log a ticket for, then

click the Log a Ticket link. For further details about the support provided for the

product, click the Learn more tab link.

1SDL Knowledge Center Architecture and Requirements

http://www.sdl.com/support/

http://www.sdl.com/support/

AcknowledgementsSDL products include open source or similar third-party software.

7zip

Is a file archiver with a high compression ratio.

Apache Ant

Apache Ant is a Java library and command-line tool whose mission is to drive

processes described in build files as targets and extension points dependent upon each

other. The main known usage of Ant is the build of Java applications. Ant supplies a

number of built-in tasks allowing to compile, assemble, test and run Java applications.

Ant can also be used effectively to build non Java applications, for instance C or

C++ applications. More generally, Ant can be used to pilot any type of process which

can be described in terms of targets and tasks.

DockPanel Suite

.Net Docking Library for Windows Forms

DITA-OT

The DITAOpen Toolkit is a Java-based implementation of the OASIS DITATechnical

Committee's specification for DITADTDs and schemas. It contains ANT, SAXON,...

Apache FOP

Apache FOP (Formatting Objects Processor) is a print formatter driven by XSL

formatting objects (XSL-FO) and an output independent formatter. It is a Java

application that reads a formatting object (FO) tree and renders the resulting pages to

a specified output. Output formats currently supported include PDF, PS, PCL, AFP,

XML (area tree representation), Print, AWT and PNG, and to a lesser extent, RTF and

TXT. The primary output target is PDF.

GeckoFX

Gecko is a free and open source layout engine used in many applications developed

by the Mozilla Foundation and the Mozilla Corporation (notably the Firefox web

browser).

globalize

JavaScript globalization and localization. Formats and parses strings, dates and

numbers in over 350 cultures.

GNUAspell

GNUAspell is a Free and Open Source spell checker designed to eventually replace

Ispell. It can either be used as a library or as an independent spell checker. Its main

feature is that it does a superior job of suggesting possible replacements for a

misspelled word than just about any other spell checker out there for the English

language. Unlike Ispell, Aspell can also easily check documents in UTF-8 without

having to use a special dictionary. Aspell will also do its best to respect the current

locale setting. Other advantages over Ispell include support for using multiple

dictionaries at once and intelligently handling personal dictionaries when more than

one Aspell process is open at once.

Welcome to SDL Knowledge Center Architecture and Requirements

2 SDL Knowledge Center Architecture and Requirements

http://www.7-zip.org/

http://ant.apache.org/

http://dockpanelsuite.com/

http://sourceforge.net/projects/dita-ot/

https://http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Gecko

https://github.com/jquery/globalize

http://aspell.net

Specifically we are using GNUASpell dictionaries for de-CH, de-DE, en-CA, en-GB,

en-US, es-ES, fr-FR, fr-CH, nl-NL.

google-code-prettify

google-code-prettify is a Javascript module and CSS file that allows syntax

highlighting in an html page.

Hunspell

Hunspell is the spell checker of LibreOffice, OpenOffice.org, Mozilla Firefox 3 &

Thunderbird, Google Chrome, and it is also used by proprietary software packages, like

Mac OS X, InDesign, MemoQ, Opera and SDL Trados Studio.

InstallAnywhere

InstallAnywhere is the leading multi-platform development solution for application

producers who need to deliver a professional and consistent cross installation

experience for physical, virtual and cloud environments. From a single project file

and build environment, InstallAnywhere creates reliable installations for on-premises

platforms - Windows, Linux, Apple OS X, Solaris, AIX , HP-UX, and IBM iSeries

- and enables you to take existing and new software products to a virtual and cloud

infrastructure.

Jetty

The Jetty Web Server provides an HTTP server and Servlet container capable of

serving static and dynamic content either from a standalone or embedded

instantiations. Starting from Jetty version 7, the Jetty webserver and other core

compoments are hosted by the Eclipse Foundation.

jQuery

jQuery is a fast, small, and feature-rich JavaScript library. It makes things like HTML

document traversal and manipulation, event handling, animation, and Ajax much

simpler with an easy-to-use API that works across a multitude of browsers. With a

combination of versatility and extensibility, jQuery has changed the way that millions

of people write JavaScript.

jquery-cookie

jQuery plugin for reading, writing and deleting cookies.

jQuery Highlight

Highlights the search keywords/terms in a preview.

jQuery UI

jQuery UI is a set of user interface interactions, effects, widgets, and themes built on

top of the jQuery JavaScript Library.

jSON-js

JSON is a light-weight, language independent, data interchange format. See

http://www.JSON.org / The files in this collection implement JSON encoders/decoders

in JavaScript. JSON became a built-in feature of JavaScript when the ECMAScript

Programming Language Standard - Fifth Edition was adopted by the ECMAGeneral

Assembly in December 2009. Most of the files in this collection are for applications

that are expected to run in obsolete web browsers. For most purposes, json2.js is the

best choice.



http://code.google.com/p/google-code-prettify/

http://hunspell.sourceforge.net/

http://www.flexerasoftware.com/products/software-installation/installanywhere/

http://www.eclipse.org/jetty/

http://jquery.com/

https://github.com/carhartl/jquery-cookie

http://johannburkard.de/resources/Johann/jquery.highlight-4.js

http://jqueryui.com/

https://github.com/douglascrockford/JSON-js

http://www.JSON.org

Json.NET

Json.NET is a popular high-performance JSON framework for .NET.

Knockout JavaScript library

Knockout is a JavaScript library that helps you to create rich, responsive display and

editor user interfaces with a clean underlying data model. Any time you have sections

of UI that update dynamically (e.g., changing depending on the user’s actions or

when an external data source changes), KO can help you implement it more simply

and maintainably.

Apache Lucene, SOLR

The Apache Lucene™ project develops open-source search software.

MVCWeb Projects

Auxiliary MVCWeb Project libraries to serve ISHCM and ISHSTS. Typical libraries

like WebGrease, StringTemplate (antlr3), AutoMapper, RouteDebugger,

WebActivator,...

NHunspell

NHunspell brings the spell checking, hyphenation and thesaurus to the Microsoft®

.NET Framework. NHunspell is C# library and wraps native libraries for Hunspell,

Hyphen and MyThes. One design goal of this library and wrapper is to keep the source

code of the included libraries as unmodified as possible. New versions of the base

libraries can therefore easily adopted to NHunspell.

The integrated libraries are used in OpenOffice and they work with the dictionaries

published on OpenOffice.org.

Red Hat Linux

Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform delivers an integrated foundation to

create, deploy, and scale a secure and reliable public or private OpenStack cloud. Red

Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform combines the world's leading enterprise

Linux and the fastest-growing cloud infrastructure platform to give you the agility to

scale and quickly meet customer demands without compromising on availability,

security, or performance.

Rx .NET

Reactive Extensions for .NET library used to validate entered values

Xalan-Java

Xalan-Java is an XSLT processor for transforming XML documents into HTML, text,

or other XML document types. It implements XSL Transformations (XSLT) Version

1.0 and XML Path Language (XPath) Version 1.0 and can be used from the command

line, in an applet or a servlet, or as a module in other program.

Thinktecture IdentityServer

Front-end Secure Token Service to serve SAML tokens.

Apache Tomcat, Tomcat Embed

Apache Tomcat is an open source software implementation of the Java Servlet and

JavaServer Pages technologies.



http://json.codeplex.com/

http://knockoutjs.com/

http://lucene.apache.org/

http://www.microsoft.com/web/webpi/eula/msn_webgrease_eula.htm

http://nhunspell.sourceforge.net/

https://access.redhat.com/site/products/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/gg577610

http://xml.apache.org/xalan-j/

http://thinktecture.github.io/

http://tomcat.apache.org

WiX

The WiX toolset builds Windows installation packages from XML source code. The

toolset integrates seamlessly into build processes.

Apache Xerces

TheApache Xerces Project is responsible for software licensed to theApache Software

Foundation intended for the creation and maintenance of:

■ XML parsers

■ related software components

XULRunner

XULRunner is a runtime environment developed by the Mozilla Foundation to provide

a common back-end for previewing.



http://wixtoolset.org/

http://xerces.apache.org/

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/XULRunner



Chapter 2

Product Overview and ArchitectureSDL Knowledge Center is an integrated enterprise solution that empowers companies to

create, manage and deliver product and user assistance content across the entire customer

journey. Besides facilitating content creation, management and delivery, SDLKnowledge

Center promotes collaboration among authors, reviewers, and content managers.


Authoring

Product Overview and Architecture


In SDLKnowledge Center you can author content using either the WYSIWYG web-based

client, or the Authoring Bridge solution that seamlessly integrates with your XML

desktop authoring tool of choice. Conditional text and variables help you craft modular

and reusable content.

Authoring Bridge

Authors can install the Authoring Bridge to allow direct access to the repository from

within their XML authoring environment. The benefit is that authors can work

exclusively in their familiar authoring tool without launching an external application

or browser to perform their writing or editing tasks. Authors can focus on content

creation and editing without worrying about metadata structures, link management or

file validation. The Authoring Bridge is available for Arbortext Editor, JustSystems

XMetaL and Adobe FrameMaker. Alternatively, all content in the repository can be

accessed directly through a web-browser. Users can download the content from any

location and open it in any XML authoring tool.

Online authoring

Besides the Authoring Bridge solution allowing authors to write their content without

leaving their XML editor of choice, SDL Knowledge Center offers also a web-based

WYSIWYG XML editor with a user-friendly interface. The online editor is

DITA-aware, and it seamlessly integrates with the content management and content

delivery components. It keeps DITA complexity under the hood, and it is therefore

suitable also for quick on-the-fly edits by SMEs.

Creation of single-source, universal topics

Content Manager provides an easy to use yet sophisticated mechanism for defining,

managing, applying and resolving conditions and variables within XML content. This

allows authors to maximize content reuse while still allowing for content uniqueness.

Write once, reuse many times

Content Manager offers powerful and user-friendly functionality to define, manage,

apply, and resolve DITAXML conditions and variables. This allows authors to

maximize content reuse, while allowing for content uniqueness.

Work offline

All objects are stored in the repository. The Authoring Bridge makes downloading

and uploading objects between the repository and the authoring environment easy. To

allow users to work offline from the repository, the Authoring Bridge leverages the

authoring tool's utilization of local storage. Users can make objects available on their

local file system, edit them on their local workstation and upload them back after

connecting to the repository.

International collaboration

Authenticated users can access the system through the web or web services from

anywhere in the world.

Editing and commenting

The web-based WYSIWYG XML editor has the familiar look and feel of a standard

word processor. SMEs and product managers can review and edit content on-the-fly; no

DITA knowledge is required. Users can leave and reply to comments, for example to

suggest changes and improvements.



Search and taxonomies

Content Manager supports two ways to locate content: search and navigation. Authors

can search for content using metadata and/or full text search. Users can navigate to

content using different views that are available.

Reporting capabilities

Elaborate reporting capabilities are available. Standard reports can give an overview

of where a component is used and its change history. An author can get a quick

overview of the status of a publication indicating which components are missing,

which components need to be approved, which components need to be translated. A

manager can obtain report identifying the differences between two versions of a

publication, including for example which topics were added and which topics were

changed. All reports can be downloaded in Comma Separated Values (CSV) file

format.

Link management

Content Manager guarantees document integrity. Content Manager never allows the

removal of a topic or map that is being referenced by a topic or used in a map (table of

contents). The same applies to other content objects such as images. This prevents

broken links in your web sites or missing pages in your published output.

Custom metadata model

Content Manager allows setting up a specific metadata model tailored to suit your

company and business requirements. This is achieved with simple configuration.

Security

Content Manager provides secure access to the repository and all its contents. Access

rights are established and implemented at the user and/or group level by the system

administrator. Access levels include read-only, read-write and delete.

Web client security

As there is more and more awareness about security, we invested in tests and enhancements

on our web clients. This resulted in improved security against a wide range of potential

threats.

Penetration testing was done on our web client. All critical and potentially high issues

coming out of this regarding Cross-Site Scripting (XSS), information leakage, insufficient

authentication, content spoofing, predictable resource location, SQL injection are fixed.

Cross site scripting (XSS)

■ Stored XSS: these generally occur when user input is stored on the target server.

The data can be retrieved from the web application without being made safe to

render in the browser.

■ Reflected XSS: these occur when user input is immediately returned by a web

application in an error message, search result or any other response that includes

some or all of the input provided by the user as part of the request. This happens

without that data being made safe to be rendered in the browser and without

permanently storing the user provided data.



Our Classic ASP pages were fixed by using the reform libraries provided by the

“https://www.owasp.org/” encoding project. (ASP).NET pages make use of the build-in

libraries from the .NET Framework.

Cookies

Cookies are now verified to be Secure, so preventing cookies from being observed byunauthorized parties; and HttpOnlywhich helps mitigating the risk of client side scriptingaccessing the protected cookie (if the browser supports it).

HTTP Response Headers

Revealing the specific software version of the server may allow the server machine to

become more vulnerable to attacks against software that is known to contain security holes.

The headers X-Powered-By, X-AspNet-Version and Server are removed through

web.config configuration and assisted by an HttpModule calledRemoveVersionHttpResponseHeaderModule. Response headers now no longerreveal information like [TS-10481|TS-10093]

Server: Microsoft-IIS/8.5

X-AspNetMvc-Version: 5.2

X-Powered-By: ASP.NET

SQL Injection

This basically consists in inserting a SQL query via the input data form from the client to

the application. A successful injection exploit can read sensitive data from the database,

modify data, execute administration operations, ...

During the scans there was no evidence found that this is an issue for our web client.

Overall, Content Manager's web client is build up with a dedicated Data Access Layer

which fully relies on techniques like parameter binding.

Insufficient Transport Layer Protection

SSL/TLS has a good version negotiation mechanism that should prevent a browser (and.NET client applications) and server that support a modern TLS version from usinganything less. However, because some servers are buggy and don't implement versionnegotiation correctly, browsers break this mechanism by retrying connections with lesserSSL/TLS versions when TLS handshaking fails. By injecting some trivial errors on thenetwork, an attacker can cause a browser to speak SSL3 to any server and then run theabove attack.

The essence is that client and server can be forced to handshake down to the minimal

common intersection of protocols supported which out of the box is an SSL 3.0 that has a

serious security risk (POODLE attack).

We've adapted our client tools to no longer accept a protocol handshake resulting in SSL3overwriting the out-of-the-box .NET runtime behavior. [TS-9114|TS-9428]

You can also avoid the usage of protocol SSL3 by no longer allowing it on your server as



described on https://technet.microsoft.com/ ; this will also make it work for web browsers.

Reviewing and commentingReviewers use Content Delivery to check a publication, provide feedback to the authors,

and verify if the changes suggested in their comments are accepted and implemented, or

rejected.

The Content Delivery landing page in Content Delivery displays an overview of the

available publications, and a feed with the most recent comments.

In the middle pane of the Content Delivery page, click the publication you want to open,

navigate the hierarchy, and browse to the topics you want to review. Notice these features

of the topic view:

■ The table of contents (or index) appears on the left.

■ The publication and topic hierarchy path for the current topic appears in the

breadcrumb trail across the top.

■ Any comments on that topic appear to the right.

You can easily view, edit, add or delete comments, as well as reply to them.

To make it easier for authors and reviewers to understand the immediate context a

comment refers to, you can associate a comment to a specific text selection.

The contextual content is displayed in a tooltip when you click the Show referenced text

button in the corresponding comment.



PublishingAuthors create and edit their content in Content Manager, and then they push it to Content

Delivery for publication.

Content authors use Content Manager Publication Manager and Authoring Bridge to

create and modify DITA content and structure

When the content is ready for publication, they use Publication Manager to publish it to

the desired Content Delivery output type.

In a typical installation, administrators configure the SDLKnowledge Center environment

so that publication to the selected Content Delivery output type creates a corresponding

revision in Publication Manager, and then it publishes a new revision of the publication to

the Content Delivery server.

Analytics overviewAnalytics reports enable you to collect data about how a Content Delivery application is

accessed, searched, and run over time. Based on the data, you can define patterns and

trends to gain insight into application and content usage.

Content Delivery data gathering and analysis functionality is accessible through the

Analytics button on the Content Delivery landing page.



If the Analytics button is not available on the left side of the landing page under

Administration Tools, your user profile does not have sufficient access rights to run

analytics reports, or your product license does not cover the Analytics module. Contact

your system administrator for further details.

The Analytics window includes an Analytics category pane on the left with sets of

predefined queries that you can run right away. To run a query and generate a report chart,

double-click a query in the Analytics pane on the left, or drag it onto the Report area.

Figure 1: Analytics interface as accessed from Content Delivery

Content Manager ArchitectureGlobal Content Manager architecture is briefly described, as well as how the elements of

the system are organized together with the users. APIs play an important part in this

system.

The four layers of Content Manager platform

The system architecture consists of four layers: foundation layer, business layer,

integration layer, and application layer.

Overview

The following diagram provides an overview of all major components in the physical

system architecture:



Content Manager platform layers

The Content Manager platform consists of four main logical layers:

■ The Foundation Layer: a low-level API used to interact with different databases.

■ The Business layer: a COM+API that is partially exposed through Web Services.

■ The Integration layer: a public Web Services API that can be used to integrate the

Content Manager repository with another system, or to develop custom tools on

top of the Content Manager repository.

■ The Application Layer: applications of Content Manager, and connectors to

translation management systems such as SDLWorldServer and SDL TMS.

The first three layers run on a server environment. The architecture supports all major

open standards, including XML, XSL, SOAP, WSDL, and W3C.

The foundation layer

Content Manager is built on top of TriDK. This layer interacts directly with either Oracle

or Microsoft SQL Server, as well as with the full-text indexing engine. TriDK provides

functionality to store and manage objects in the database.

TriDK supports an object-relational data model. This means that the table structure in the

database remains the same even when clients define their custom metadata in the

repository.



The business layer

The business layer contains the business logic to manage content in the repository, and to

consume it from the repository.

This layer consists of two sub-layers:

■ The contributor business layer: this layer handles the logic responsible for con-

tent creation, review, translation, and publication. This layer provides also spe-

cific connectivity functionality to link the system to external translation

management systems and publishing engines.

■ The consumer business layer: this layer is the foundation for end-user web sites.

It is not possible to create new objects or modify existing objects through this layer.

The integration layer

The integration layer is a Web Services API that enables third-party systems integration,

for example with authoring tools, PLM systems, publishing engines, and so on. Authoring

Bridge, our standard desktop client tool, uses the Web Services API to access the

repository.

The Content Manager Communication layer is developed in .NET technology.

The application layer

Content Manager provides the following applications off-the-shelf:

■ Content Manager web client: a web client to access the repository through an

Internet web browser like Internet Explorer, Firefox or Chrome.

■ Authoring Bridge: an add-in for major XML authoring tools; it allows technical

writers to access the repository through their XML authoring tool.

■ Condition Manager: a desktop client to define and manage conditions in the

repository.

■ Publication Manager: a desktop client that allows technical writers and

information architects to assemble modular content into deliverable publications.

All Content Manager components are developed according to the stateless component

model. Following the stateless component model, a request made by a user is loaded into

memory, fulfilled, and then unloaded. Subsequent requests by the same user are treated

just like any request; the server makes no attempt to remember what the user has previously

requested.

Stateless development brings two important advantages in terms of:



■ System availability and maintenance: the servers hosting the business and

presentation logic can be swapped, provided their configurations are identical (for

example, the database location should be the same on both servers). This means

that servers can be brought down for system maintenance without any application

downtime, since there is no single point of failure.

■ System performance: stateless components enable Network Load Balancing

(NLB) and Component Load Balancing (CLB) to dispatch requests to the

processor with the lightest workload.

Content Manager basic system structure

Content Manager accommodates access for many types of users from inside and outside

the internal network through secure networks, firewalls, DMZ, or VPNs.

Information contributors, people that write, review, or translate content, access the

repository through an internal company network. The database and application servers

are connected to the secure internal network.

Information contributors, located at remote sites, can also access the repository typically

over a virtual private network (VPN).

The diagram below illustrates how information contributors and information consumers

are connected to the system:



Web Services API

Plan for your integration layer and Web Services API to systems that fulfill a particular

role in your content creation and publishing process.

You can access Content Manager functionality through a Web Services API. This makes

Content Manager integration with other applications a very easy task.

Content Manager integrations with authoring, review, translation, and publication

applications are developed using the Web Services API. Moreover, Content Manager and

its partners have developed system interfaces that fulfill a particular role in specific

content creation and publishing processes. For example:

Spare Parts System

You can integrate the Content Manager system with your spare parts system.

Product Configuration System

From within your internal product configuration, you can create an interface that

enables Content Manager to retrieve specific features and options to meet your needs.

This results in highly personalized publications.

Variable Definition System

You can integrate Content Manager with a system to define values for variables. This

type of integration typically occurs in the telecom and software sectors.

Content Delivery ArchitectureContent Delivery is a dynamic delivery application that enables smart searching, advanced

content rendering and personalization. Content Delivery end-users can interact with the

content, and (passively) track their activity for analytics and reporting purposes.

Content Delivery is a web application exposing an API that can be accessed through

HTTP or HTTPS protocols: any clients or applications such as web browsers, ANT scripts,

or other languages that can make HTTP requests can communicate with it.

As a user requests the API, calls are handled by the application's business logic layer.

This layer checks authorizations, validates requests, and returns request results. Users are

granted an anonymous session access to the system, with the option to authenticate to

gain additional user group-based permissions.

Binary content (images, Flash movies, PDFs) and XML resources (topics, DITAmaps,

XHTML) published to Content Delivery are stored in the underlying XML database.

Content is indexed for full-text searching by SolrLucene. As content is retrieved from the

database, it is passed through a rendering pipeline, which might personalize it, and then

render it to the specified HTML or PDF output.



Security Token Service and KnowledgeCenter

SDL Knowledge Center integrates with a Security Token Service to externalize

authentication and to provide a Single Sign-On experience across all SDL Knowledge

Center components.

For a successful integration, the Security Token Service must support specific protocols

and token formats.

The following protocol requirements for a Security Token Service are based on active or

passive profile categories.

Passive profile protocol requirements

WS Federation

Active profile protocol requirements

WS Trust 1.3

Part of WS Trust 1.4. Only the part that specifies the ActAs element is required tosupport identity delegation.

The Security Token Service is required to generate security tokens using the SAML 1.1

format.



The following diagram shows all required client connections for the SDL Knowledge

Center Federated services. The arrow captions provide information about the schema

(HTTP or HTTPS) and the dependent protocol or technology in use.

Note: The diagram includes connectivity to the Content Delivery. Content Delivery

does not integrate with the Security Token Service.



Chapter 3

SDL Knowledge Center list ofrequirements

For a harmonious installation and use, take the list of hardware and software requirements

into account before any operation.

SDL Knowledge Center generalrequirements

Overview of the minimum hardware and software requirements that need to be met to

install and run any or all of SDL Knowledge Center capabilities. Unless stated otherwise,

the requirements listed apply to all parts of SDL Knowledge Center.

Hardware requirements

Hardware requirements depend on the size of the project. Dual core CPU and 8 Gb RAM

are a minimum for the database, and a quad core with 12 Gb RAM for the application

server. It is also recommended to install two servers for a start, one server handling the

synchronous operations and one server handling the asynchronous/background operations.

Although all capabilities in SDL Knowledge Center can run on a single server.

More information can be found in the dedicated Hardware requirements for each

capability.

Software requirements

Note: The supported version numbers are noted in Software requirements for each

capability.

Operating systems


Servers can run on a Microsoft or a Linux operating system

Database

The system requires one of the following.

■ AUNIX-based Content Manager database server running Oracle.

■ AMicrosoft Windows Content Manager database server running Oracle or

MS SQL Server, Standard or Enterprise edition.

Note: To be able to execute database transactions, the Microsoft Distributed

Transaction Coordinator (MSDTC) settings of the database server have to match the

ones on the application server. All servers require a reboot before these settings become

active.

Other software

Capabilities in SDL Knowledge Center require the use of Java and XML processors

such as Microsoft XML Parser.

SDL Knowledge Center supports the use of today's leading XML editors and can also

include its own editor.

SDL Knowledge Center supports the use of today's leading Web browsers.

Software compatibility across releasesInformation about third party or client software is packaged, configured and tested for a

specific software version release.

Version Overview

The following table — available for informational purposes only — indicates:

■ The Content Manager client tools versions which should be used against a certain

release of the server side components.

■ The Third Party software which is configured or integrated inside a certain release

of the server side components.

■ The Third Party software such as operating systems, databases, and runtimes

which we use to conduct quality assurance testing for the server side components

.

Attention: Exact versions indicate a version which we did regression testing;

these are usually also available for download. Note that other versions may work

but are not quality assured. If a problem is encountered we only accept the issue if

it is reproducible on the listed versions.

SDL Knowledge Center list of requirements


Note: Content Manager is qualified on an English version of our supported

operating systems only. Other languages of these operational systems are not used

for quality check purposes.

Restriction: The relation between the Content Manager client tools and the XML

editors are not defined in this table. Installation packages are not always available for all

XML editor versions.

CAUTION: For the most up-to-date information you should always verify the latest

installation documentation. There are other requirements than the ones listed below.

Note: The names, trademarks, designs, logos, service marks, intellectual property, etc.,

of the products shown are exclusive property of their respective owners.

Terminology used:

■ S: is short for Supported which means that the software was used, configured or

integrated in the version.

■ -: means that there is no information available for this combination. Usually

because one of them was not around yet during the mentioned era or because it is

simply not a supported combination anymore.

■ D: is short for Deprecated which means the software was used/configured or

integrated in the version; but you are strongly advised to not use this combination

anymore.

Release ... supports ... 9.0.x /

2011

9.2.x /

2011R2

10.0.x /

2013

11.0.x /

2014

12.0.x /

2016

SDL Trisoft Publication Manager

9.1.x

S - - - -

SDL Trisoft Publication Manager

9.3.x

- S - - -

SDL LiveContent Architect

Publication Manager 10.1.x

- - S - -


Publication Manager 11.1.x

- - - S -

SDL Knowledge Center Publication

Manager 12.0.x

- - - - S

SDL Trisoft Authoring Bridge 9.1.x S - - - -

SDL Trisoft Authoring Bridge 9.3.x - S - - -




2011

9.2.x /

2011R2

10.0.x /

2013

11.0.x /

2014

12.0.x /

2016

SDL LiveContent Architect Authoring

Bridge 10.1.x

- - S - -

SDL LiveContent Architect Authoring

Bridge 11.1.x

- - - S -

SDL Knowledge Center Authoring

Bridge 12.0.x

- - - - S

Microsoft Windows XP S S D - -

Microsoft Windows Vista S S D - -

Microsoft Windows 7 - - S S D

Microsoft Windows 8 / 8.1 - - - S S

Microsoft Windows 10 - - - - S

PTCArbortext Editor 5.3 support files D

Only

OASIS

DITA

1.1

support.

D

Only

OASIS

DITA

1.1

support.

D

Only

OASIS

DITA

1.1

support.

- -

PTCArbortext Editor 5.4 support files S S D D -

PTCArbortext Editor 6.0 support files - - S

Support

added in

10.0.1

for

Arbor-

text

Editor

6.0

M060.

Note

that 6.0

doesn't

support

various

DITA

1.2

features

like

keyref

or

conref

ranges.

S

Note

that 6.0

doesn't

support

various

DITA

1.2

features

like

keyref

or

conref

ranges.

D

Note

that 6.0

doesn't

support

various

DITA

1.2

features

like

keyref

or

conref

ranges.




2011

9.2.x /

2011R2

10.0.x /

2013

11.0.x /

2014

12.0.x /

2016

PTCArbortext Editor 6.1 support files - - - - -

PTCArbortext Editor 7.0 support files - - - - S

JustSystems XMetaL 5.5 support files D D D - -

JustSystems XMetaL 6.0 support files S S D - -

JustSystems XMetaL 7.0 support files - - D

Support

added in

10.0.1

for

JustSys-

tems

XMetaL

7.0 -

verified

on

version

7.0.111

-

Re-

placed,

hence

re-

moved

in

11.0.0

by

JustSys-

tems

XMetaL

9.0

-

JustSystems XMetaL 8.0 support files - - S

Support

added in

10.0.3

for

JustSys-

tems

XMetaL

8.0 -

verified

on

version

8.0.258

S -

JustSystems XMetaL 9.0 support files - - - S

Support

added in

11.0.0

for

JustSys-

tems

XMetaL

9.0 -

verified

on

version

9.0.45

D




2011

9.2.x /

2011R2

10.0.x /

2013

11.0.x /

2014

12.0.x /

2016

JustSystems XMetaL 10.0 / 10.0

J(apanese) support files

- - - - S

Syncro Soft <oXygen/> XMLAuthor

14 support files

- - S

Support

added in

10.0.1

for

Syncro

Soft

<oXy-

gen/>

XML

Author

14 -

verified

on

version

14.1,

version

14.2 is

also

sup-

ported

-

Re-

placed,

hence

re-

moved

in

11.0.0

by

Syncro

Soft

<oXy-

gen/>

XML

Author

16

-


15.2 support files

- - - D -


16.0 support files

- - - S D


17.1 support files

- - - - S

Adobe FrameMaker 9.0 support files S

Only

OASIS

DITA

1.1

Support.

S

Only

OASIS

DITA

1.1

Support.

D - -

Adobe FrameMaker 10.0 support files - S S D -

Adobe FrameMaker 11.0 support files - - - - -

Adobe FrameMaker 12.0 support files - - - - -

SDL Trisoft Condition Manager 9.1.x S - - - -

SDL Trisoft Condition Manager 9.3.x - S - - -




2011

9.2.x /

2011R2

10.0.x /

2013

11.0.x /

2014

12.0.x /

2016

SDL LiveContent Architect Condition

Manager 10.1.x

- - S - -

SDL LiveContent Architect Condition

Manager 11.1.x

- - - S -

SDL Knowledge Center Condition

Manager 12.0.x

- - - - S


DITA2Trisoft 10.1.x

- - S - -


DITA2Trisoft 11.1.x

- - - S -

SDL Knowledge Center Content

Importer 12.0.x

- - - - S

SDL LiveContent Reach 7.0 - - - S

Verified

with

11.0.0

-

SDL LiveContent Reach 7.1 - - - S

Verified

with

11.0.1

-

SDL LiveContent Reach 7.3 - - S

Verified

with

10.0.4

and

10.0.5

S

Verified

with

11.0.2

and

11.0.3

D

SDL Knowledge Center Content

Delivery 7.4

- - - - S

SDL TMS 2011 SP4 CU2 - - - S D

SDL TMS 2011 SP5 CU2 - - - S D

SDL TMS 2011 SP6 CU1 - - - - S

SDL TMS 11 - - - - S

SDLWorldServer 10.1 - - S D -



SDLWorldServer 10.4.4 - - - S S

SDLWorldServer 11.0 - - - - S




2011

9.2.x /

2011R2

10.0.x /

2013

11.0.x /

2014

12.0.x /

2016

SDL XPP 9.1 - - - - S

Microsoft Windows 2003 R2 32bit

SP3

D - - - -

Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 64bit S - - - -

Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 64bit

SP1

- S S D -

Microsoft Windows 2012 64bit - - - - -

Microsoft Windows 2012 R2 64bit - - - S S

Microsoft Windows PowerShell 4.0

(part of Windows Management

Framework 4.0)

- - - S S

Microsoft Active Directory Federated

Services (ADFS) 2.0

- - S S D


Services (ADFS) 2.1

- - - S D


Services (ADFS) 3.0

- - - - S

Oracle RDBMs 9.2.0.2 D - - - -

Oracle RDBMs 10.2.0.4 D D D - -

Oracle RDBMs 11.2.0.1 - S S - -

Oracle RDBMs 11.2.0.4 - - - S D

Oracle RDBMs 12.1.0.2 - - - - S

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 SP3 D D - - -

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 SP4 - S D - -

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 SP1 S S - - -

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 SP2 - S - - -

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 SP3 - S D - -

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 SP2 - - S D -

Microsoft SQL Server 2012 SP1 - - - S -




2011

9.2.x /

2011R2

10.0.x /

2013

11.0.x /

2014

12.0.x /

2016

Microsoft SQL Server 2012 SP2 S

Support

added in

11.0.1

for

Mi-

crosoft

SQL

Server

2012

SP2

D

Microsoft SQL Server 2014 SP1 - - - - S

DITA-OT 1.5.1 S S - - -

DITA-OT 1.5.4 - - D - -

DITA-OT 1.7.5 - - S

Support

added in

10.0.2

for

DITA-

OT

1.7.5

S -

DITA-OT 1.8.5 - - - - S

Java Runtime 1.6.0_12 (32b/64b) S S D

Support

added in

10.0.2

for Java

Runtime

1.7.0_

21

(32b).

- -

Java Runtime 1.7.0_21 (32b) - - S

Support

added in

10.0.2

for Java

Runtime

1.7.0_

21

- -




2011

9.2.x /

2011R2

10.0.x /

2013

11.0.x /

2014

12.0.x /

2016

Java Runtime 1.7.0_21 (64b) - - - S

Support

added in

10.0.2

for Java

Runtime

1.7.0_

21 (64b)

for

Trisoft-

SolrLu-

cene

service.

D

Java Runtime 1.8.0_60 (64b) - - - - S

Java Development Kit 1.6.0_18

(32b/64b)

S S D - -

Java Development Kit 1.7.0_21 (64b) - - S

Support

added in

10.0.2

for Java

Devel-

opment

Kit

1.7.0_

21 (64b)

S D

Java Development Kit 1.8.0_60 (64b) - - - - S




2011

9.2.x /

2011R2

10.0.x /

2013

11.0.x /

2014

12.0.x /

2016

OASIS DITA 1.0 DTD/Catalog

configuration

D

The

public

identi-

fier of

OASIS

DITA

has no

version,

so when

we

intro-

duced

OASIS

DITA

1.1 we

had to

redirect

the

version-

less

identi-

fier to

this

latest

fully

back-

ward

compat-

ible

version

in our

catalog

files.

D

The

public

identi-

fier of

OASIS

DITA

has no

version,

so when

we

intro-

duced

OASIS

DITA

1.1 we

had to

redirect

the

version-

less

identi-

fier to

this

latest

fully

back-

ward

compat-

ible

version

in our

catalog

files.

D

The

public

identi-

fier of

OASIS

DITA

has no

version,

so when

we

intro-

duced

OASIS

DITA

1.1 we

had to

redirect

the

version-

less

identi-

fier to

this

latest

fully

back-

ward

compat-

ible

version

in our

catalog

files.

D

The

public

identi-

fier of

OASIS

DITA

has no

version,

so when

we

intro-

duced

OASIS

DITA

1.1 we

had to

redirect

the

version-

less

identi-

fier to

this

latest

fully

back-

ward

compat-

ible

version

in our

catalog

files.

D

The

public

identi-

fier of

OASIS

DITA

has no

version,

so when

we

intro-

duced

OASIS

DITA

1.1 we

had to

redirect

the

version-

less

identi-

fier to

this

latest

fully

back-

ward

compat-

ible

version

in our

catalog

files.




2011

9.2.x /

2011R2

10.0.x /

2013

11.0.x /

2014

12.0.x /

2016


configuration

D

The

public

identi-

fier of

OASIS

DITA

has no

version,

so when

we

intro-

duced

OASIS

DITA

1.2 we

had to

redirect

the

version-

less

identi-

fier to

this

latest

fully

back-

ward

compat-

ible

version

in our

catalog

files.

D

The

public

identi-

fier of

OASIS

DITA

has no

version,

so when

we

intro-

duced

OASIS

DITA

1.2 we

had to

redirect

the

version-

less

identi-

fier to

this

latest

fully

back-

ward

compat-

ible

version

in our

catalog

files.

D

The

public

identi-

fier of

OASIS

DITA

has no

version,

so when

we

intro-

duced

OASIS

DITA

1.2 we

had to

redirect

the

version-

less

identi-

fier to

this

latest

fully

back-

ward

compat-

ible

version

in our

catalog

files.

D

The

public

identi-

fier of

OASIS

DITA

has no

version,

so when

we

intro-

duced

OASIS

DITA

1.2 we

had to

redirect

the

version-

less

identi-

fier to

this

latest

fully

back-

ward

compat-

ible

version

in our

catalog

files.

D

The

public

identi-

fier of

OASIS

DITA

has no

version,

so when

we

intro-

duced

OASIS

DITA

1.2 we

had to

redirect

the

version-

less

identi-

fier to

this

latest

fully

back-

ward

compat-

ible

version

in our

catalog

files.


configuration

S S S S S


configuration

- - - - -




2011

9.2.x /

2011R2

10.0.x /

2013

11.0.x /

2014

12.0.x /

2016

IBM DITA 1.3.2 DTD/Catalog

configuration

We strongly advise to change to

OASIS DITA. The provided IBM

DITA setup is only for backward

compatibility. No new features will be

implemented on these DTDs.

D

We

strongly

advise

to

change

to

OASIS

DITA.

The

pro-

vided

IBM

DITA

setup is

only for

back-

ward

compat-

ibility.

No new

features

will be

imple-

mented

on these

DTDs.

D

We

strongly

advise

to

change

to

OASIS

DITA.

The

pro-

vided

IBM

DITA

setup is

only for

back-

ward

compat-

ibility.

No new

features

will be

imple-

mented

on these

DTDs.

D

We

strongly

advise

to

change

to

OASIS

DITA.

The

pro-

vided

IBM

DITA

setup is

only for

back-

ward

compat-

ibility.

No new

features

will be

imple-

mented

on these

DTDs.

D

We

strongly

advise

to

change

to

OASIS

DITA.

The

pro-

vided

IBM

DITA

setup is

only for

back-

ward

compat-

ibility.

No new

features

will be

imple-

mented

on these

DTDs.

D

We

strongly

advise

to

change

to

OASIS

DITA.

The

pro-

vided

IBM

DITA

setup is

only for

back-

ward

compat-

ibility.

No new

features

will be

imple-

mented

on these

DTDs.

AntennaHouse XSL Formatter 3.3 - - - - -




AntennaHouse XSL Formatter 5.1 S - - - -

AntennaHouse XSL Formatter 5.3 - S - - -

AntennaHouse XSL Formatter 6.0 - - S - -

AntennaHouse XSL Formatter 6.2 - - - S S

PTCArbortext Publishing Engine 5.3 D - - - -

Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 S S D - -

Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 - S S - -




2011

9.2.x /

2011R2

10.0.x /

2013

11.0.x /

2014

12.0.x /

2016

Microsoft Internet Explorer 10 - - S

Support

added in

10.0.1

for

Internet

Ex-

plorer

10.

S D

Microsoft Internet Explorer 11 - - - S S

Microsoft Edge - - - - -

Google Chrome (release update

channel)

- - S

Support

added in

10.0.4

for

Google

Chrome

-

verified

on

version

30

S

Verified

on

version

35

S

Verified

on

version

45

Mozilla FireFox (release update

channel)

- - S

Support

added in

10.0.4

for

Mozilla

FireFox

-

verified

on

version

25

S

Verified

on

version

30

S

Verified

on

version

41




2011

9.2.x /

2011R2

10.0.x /

2013

11.0.x /

2014

12.0.x /

2016

Acrolinx Plug-in for Oxygen - - S

Verified

on

10.0.5

for

oXygen

14.2

using

Ac-

rolinx

3.3.0

build

3325

S

Verified

for

oXygen

14.2 and

15.2

using

Ac-

rolinx

3.3.0

build

3325

S

Verified

for

oXygen

17.1

using

Ac-

rolinx

3.4.0

build

4179

Acrolinx Plug-in for XMetaL - - S

Verified

on

10.0.5

for

XMetaL

8 and 8J

using

Ac-

rolinx

3.2.0

build

882

S

Verified

for

XMetaL

8 and 8J

using

Ac-

rolinx

3.2.0

build

882

S

Verified

for

XMetaL

10 using

Ac-

rolinx

4.2.0

build

1153

SDL Quality Assistant 2.2.0 - - - - S

Verified

for

Content

Editor

integra-

tion.

SmartLogic SES 3.7.3 - - - - S

Verified

for

IMeta-

data-

Binding

integra-

tion.



Content Manager requirementsAll requirements for the Content Manager application, web, and batch servers are

described.

Content Manager hardware requirements

Before you install or upgrade the server, you must check the hardware requirements prior

to completing the pre-installation tasks.

Hardware

The performance of Content Manager depends primarily on the CPU power and the

I/O characteristics of the hardware. High CPU power is needed to allow the system to

make calculations on-the-fly, for example, for publishing. The I/O performance

largely influences the system’s speed to gather and assemble information from the

database to serve user requests. Content Manager imposes no specific requirements

for data storage, as it holds generic versions that become specific versions by

calculation on a user's request.

Know that the hardware required for a specific Content Manager implementation

depends on the specific requirements and settings of the project (for example, the

number of concurrent users). The exact definition of the hardware requirements is

typically done at the beginning of the project.

Database

The database server may be on any platform supported by the database vendor.

Hardware and platform requirements for the database server should be obtained from

the database vendor. The specifications supplied by Content Manager should be

checked against the specifications supplied by the database vendor for the current

hardware on which it is installed.

An example Microsoft Windows server machine. could minimally have the following

specifications:

■ CPU: dual core Xeon® 2.0 GHz

■ Internal Memory: 8 GB RAM

Database storage demands must account for the following:

■ All XML content and related metadata

■ All images

■ Published output (for example: PDF, CHM, and so on).

As a rule of thumb, multiply the size of all images by 3 to get an estimate of the

starting size for your database. A normal documentation project can use 100 GB for

its storage needs for about 2 to 3 years.

Web and Application layer

The server can be on a single system. However, for performance reasons it is advised

to scale and have redundancy over multiple servers. The Content Manager System

Architecture document helps you determine the setup. Due to the many setup

variations, you may want to contact the support team to discuss your specific setup.



The minimum server configuration: A recent quad core system(s) containing 8 GB of

RAM or more. Virtualized environments are supported if they are guaranteed to behave

like a Windows OS installed on a physical machine. If performance is, or becomes

an issue, you are advised to use physical servers.

A recommended server configuration should include a quad core Xeon® X5550 2.66

GHz processor system with at least 12 MB Level 3 cache and 8 GB RAM, dual port

Gigabit Ethernet, and a smart array RAID controller with 256 MB memory.

Storage demands: The consumers of storage are the actual installed Content Manager

software components, the full-text-index collection, exported, and published content.

Considering a normal documentation project, with an initial database reservation of

100 GB, the server should have at least 50 GB. The typical setup is two servers, one

handling the synchronous operations and one server handling the asynchronous/

background operations. Initially you can start with one server handling all operations;

we then suggest a dual CPU server. A second server can be added quite easily

afterwards if load needs to be reduced on the primary server.

Client requirements

Client machines running desktop applications such as Publication Manager should

have at least a 2.0 GHz CPU and 4 GB RAM.

Network requirements

Due to its stateless model, Content Manager passes large quantities of data. A 10 Mbit

network connection provides a more than acceptable throughput.

Content Manager software requirements

Information about third-party or client software that is packaged, configured and tested

for this software version release.

The following overview includes information about:

■ Third-party software that is configured or integrated in this server-side compo-

nent release.

■ Third-party software, such as the operating systems, databases, and runtimes that

are quality-assurance tested.

■ Client hardware and software compatibility.

Third Party Software supported versions

We specify the third party tools version we used during SDL Knowledge Center

release testing. Other versions work as well as long as the third party tools can confirm

compatibility with our tested version. Some of our dependencies have shorter release

cycles than SDL Knowledge Center, such as Java runtimes, web browsers or XML

editors, you working on a later version than the one specified in this documentation is

therefore to be expected. Should you discover an incompatibility between one of

these later version of a third party tool and Knowledge Center, report an issue to

support. Customer support will accept the issue only if it is reproducible for the listed

versions.



Restriction: The relation between the Authoring Bridge and the XML editors is not

specified below. Installation packages for Authoring Bridge are not always available for

all XML editors.

Note: Names, trademarks, designs, logos, service marks, intellectual property, and so on,

of the products shown are exclusive property of their respective owners.

Application server

■ Microsoft Windows Server 2012R2 (64-bit)

■ Java Runtime 1.8.0_60 (64-bit)

■ Java Development Kit 1.8.0_60 (64-bit)

■ Java Help 2.0.05

■ Microsoft Server .NET Framework 4.5

■ Microsoft .NET Framework Visual C++ Redistributable 2013 (64-bit).

■ Microsoft PowerShell 4.0.

■ DITAOpen Toolkit 1.8.5

Tip: Standard installation package holds a DITAOpen Toolkit version.

■ Microsoft XML Parser 6.0 Service Pack 2 (32-bit and 64-bit)

Tip:Microsoft Windows 2012R2 ships with XML Parser 6.0 as part of the

Application Server role.

■ Microsoft XML Parser 4.0 Service Pack 3 (32-bit)

■ HTML Help Workshop 1.3

■ AntennaHouse XSL Formatter 6.2 M12

Database server

Database systems and versions

■ Oracle RDBMs 11g

■ Oracle RDBMs 12c

■ Microsoft SQL Server 2014 SP1

■ Microsoft SQL Server 2012 SP2

Client

■ Microsoft Windows 7 (32-bit)


■ Microsoft Windows 8.1 (64-bit)




■ Internet Explorer 11


■ Google Chrome (latest version)

■ Mozilla Firefox (latest version)

■ Content Editor

■ JustSystems XMetaLAuthor Enterprise 10.0

■ JustSystems XMetaLAuthor Enterprise 9.0

■ JustSystems XMetaLAuthor Enterprise 10.0 Japanese

■ Syncro Soft <oXygen/> XMLAuthor 17.1 (Windows 32-bit)

■ Syncro Soft <oXygen/> XMLAuthor 16.1 (Windows 32-bit)

■ PTCArbortext Editor 7.0 (Windows 32-bit)

About XML editors

Restriction: Only 32-bit mode for the editors is approved and qualified.

Note: Although multiple third-party XML editors are supported, we recommend

choosing and using a single third-party editor. SDL is not responsible for third-party

editor XML and DITA handling; behavior may differ depending on the XML editor. If

you use more than one editor, you may experience cross-compatibility issues related

to DITA handling. If you decide to use multiple third-party XML editors and if you

experience cross-compatibility issues with DITA handling, contact the XML editor

vendor to address these issues.

About web browsers

Note: The browser must be configured to allow the following:

■ Cookies

■ Pop-up windows for Content Editor, when the application is called from the

Content Manager web client.

Note: Designed for a minimum resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels. Optimal resolution:

1280 x 1024 pixels or higher.



Installer User Requirements

The users who can install Content Manager must have permissions and access as required.

An administrator user who has authorized access on the machines to be installed can

install the Content Manager software. The user must be able to:

■ logon to the machine and have full access to the file system

■ alter the registry

■ have full access to the Services, Message Queuing, Indexing, Internet Information

Services and Component Services

A database administrator must set up the Content Manager database. The user must be

able to:

■ create a database

■ run scripts to set up the database

Content Delivery requirementsAll requirements for the Content Delivery application are described.

Content Delivery hardware requirements

Before you install or upgrade Content Delivery, you must check the hardware requirements

prior to completing the pre-installation tasks.

Know that the hardware required for a specific implementation depends on the specific

requirements and settings of the project (for example, the number of concurrent users). The

exact definition of the hardware requirements is typically done at the beginning of the

project.

Web and Application layer

The server can be on a single system. However, for performance reasons it is advised

to scale and have redundancy over multiple servers. The System Architecture

document helps you determine the setup. Due to the many setup variations, you may

want to contact the support team to discuss your specific setup.

The minimum server configuration: A recent quad core system(s) containing 8 GB of

RAM or more. Virtualized environments are supported if they are guaranteed to behave

like a Windows OS installed on a physical machine. If performance is, or becomes

an issue, you are advised to use physical servers.

A recommended server configuration should include a quad core Xeon® X5550 2.66

GHz processor system with at least 12 MB Level 3 cache and 8 GB RAM, dual port

Gigabit Ethernet, and a smart array RAID controller with 256 MB memory.

Network requirements

A 10 Mbit network connection provides a more than acceptable throughput.



Content Delivery software requirements

Information about third-party or client software that is packaged, configured and tested

for this software version release.

The following overview includes information about:

■ Third-party software that is configured or integrated in this server-side compo-

nent release.

■ Third-party software, such as the operating systems, databases, and runtimes that

are quality-assurance tested.

■ Client hardware and software compatibility.

Third Party Software supported versions

We specify the third party tools version we used during SDL Knowledge Center

release testing. Other versions work as well as long as the third party tools can confirm

compatibility with our tested version. Some of our dependencies have shorter release

cycles than SDL Knowledge Center, such as Java runtimes, web browsers or XML

editors, you working on a later version than the one specified in this documentation is

therefore to be expected. Should you discover an incompatibility between one of

these later version of a third party tool and Knowledge Center, report an issue to

support. Customer support will accept the issue only if it is reproducible for the listed

versions.

Note: Names, trademarks, designs, logos, service marks, intellectual property, and so

on, of the products shown are exclusive property of their respective owners.

Application server

■ Microsoft Windows Server 2012R2 (64-bit)

■ Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 6.7 (64-bit)

■ Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 7.1 (64-bit)

■ Java Runtime 1.8.0_60 (64-bit) - when using Content Delivery with your own

web application server.

■ Java Development Kit 1.8.0_60 (64-bit) - when using Content Delivery with

your own web application server.

■ Java Development Kit 1.8.0_60 (32-bit) - when using Content Delivery with

the bundled Jetty server.

■ Apache Tomcat 7.0.32 or later patch

■ Apache Tomcat 8



Note: For Linux, Content Delivery additionally requires that you install two 32-bit

.rpm packages to support the Reprise License Manager. Log in as root and execute the

following commands:

■ yum install glibc.i686

■ yum install nss-softokn-freebl.i686

Note: Install your third-party web application server if you don't intend to use the

bundled installation (with a server included) for Content Delivery. All examples in this

documentation use Apache Tomcat as third-party server. A GUI application may then

be used for fine-tuning Tomcat.

Client



■ Microsoft Windows 8.1 (64-bit)


■ IOS 9



■ Google Chrome (latest version)

■ Mozilla Firefox (latest version)

■ Safari 7

Note: Browser configuration needs to allow cookies, JavaScript execution, and

pop-up windows. Pop-up windows are triggered when the Content Manager web client

makes calls to the Content Editor web-based XML editor.

Browser plugins (additional plugins may be required to support rich media display)

■ Adobe Flash Player version 11 (32-bit and 64-bit version) depending on the

web browser in use. Required to upload Flash content to Content Delivery

using the interactive interface, and to run analytics reports.

■ CGM: Any viewer, such as IsoView (requires an ActiveX control in the

Content Delivery data).

Note: Designed for a minimum resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels. Optimal resolution:

1280 x 1024 pixels or higher.



Chapter 4

Introduction to SDL KnowledgeCenter scalability

A number of deployment scenarios offers an overview of different scaling out options.

Scalability is the ability of a system, network, or process to handle a growing amount of

work in a capable manner or its ability to be expanded to accommodate that growth. For

SDLKnowledge Center and its components, scalability refers to the ability of the system to

increase capabilities like:

■ Total web output;

■ Web services output;

■ Total computation output for the items being executed on the server like

publication, translation, and so on.

This introduction starts with a simple scaling out case, and it granularly adds complexity

and explores scaling out by explaining several cases. Examples include:

■ set up the product and components in a cluster,

■ with or without a single sign-on (SSO) solution. For example, ISHSTS or ADFS.

SDL Knowledge Center network clusterExample of a combined Content Manager, Content Delivery and QualityAssistant network

cluster setup.

The following network diagram shows how the Content Manager, Content Delivery and

Quality Assistant servers are organized within a network.

Content Delivery's functionality and feature sets target different types of users, therefore

the dedicated servers are organized in distinct areas:


Figure 2: Network diagram

Related tasks

■ “One server deployment” on page 50

■ “One server for all roles” on page 51

■ “Simple cluster” on page 52

■ “Multi server deployment” on page 56

■ “Advanced server cluster” on page 57

Introduction to SDL Knowledge Center scalability


SDL Knowledge Center environment with ISHSTS

Example of a combined Content Manager, Content Delivery, and Quality Assistant

network setup with ISHSTS integration.

The following clusters can fit in one SDL Knowledge Center deployment:

■ Content Manager Advanced server cluster

■ Content Delivery cluster

■ Quality Assistant cluster.

Content Manager

A collection of front end servers behind a network load balancer serve interactive

functionality, whereas a collection of back end servers serve non-interactive functionality.

ISHSTS is a Security Token Service as part of the Web role.

When designing a cluster like the above you should take special notice for the following

items.

■ Each Front end server behind the network load balancer is configured using the

same certificate referring to the same host name.

■ Every Back end server should be installed with its own certificate referring to its

unique host name.

■ For every federated service endpoint e.g. ISHWS, targeted from within the cluster,

DNS resolving and network routing should be taken into consideration depending

on the network topology.

■ ISHSTS cannot be shared across different servers. As a result:

■ Every ISHSTS on every server on the cluster requires configuration for all

federated services for which it can potentially issue a token.

■ ISHSTS on every Front end server has configuration based on the network

load balancer hostname and certificate. Also it must have all required

configuration relevant to other federate services as their endpoints are

recognized from outside the cluster.

■ ISHSTS on every Back end server has configuration based on the specific

hostname and certificate of the server. This ISHSTS will be used by all

entities of the same Back end server. All federated services integrated with

Content Manager are required to be configured on the ISHSTS on every

Back end server, using endpoints relevant to configured DNS resolving and

network routing.

With a setup similar to this all user clients like browsers and client tools will target the

network load balancing hostname and thus one of the Front end server. Any client that is

running from within the cluster behind the network load balance will still have access to

any Back end server by using its designated host name.



Content Delivery

The content delivery servers can be scaled out behind a network load balancer with

affinity. Commenting and analytics are provided from independent installations that each

serve as a common repository for all nodes within the cluster.

A distribution node is the target of publications. Then this node will distribute the data to

all content deliver server nodes within the cluster so they can serve exactly the same

information. This node is also the target of publishing from the Content Manager

The review installation provides the functionality for Content Delivery. The source of the

comments is the common commenting repository as is the analytics also. This installation

is integrated with ISHSTS to provide the Single Sign On experience.

Quality Assistant

Multiple servers can be part of network load balancing cluster with affinity. All servers

must be configured identically to pull the same information from external sources

Diagram



Figure 3: SDL Knowledge Center advanced deployment with ISHSTS

SDL Knowledge Center environment with ADFS

Example of a combined Content Manager, Content Delivery, and Quality Assistant

network setup with ADFS integration.

The following clusters can fit in one SDL Knowledge Center deployment:

■ Content Manager Advanced server cluster

■ Content Delivery cluster

■ Quality Assistant cluster.



Federation

ADFS is used as a Security Token Service for the federated services of Content Manager,

Content Delivery. and Quality Assistant.

Content Manager

A collection of Front end servers behind a network load balancer serve the interactive

functionality and a collection of Back end servers serve the non interactive functionality

When designing a cluster like the above you should take special notice for the following

items.

■ Each Front end server behind the network load balancer is configured using the

same certificate referring to the same host name.

■ Every Back end server should be installed with its own certificate referring to its

unique host name.

■ For every federated service endpoint e.g. Content Manager ISHWS, targeted from

within the cluster, DNS resolving and network routing should be taken into

consideration depending on the network topology.

With a setup similar to this all user clients like browsers and client tools will target the

network load balancing hostname and thus one of the Front end server. Any client that is

running from within the cluster behind the network load balance will still have access to

any Back end server by using its designated host name.

Content Delivery

The Content Delivery servers can be scaled out behind a network load balancer with

affinity. Commenting and analytics are provided from independent installations that each

serve as a common repository for all nodes within the cluster.

A distribution node is the target of publications. Then this node will distribute the data to

all content deliver server nodes within the cluster so they can serve exactly the same

information. This node is also the target of publishing from the Content Manager

The review installation provides the functionality for Content Delivery. The source of the

comments is the common commenting repository as is the analytics also. This installation

is integrated with ADFS to provide the Single Sign On experience.

Quality Assistant

Multiple servers can be part of network load balancing cluster with affinity. All servers

must be configured identically to pull the same information from external sources.

Diagram



Figure 4: SDL Knowledge Center advanced deployment with ADFS



One server deploymentThe basic deployment option consists of one server.

The following functionality must be active in the Quality Assistant installation for the

product to operate correctly:

■ Web site

■ Agent.

The following diagram shows a conceptual representation of the one server deployment:

Figure 5: One server deployment

Depending on the load and the intensity of usage, the execution of the above components

might not work at peak performance because of system and operating limitations. Once

the load becomes too big and this type of deployment is not sufficient, we need to scale out

the solution and introduce a cluster of servers.

Related tasks

■ “SDL Knowledge Center network cluster” on page 43







One server for all rolesThe basic deployment option consists of one server that is responsible for all roles.

For Content Manager to operate correctly, all server roles need to be active:

1. The Default background task role provides execution for the background.

2. The Full text indexing role provides crawling and indexing functionality for the

SolrLucene search engine.

3. The Translation role provides all translation-related functionality.

4. The Web role provides all necessary web endpoints like web site, web services, and

the internal security token service.

The following diagram shows a conceptual representation of the one server deployment.

Figure 6: One server deployment with all roles active

All these roles work together to provide the expected functionality. Depending on the

load and the intensity of usage, the execution of the above roles might not work at peak

performance because of system and operating limitations.

Once the load becomes too big and this type of deployment is not sufficient, we need to

scale out the solution and introduce a cluster of servers.

Related tasks








Simple clusterThe simple cluster deployment uses two servers. Each server focuses on delivering a

subset of the required application functionality.

The servers types are:

■ Front end server: it is responsible for all interactive and web services functionality.

■ Back end server: it is responsible for all non interactive functionality.

The following diagrams shows how the two servers work together while splitting

responsibilities:

Figure 7: Two server deployment

Related tasks






Front end server

The front end server main responsibility is to provide output for web clients and web

services.

Two roles are required to accomplish this:

■ The Web role service allows executing web requests for the web client, and web

service requests.

■ The Full text indexing role provides crawling and indexing functionality for the

SolrLucene search engine.



The front end server is the public facing server handling all interactive web requests. The

Web role exposes public endpoints through the Internet Information Services,which is the default web engine on a Microsoft Windows Server operating system. All theendpoints are secured with secure sockets layer (SSL) to provide the https schema.Depending on the expected accessibility towards the endpoints between intranet andinternet, the certificate has to be configured accordingly.

The certificate's subject name must match the hostname for the endpoints that the clients

will be using. For example, if the web client is provided an endpoint like

https://publichostname/ ISHCM/ or the web service client targets an endpoint

likehttps://publichostname/ISHWS/Wcf/API25/Application.svc,

then the hostname is publichostname. This must match the SSL certificate's subjectname. Depending on the scenario, the publichostname should or should not match theserver's fully qualified domain name, for example mecdevapp01.

global.sdl.corp.

Note: The SSL certificate's subject always matches the hostname that is visible on the

client, regardless the server's fully qualified domain name (FQDN).

How to configure a front end server

Explains how to configure a server as a front end server.

Procedure

1. The Web role is enabled by default on all servers.

2. On Internet Information Services Manager make sure that the certificate'ssubject name configured on the https binding matches the hostname that the web clients, webservice clients and client tools target.

3. Enable the Full text indexing role.

Note: We recommend deploying only one full text indexing role perdatabase. If you scale out the front end server, we recommend having one front endserver to run the Full text indexing role, and redirecting all other servers to that server.

Back end server

The back end server's main responsibility is to provide execution for all queued actions

initiated by user actions or web service calls, including translation functionality.

Three roles are required to accomplish this

■ The Web role allows accessing the web client and the web services from the same

server.

■ The Default background task role provides execution for the Background task

component.

■ The Translation role provides functionality for translation-related flows.



The back end server is in other words the work horse for the non-interactive and long

running flows. The Web role exposes internal endpoints through the InternetInformation Services which is the default web engine on a Microsoft WindowsServer operating system. All the endpoints are secured with secure sockets layer (SSL) toprovide the https schema. The SSL certificate has to be configured with intranetaccessibility only in mind.

The certificate's subject name must match the hostname for the endpoints that the clients

will be using. Since the accessibility to this server is only through intranet, the web client

and web service client use fully qualified domain name (FQDN) based endpoints likehttps://mecdevapp01.global.sdl.corp/ISHCM/andhttps://mecdevapp01.global.sdl.corp/ISHWS/Wcf/API25/Application.

svc.

The Default background task role is configured out of the box to execute all possible

handlers. This means that all dependencies must be installed and properly configured on

this server. For example third party renderer licenses must be properly configured when

this server will be used to publish. If the dependencies are not present, the Default

background task role will execute the pending items but error's will be raised.

The Translation role also requires configuration, like the target endpoints of SDL

WorldServer or SDL TMS for example.

We recommend re-purposing the existing Full text indexing role, typically installed on a

front end server, by forwarding the requests of the back end server.

How to configure a back end server

Explains how to configure a server as a back end server.

Procedure

1. By default, the Web role is enabled on all servers.

2. On Internet Information Services Manager, make sure that the certificatesubject name in the https binding matches the host name the web clients and web serviceclients target.

3. Enable the Default background task role.

4. Enable the Translation role.

5. Redirect the full text indexing of the back end server to a front end server with thefull text indexing role.

Redirecting full text indexing

Redirect full text indexing when configuring back end server, or when the local machine

does not have full text indexing (FTI). This can be done on any server if FTI is handled on

a different server, for back end servers when configuring asynchronous load balancing,

or when configuring network load balancing.

About this task

The configuration for full text indexing (FTI) is handled by the Crawler and SolrLucene

entries in the registry.



A default configuration is installed that connects to the localhost (127.0.0.1) port 8080.

For example:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Trisoft\TriDK\TridkAp

p\InfoShareAuthor]

"CrawlerIndexEngineType"="ApacheSolrLucene"

"SolrLuceneBaseUrl"="http://127.0.0.1:8080/solr"

"SolrLuceneHTTPTimeout"="180"

"SolrLuceneHTTPRetries"="5"

To redirect full text indexing on any server to the server holding the full text indexing

role:

Procedure

1. On the server, alter SolrLuceneBaseUrlto the URL for SolrLucene on the full textindexing (FTI) server.

Example: For example, where 10.98.124.5: 8080 is the FTI server's URL forSolrLucene, modify the server's registry to read:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Trisoft\TriDK\Trid

kApp\InfoShareAuthor] "SolrLuceneBaseUrl"="http://10.98.124.

5:8080/solr"

Full text indexing is now directed to the server as specified in the registry forSolrLuceneBaseUrl.

2. Reboot the server or, at minimum, a recycle is required for the application pool and

COM+ server application.

3. Disable the crawler service on the server that has been redirected to the FTI server:

■ Click Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services

■ Double-click on the service named, Trisoft InfoShare Crawler One.

There may be more than one service. If so, follow the procedure for each.

■ Under the General tab, set the Startup type to Disabled.

4. To allow incoming requests on the server holding the full text index role from other

servers, add all the servers IPs, or server IP range to the FTI server, in the \ App\

Utilities\SolrLucene\Jetty\etc\jetty-ipaccess.xmlfile'swhite

list.

Example: For example, to allow incoming requests on the FTI server from other

servers as identified by the IP address 127.0.0.1 and IP range 10.98.0-255.0-255:

Example: On the FTI server modify jetty-ipaccess. xml to read:

<Set name="white">

<Array type="String">

<Item>127.0.0.1</Item>

<Item>10.98.0-255.0-255</Item>

</Array>



</Set>

�

5. Make sure that the Firewall on the machine hosting the full text index role allows

incoming connections on the specified IPs and/or ports.

6. Restart the TrisoftSolrLuceneWindows service on the server holding the full text

index role.

Multi server deploymentThe multi server cluster deployment shows how to scale out.

All servers within the node are identical The servers types are:

Creating multi server deployment and adding them as nodes on a network load balancer

requires the following:

■ The network load balancer has to be configured with affinity. This means that

every request originating from the same client will be served always by the same

server.

■ The configuration between different instances of the Agent must be identical so

the loaded information set is also the same across the nodes in the cluster.

Figure 8: Multi server deployment

Related tasks








Advanced server clusterWhen the two server simple cluster is not sufficient to handle the load, and you want to

allow faster output and bigger throughput, you can add more servers with dedicated roles.

Each type of server can be scaled out. In this example case we will duplicate each server

type.

So a Content Manager advanced cluster is an example of a four server deployment. With

the advanced server cluster we still have the same server types as with the simple cluster,

but with more aggregated power:

■ The front end server is responsible for all interactive and web services

functionality.

■ The back end server is responsible for all non interactive functionality.

Scaling out each type of server means that we are scaling out the roles.

The following diagram shows how the two servers work together while splitting

responsibilities:



Figure 9: Four server deployment

To scale out a front end server, you need a network load balancer.

Note: Some roles can be scaled out by duplication even on the same server, if the

hardware can handle it.

Related tasks






Network load balancing

Network load balancing is a technology that can be used to increase the maximum capacity

and efficiency of the Web role.

A typical network load balancing deployment is a network load balancer over a cluster of

identical nodes. The network load balancer is like a proxy to the nodes. The clients only

see the balancer and are not aware of each of the specific nodes. This is also the main

reason that the nodes have to be identical.



When a network load balancer receives a request it will forward the request to one of the

nodes. There are several algorithms to drive the balancing act between the nodes. Some

algorithms are restrictive e.g. affinity and some are not.Content Manager does not have any

special requirements with regards to the algorithm and any node is as good as any other

at the moment it joins the cluster.

Best practices to configure a node in networkload balancing

Explains how to configure a node in a network load balancing cluster.

In a typical network load balancing deployment, the network load balancer acts as a

proxy to the nodes within the cluster. Because Content Manager requires traffic to be

encrypted over ssl and https schema endpoints, special attention is required regardingthe SSL certificate used to configure the Web role.

The certificate subject name must match the host name of the endpoints that the clients

will be using. When a network load balancer (or any other proxy) is what the clients target,

then the target hostname is e.g. nlbhostname. For example, the web client targets an

endpoint like https://nlbhostname/ ISHCM/ and the web service client targets an

endpointlikehttps://nlbhostname/ISHWS/Wcf/API25/Application.

svc. The nlbhostname is completely independent from the server name of each node,but it forces the certificate used to configure the Web role to have this subject name. Thismeans that a proper certificate has to be created based on the balancer's properties andshared on each Front end server before installation.

Also multiple Front end server nodes mean multiple Full text indexing roles. To force

each server to deliver the same results for each search request, we need to redirect them

to consume the same Full text indexing role instance in the cluster. Typically, this means

that the Full text indexing role is fully active on one of the nodes and disabled on the other

nodes.

In the diagram below we can identify the shared certificate used by all Front end server

nodes and that only one Full text indexing role is used as the repository.



Figure 10: Content Manager network load balancing deployment.

For more advanced network load balancing deployments you may even have to specialize

one of the Front end server to execute only the Full text indexing role. Although the

node has the Web role still active, it is not part of the cluster and it never receives requests.

In this case all balanced nodes are equal with regards to throughput and are not affected

by the execution of the Full text indexing role.



Figure 11: Specialized Content Manager network load balancing deployment.

Best practices to specialize back end servers

Explains how to specialize a back end server.

Unlike the Front end server configuration, back end servers in a cluster do not need to be

identical.

Out of the box, a back end server is configured with the following active roles:

■ Web role;

■ Default background task role, where the Default service role configuration is

targeted in the Settings > XML Background Task Settings.

■ Translation role.

This means that all out of the box servers have the same behavior, but it is possible to

differentiate. For example, we could set up a cluster of three back end servers where two

servers would be specialized in the publish and translation functionality respectively and

the last of the three would be configured to execute the rest. This deployment is visible in

the next diagram.



Figure 12: Advanced cluster with back end server specializations.

However, it can be useful to create for instance three back end servers with specific roles

like:

■ A back end server for publishing:

■ Web role;

■ Publish role.

■ A back end server specialized only in the translations:

■ Web role;

■ Translation role.

Note: Since the server is running as a dedicated translation server, the Trisoft

InfoShare BackgroundTask service must run with a role which only contains the

translation related eventTypes.

■ The last back end server is required to execute all items that are not picked up by

the other two. In this case all handlers relative to the publish and translation

functionality will be excluded. Those handlers need to be referenced by a service

role in Settings > XML Background Task Settings. For example:



<service role="Generic">

<matrix>

<group name="SynchronizeToLiveContent" maxExecutions="

1">

<handlers>

<add ref="SYNCHRONIZETOLIVECONTENT" />

</handlers>

</group>

<group name="Others" maxExecutions="2">

<handlers>

<add ref="THUMBNAILSUBMIT" />

<add ref="ISHBATCHIMPORT" />

</handlers>

</group>

</matrix>



<leaseRecovery isEnabled="true" interval="00:05:00" />



<poller isEnabled="true" interval="00:00:10" />



<aggregationRecovery isEnabled="true" gracePeriod="00:1

0:00" interval="00:10:00" maximumRetries="3" />

</service>

Note: Although all back end servers can be configured to have enabled the recovery

elements in Settings > XML Background Task Settings, we can also

specialize to this aspect. For instance, the specialized back end servers don't do recovery

and only the generic service role is enabled to recover.

Note: Further specialization is possible based on the hardware of the server. We can

create in Settings > XML Background Task Settings service roles names

like Publish16GB and Publish8GB with different value on the maxExecutions. Thedifferent service role names are relevant to the expected memory.

Note: Due to 32-bit process architecture restrictions, the maximum memory of each

process is restricted to 2GB. To leverage a server's higher memory capacity we can setup

multiple services on the same server where the service role name can be the same or

different.

Documents

SDLKnowledgeCenterArchitectureand Requirements · Content Manager allows setting up a specific metadata model tailored to suit your company and business requirements. This is achieved