CMS System Requirements
From NewHaven Software Wiki
CMS System requirements are fairly meager considering the capabilities of today's machines. As such, most anything you buy or even already own today will be more than adequate. You do, however, want to make sure you're meeting the following system requirements.
64-bit vs 32-bit
This issue/decision affects both your hardware and software. Many Windows operating systems are available in either a 32-bit or 64-bit version. Either will work with CMS. The 64-bit version, however, does not offer any benefits to CMS over its 32-bit counterpart. If you're looking at running Windows XP Pro, Vista or 2003 Server we'd recommend sticking with the 32-bit editions. If you're considering Windows 7 or 2008 Server you may opt for either the 32 or 64-bit editions.
Hardware
Servers
This section applies to machines that are operating as pure servers or for stand-alone installations which are acting as both a server and workstation.
Minimum Requirements
- Pentium 4 - 1.8 GHz or faster CPU
- 1 Gigabyte RAM (CMS will work with less but not recommended)
- 20 GB Hard Drive with 2 GB available
- CD-ROM or CD-R/RW Drive
- SVGA Monitor
Database Server Additional Recommendations
- The best things you can do to improve the performance of your CMS server is maximize your RAM and purchase fast hard drives. The speed and number of processors has less to do with CMS performance than does I/O (disk read/write) and being able to cache most or all of the database into RAM. Ideally you would have twice as much RAM as your database size. So a 2Gig db file would warrant 4Gig of RAM on the server for optimal performance. This should be your first goal when purchasing a new server or optimizing and existing server.
- The CMS database server can make use of dual processors but, as a rule, processing speed does not play a huge role in performance. Consider this nice to have but not a necessity and lower in priority than the RAM and fast drive recommendations above.
- Fast network cards - Especially useful if you run a lot of reports from your workstations.
- RAID 6 or other drive array. Priority of redundancy over striping if going with a different RAID configuration. Your server is at the heart of your company's operation and you need to make sure you can keep it going. Redundancy will help you sleep at night.
- Backups - While not a performance issue, this is an important consideration for a new server. You'll want to have an automated system in place to move the nightly CMS backup (must be turned on and configured) to other storage locations. Ideally you'd have a rolling backup routine that allows you to store backups for each night without overwriting the previous backups and then move the last backup of the week off-site (DVD, tape or online backup location). This way even if your place of business was in a natural disaster or your server was stolen, you would reasonably be able to recover. We unfortunately had a customer of ours go out of business because they were unable to recover when their server was lost in a fire. Protect yourself from the same fate.
CMS workstations - Those machines which are connecting to a separate server
Minimum Requirements
- Pentium III 500 MHz or faster
- 1 GB RAM
- CD-ROM Drive
- 20GB Hard Drive with 2GB available
- SVGA Monitor
- 10Mbps Network Card(s) or faster
CMS Workstation Recommendations
Very little processing, disk space or hardware is required to run CMS on a workstation. Most everything takes place on the server so your workstation requirements are reasonably small. Our only recommendation beyond the minimums is to maximize your RAM and consider faster network cards.
Peripherals
CMS will work with most any peripheral (e.g. printers) as long as the manufacture still supports it and offers drivers for your operating system. If the manufacture does not support your device and offer drivers for your operating system, NewHaven Software cannot assist you with it. It may work with CMS but, if not, you must upgrade your device to a currently supported model.
While this may seem like we're just washing our hands of supporting older hardware, there is really more to it. CMS, like most other Windows applications, relies on Windows to operate as an intermediary with its peripherals. In other words, CMS communicates to Windows and then Windows communicates with the peripheral. If Windows does not have a current driver, that communication may fail or operate in unexpected ways. In other words, any problems with the peripheral are outside of our software and control.
POS Module
The only place where CMS has more specific hardware requirements are the peripherals used with its POS Module. The Point of Sale Module only supports specific models of printers, cash drawers, credit card swipes and UPC bar code scanners.
- Printers - Samsung SRP-350
- Bar code scanners
- HandHeld 3800G
- Metrologic Fusion MS3780
- Cash Drawer - MMC model 225151644204
- Card reader - Magtek model 21040102
Other hardware may work with CMS but these are the only models we have tested and offer support for.
Operating Systems
Servers
- Windows Server 2003 R2
- Windows Server 2008 R2
Workstations
- Windows XP Pro (only SP3)
- Vista Business Edition SP2
- Vista Ultimate SP2
- 7 Professional
- 7 Ultimate
NOTE: Microsoft will end support for Windows 2000 Professional on July 13, 2010. Windows 2000 is also not compatible with CMS version 7.0. For more information please refer to the article Windows 2000 and CMS
Virtual Machines
Currently we do not support running CMS on a virtual server but expect to announce our support for them in 2010. We are currently running several virtual machines here at NewHaven Software for our many test environments. We will also soon be running our production environment on a virtual server.
Early indications are that CMS and the database server will run with no particular technical issues although performance is not as good as running on a dedicated non-virtual server. Reinforcing what has been said above, lots or RAM and fast drives (read/write) are the biggest factors that impact CMS performance. We suspect that any recommendations we make for running CMS on a virtual server will revolve around ensuring that proper resources are dedicated to CMS.
If you think virtualization is in your future, please contact us for assistance in setting up a test environment. Keep us in the loop regarding your successes and failures so we can build a knowledge base here to share with other users.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I really need a new machine?
Probably not. The operating system is far more important. If your operating system is no longer supported, you may be able to update it or reinstall a current operating system on your current machine. Please consult Microsoft for their minimum requirements for the operating system your selecting. Generally if it meets Microsoft's requirements for their operating system, it will be good enough for CMS as well. From there, you need to decide if good enough is really good enough and that will be clear in the performance of Windows, CMS or other applications.
My operating system is currently supported, do I need a new machine?
Hardware is rarely an issue with CMS and you could be running old machines and still experience reasonable performance. If you're satisfied with the speed of CMS, you're able to run a supported operating system without errors, and you have adequate disk space, you may choose to continue to run on your existing machine(s).
If you were to do only one thing, it should be to max the amount of RAM your machine will take. RAM is cheap, too cheap to not have plenty of.
Secondarily, a CMS server needs a lot of disk space not just for its database but it may require additional free gigabytes of space for temp files that is creates and destroys through normal usage. You should never have less than 2Gig of free space on your server. If that is a problem, and you're not going to upgrade your server, at least move onto new hard drives. Here too, drive space is cheap these days.
There may be other compelling reasons to upgrade your machines, be it for speed, other applications or compatibility with other new technologies. New machines that are capable of running 64-bit operating systems, for example, are capable of handling more than 4 Gigabytes of RAM. While this would rarely be a CMS consideration for a workstation, if you have a database (.db file) that is larger than 2 Gig, you should seriously consider a server with more than 4G of RAM.
As a rule, the performance you need from CMS is merely a factor of hardware. As your company grows, CMS can scale perfectly well with you but may require improved hardware to keep up with the increased server load. Evaluating CPU/memory usage and free disk space during the heat of the day will give you an indication of how well your server is handling the load and if more resources are needed.
Why can't I continue to use an older operating system?
Even if has worked fine with CMS for years, if Microsoft no longer supports it, you really don't want to be using it. Once they stop offering security patches, as they just have stopped doing for Windows 2000, you become vulnerable to new threats (viruses, hacks, etc.) and you may find that CMS will no longer work. Such is the case with Windows 2000 as it does not contain the components need for CMS version 7.0 to run properly.
What is "database caching"?
One of the great features of your CMS database is that it requires little to no maintenance. There is no re-indexing, server administration, etc. It largely just takes care of itself.
One thing you can do, however, to 'tweak' your database performance is to use a setting for database caching. This option requires a lot of RAM, ideally more than double what your database size is. With this option, we can force Windows to allocate enough RAM to your database that allows the entire database to be loaded into memory and thus can have significant affects on your server performance.
If you're interested in this option and have enough RAM, please contact NewHaven Technical Support for information on how to enable this option.
What about my network?
Our recommendations here are pretty generic. If you're still on the old 10mbps cards you should consider upgrading. 1Gbps is pretty standard these days. CMS doesn't need a lot of bandwidth but could benefit from 100mbps over 10mbps...depending on what other network traffic you might expect. If you have hubs or old switches, that would be a good place to look at upgrading.
Will CMS work with wireless?
Yes, although CMS must maintain a constant connection with its database and even momentary interruptions in that connection can be enough to cause errors. As such we do not recommend running wireless.
Can I run CMS remotely?
Yes, but it must be done using RDP (remote desktop), terminal services or remote access software like Logmein. CMS must be running on the same network/domain as its database server. You'll need to remote into Windows first and then run CMS from that machine. You cannot have CMS installed locally and connect to a remote network/server.
Can NewHaven Software assist with purchasing or configuring my hardware/network?
We can make recommendations, like we have in this article, but the actual purchase, configuration and maintenance of your hardware and network must be performed locally. This would either be done by someone on staff that is capable or a local contractor that can provide these services and expertise to you. We're happy to consult with any such staff or contractors if there are questions about compatibility with CMS.
