Operating Environment Defined
Our Definition: An Operating Environment is a specific combination of computer hardware, its operating system, and third party software required to support a well-performing EnterpriseSMS system.
Our definition adds the qualification well-performing. This qualification refers to assumptions made by ICS relating to the activity levels, system size, quality of the
system administration, and the level of ad-hoc usage of EnterpriseSMS options within the system. To be considered well-performing, a given operating environment
must support an EnterpriseSMS system with 10,000 badgeholders, 100 to 200 readers, and several user stations operating over a lightly loaded network with no reduced
capacity links. It is also assumed that the system's data definition and configuration is correct.
Choosing an operating environment for a computer within an EnterpriseSMS system depends on the EnterpriseSMS software that will run on the computer. The EnterpriseSMS computing
model includes two types of operating environments: the Server and the Workstation. Both are typically personal computers appropriately configured for their assignments. Servers are usually configured with a bit more disk capacity, memory, and may include specialized peripheral devices for backup, communications, etc., in comparison to a Workstation.
Our Definition: A Server is a computer with the appropriate disk capacity, memory, peripheral devices, operating system, and third party software to support a well-performing EnterpriseSMS system.
Our Definition: A Workstation is a computer with the appropriate disk capacity, memory, peripheral devices, operating system, and third party software, to support the EnterpriseSMS modules installed on it in a well-performing fashion.
Example: Servers frequently have large capacity tape drives to back up the large databases resident on their disk drives. Such devices are less frequently found on workstations
since there is normally no large databases resident on them.
Choosing an Operating Environment
In general, any computer that provides the necessary capabilities and performance for a supported operating environment will support an EnterpriseSMS system. EnterpriseSMS is
not normally sensitive to specific manufacturers and models of computers and peripheral devices. Therefore, configuring a computer for use within an EnterpriseSMS system
first requires that its role be defined. Will the computer act as a Server? If not, what EnterpriseSMS software modules will the computer be required to run? The answers
to these questions leads to the appropriate selection of the operating environment for a given computer.
EnterpriseSMS software modules are grouped into categories based on the role each performs within the overall system. The Approved
Operating Systems page describes which operating systems are appropriate to each category of EnterpriseSMS software module.
Hardware Configuration
Having selected an operating system for a given computer, the tables elsewhere in this section may be referred to in order to properly configure the computer hardware.
Generally, it is good practice to have some consistency in the operating systems used to construct operating environments but that is not a requirement nor is it always
desired. Users should note that Windows NT Workstation supports all EnterpriseSMS software modules.
A configuration table is provided for each supported operating environment. Most tables provide both a server and workstation operating environment. The Windows 98 and Windows
95 tables do not provide server configurations since neither are supported for server operation.
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