Common World inc.

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Common World and FirstClass server Hardware Requirements


Important Notice:
As of June 2017, Common World Inc. will no longer be selling or supporting FirstClass. Starting July 2017, our service contracts will not support FirstClass Servers or any FirstClass Solution. We will be pushing new communication software and solutions for our clients and customers that best fit their needs. We have already started writing plans and roadmaps for our current RA Customers that will replace FirstClass with other software and services.


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Below information is legacy web content (pre June 2017)
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There are new hardware requirements for FirstClass v10 & 11 & 12. 

When FC 10.0 server was released the core server made significantly more use of both memory and processors than 9.x and earlier servers. The largest user of this by far is the new index searching found in 10.0, but other core features are also making more use of memory and processors.  Hardware requirements are fairly consistent across all platforms. There are more factors now as to what hardware is needed. For any server we start with the FCNS PostOffice size as the main factor. Then we have to look at the amount of current active sessions. Then we need to look at other FC services that will be running on the same box.  Depending on the needs of the site we may want to move other services (including IS) to another server box. With the release of FC12 and FCWS only really smaller sites (250 concurrent user logged in) should be running Single Server Hardware (all on the same box).

We do not recommend vitalization for the Core server. I know this has become very popular in the last few years for Windows Servers, but we do not recommend it for the FC Core server. It can be done for other FC services and FC Archive Server. We do have clients servers that are running FirstClass 12 within vitalization, but again it is not recommended by OpenText.

Below are Requirements on Hardware Requirements.
For more infomation on OS requirements visit --> Current_Supported_Versions

For more information please contact us
Rob Rickard
Open Text Channel Partner, Common World inc.


FirstClass 12 Core Server Hardware Requirements


Quick Summary
As you will see below, the increased core server requirements in FirstClass 11.0 are not only for high-capacity sites, but are mostly driven by the size of the FCNS content size.  However, larger sites under significant load should choose to make use of an 8-processor configuration.

Minimum Hardware Requirements (suitable for smaller installations with small FCNS content):
  • dual-processor 64-bit (2 CPUs, in any configuration, e.g. a single dual-core)
  • 4GB RAM (smaller FCNS content stores, up to 250GB)
Typical Hardware Requirements (most sites):
  • quad-processor 64-bit (4 CPUs, in any configuration) or more
  • 4GB RAM (sites with FCNS not exceeding 250GB content store, more would be even better)
  • 8GB RAM (sites with FCNS exceeding 250GB content store, more would be even better)
Recommended Hardware, Especially for Larger Sites
  • 8 processors (64-bit) or more (in any configuration)
  • 16GB RAM or more (depending on the size of the FCNS)
Operating Systems Supported (Tested)
  • Windows: Windows Server 2003 x64, Windows Server 2003 R2 x64, Windows Server 2008 x64, Windows Server 2008 Enterprise x64
  • Mac OS X: OS X (64-bit Intel) 10.5.4 'Server' / OS X (64-bit Intel) 10.5.7 'Desktop' (special note 10.4.9 to 10.4.11 is NOT supported and will cause issues with the FCIS)
  • Linux: Fedora 8 (64-bit) - Kernel 2.6.23.1-42.fc8
Requirements Details

1. All FirstClass v10 & 11 servers will require a processor that supports 64-bit operations, as well as a corresponding 64-bit operating system.
Both 64-bit Intel and AMD64 processors are supported.  Sites running a 32-bit operating system will need to upgrade their OS to the 64-bit variants to run the core server.

2. FirstClass v10 & 11 open file caching may increase memory usage by as much as 160MB.
Most active sites will see an increase of memory, probably in the range of 100-160MB as a result of this.

3. Caching of the permissions tree for fast searching will require about 200 bytes per FirstClass container link.
On the FirstClass Online core server for firstclass.com, we see an average of approximately 1.6 subcontainers per container.  Given the 200 bytes above, this means that a site with 100,000 containers would require approximately 32MB more memory for the permissions tree cache.  A more accurate estimate of the increase caused by this one change for a specific site might be to examine the file size of the volume.fid file at that site and triple it.

4. The FirstClass v10 & 11 search functionality uses an index that is directly proportional to the FCNS content size, but the proportion varies based on the usage pattern at each site.
A "small store / highly indexed" site, such as a small book publisher's server (with lots of unique words in the search index dictionary) may have a larger index size compared to the content store size, as compared to a "large store / lightly indexed" site that is mostly non-indexed binary files (like photos, MP3s, or movies).  As an example, the FCNS content on the firstclass.com core server has a large amount of collaboration and discussion, therefore large number of text messages and is probably more towards the "highly indexed" side of things.  The index there is about 2.1 GB from a store of approximately 500GB FCNS data.  That is, the index is approximately 0.42% of the size of that content store.

5. Memory requirements are no longer based mostly on network concurrency levels, but rather the size of the network store.
Because of point 4 above, the largest memory consumer in a FirstClass 10 server is the in-memory index, which is directly proportional to the network store.  A former "light use" site like the firstclass.com core server -- which has traditionally had no more than 100 concurrent logins -- may now find itself as one of the larger memory users, due to the storage of more than 15 years of user content in the FCNS.

6. The FirstClass v10 & 11 search functionality loads the search index in memory, along with calculating a second "reverse index" and additional support allocations.
This means that the index above is loaded at server start time, and a second reverse index is built, requiring the index to be stored twice in memory.  When combined with additional overhead, that 2.1GB index will probably require about 6-7GB of memory.  When calculating in-memory requirements due to indexing, the "safe" conservative estimate would be to start with the size of the index on disk and multiply it by approximately 2.5.  Combining the information so far, the estimated memory use for the index would be in the order of 1.0% of the size of the FCNS content.  After some other overhead, this results in the 4GB requirement for stores up to 250GB.  As in all of these cases, additional memory may improve performance in other areas, reduce memory swapping, and improve things like server and file system caching.

7. The FirstClass Archive Server does not use an index for searching.
Since there is no index, an Archive server does not include this significant new requirement.  The other increased memory needs still apply, but due to the low concurrency (typically 1 user) of an archive server, we do not anticipate any new needs there, except for the first two points above.

8. Other "server" components, such as Internet Services and Voice Services, are not specified here.
The above covers only the core server requirements, not those of the other services such as IS or VS.  The core server requirements are listed separately here, due to the significantly increased core server requirements in this release.


FirstClass 12.0 Single Server Hardware Requirements (Core Server and IS on one physical machine)

This hardware specification is recommended for small sites only. Although there is no "official" specification for a small site, the following criteria provide a reasonable guideline:
1.      Less than 1,000 total active accounts
2.      Peak concurrency under 250
3.      Network Store of less than 200GB

Recommended Hardware
  • 8 64-bit processors (two quad-core processors, for example)
  • 16GB RAM or more (follow the IS memory calculation guideline, above)


Last updated Sat, Jun 3, 2017 8:23 AM    


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Currently this website is being updated and will be pushed over to the new FirstClass 12 Web Services. For the next couple months our new websites will be under development as we run real world tests of the new FirstClass API. We do apologize for anything that does not line up.