8.11 Upgrade - servers needed

Hey all,
I'm looking at the 8.11 upgrade process and wondering about a couple of the servers. I have talked to a couple of consultants who say the Web eGen Server should be a separate server. Is this true? What is this server and what platform should run on this server? I can't find anything on Oracles minimum technical requirements.

I also have the same questions about customer self serve...what platform should run for this?

The egen box is really just a workstation that is used to generate the serialized objects. There is a suite of Java apps that is installed on this box - I usually run this box seperately - but there is no requirement for this to be a "server" - since it is usually only used at package deployment time. However, I would have this located in your datacenter as opposed to using your personal PC - its much "cleaner" having it seperated. As for the specs, I'd recommend a relatively fast PC with between 512 and 1Gb of memory - something from HP or Dell should be able to be purchased in the $1000 range. This egen machine must run windows since you need to install the fat-client code onto it.

As for the customer self service box, this is actually a web server - use the same MTR as the websphere Java Application Server. It can be any supported platform I believe.

Done any testing with dual core processors (like an AMD X2 4800+) on an egen machine running parallel generation of serialized objects (except those which should be run in serial mode per "best practice")?

Thanks for the quick response altquark.

Can you clarify something for me. The customer self service box, you said it is a web server, and use the MTR of the App server. Are you saying CSS is a full blown application server, or just an http web server?

Cheers

No - the CSS is a WEBSPHERE server - and requires the same MTR as the Java Application server, not as a OneWorld APPLICATION server.

It uses Web Services, Websphere and the Java code - so it is a "full blown" websphere server. Lots of CPU, lots of memory....!

Ah yes, obviously multiple processors would indeed speed up the generation process because of the multiple threads. This is all dependant on how often you regen your objects. I certainly wouldn't go out and get an 8-way 64bit Opteron to do this - but I might consider a relatively inexpensive dual processor system if I did a lot of deployments. But I'd be happy with a 4GHz AMD single processor workstation as well...!

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As for the specs, I'd recommend a relatively fast PC with between 512 and 1Gb of memory - something from HP or Dell should be able to be purchased in the $1000 range. This egen machine must run windows since you need to install the fat-client code onto it.

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I wouldn't get anything less than a 1Gig on your Generation PC. The java.exe process grabs memory bigtime. Currently our Gen PC is a P4, 3Ghz, 1GB Ram, Windows XP SP2 using the Websphere Express installation.

Grant.