4cast Server Specification and Installation Version 2015.00 10 November 2014 Innovative Solutions for Education Management www.drakelane.co.uk
System requirements Item Minimum Recommended Operating system Windows Server 2003 Windows Server 2008 or above SQL Server 2008 2008 (R2 recommended) or above Hard disk Memory 1 GB 4 GB or more Processor x86 1.0 GHz x64 1.4 GHz Other.NET Framework 4 Note that SQL Express 2008-R2 can be used but performance may be severely impacted with multiple connections. We would only recommend using this where a single user runs both the server and client on a standalone PC. 2 GB free space for database x86 2.0 GHz or faster x64 2.0 GHz or faster 4cast Server Specification and Installation 2 of 5
Installation The server database installer is provided as a standard Windows executable (.exe). The installer can be run from any workstation with network access to the SQL server and does not have to be run on the SQL server itself. Dependent on your permissions to the SQL server you may need to run as administrator to create the database. There are 2 options when running the SQL server installation, create a new or update an existing 4cast database. Prior to any upgrade we strongly recommend a SQL database backup is taken. Enter the credentials for the server as a username and password combination or use trusted Windows authentication. Enter the server name, and instance name if necessary, in the format SERVERNAME\INSTANCENAME. You can also click the button to retrieve a list of SQL servers on your network. Select whether to create a new database or update an existing one. Click the Connect button to connect to the SQL server. If you are creating a new database accept the default location or select an alternative by clicking the button. 4cast Server Specification and Installation 3 of 5
If you are updating an existing database, select the database name from the drop-down list. Version information is shown at the bottom of the screen. Click the Go button to create or update the database. An installation log file is created in the logs subfolder below the installation.exe location. Client configuration text file An encrypted connection configuration text file connection.txt is created within the same directory as the server installer. This can be used alongside the client MSI (Microsoft Installer Package) for remote installation and deployment. Prior to client installation place the configuration file in the same directory as the client MSI so that once installed the client application automatically uses the connection configuration. Alternatively, the configuration file can be deployed using the Files preference extension in Group Policy. For further information please see the Client specification and installation document. Configuring user permissions on the SQL server Each user needs to be mapped to the login for the 4CAST2015 database and given db_owner database role membership. During operation the client software controls user permissions within the database. 4cast Server Specification and Installation 4 of 5
Uninstall To completely remove the 4cast database from the SQL server first ensure all users are logged out and then connect to the SQL server instance using SQL Server Management Studio and delete the database. Please note that this guide is written with reference to SQL Server 2012 but similar processes apply to other versions. Expand the Databases node, right-click the 4CAST2015 database and select Delete from the context menu. In the confirmation dialog ensure the option to close existing connections at the bottom of this screen is selected. Note that deleting the database files will result in the loss of all planning data which cannot be recovered unless you have a backup. 4cast Server Specification and Installation 5 of 5