System Technical Requirements

You can download a PDF of these Technical Requirements from the Vitalware Support website.

Vitalware is a Vital Records system that provides both client-server and web browser access to records.

A typical hardware connectivity setup for an Vitalware installation is illustrated below. In this setup a multi-user server machine provides database server facilities to both:

  • Local and remote Vitalware client workstations

    and

  • Local and remote browser-based Internet / Intranet users

Vitalware Connectivity Overview

Large Vitalware sites in particular may have a dedicated web server located outside the corporate firewall. In this case Vitalware web services reside on the external web server and gain access to the Vitalware server via a secure connection through the corporate firewall.

Read on for details about:

The Vitalware server must run one of the following operating systems:

  • Linux / Unix

    All of the most popular Unix and Linux implementations can be used, including:

    • CentOS
    • Red Hat ES
    • Ubuntu
    • Solaris
    • FreeBSD

Windows Server 2008 and 2012 are supported via a Linux virtual machine running through a hypervisor.

We recommend Unix or Linux for large Vitalware implementations (over 500,000 records or more than 10 concurrent users). It is estimated that there should be one server CPU core for every 2-3 concurrent users for heavy usage, or every 4-5 concurrent users for light usage. Either Unix or Windows is suitable for smaller implementations.

We can provide advice on the best server to meet your requirements.

Each Vitalware user must have a registered user account on the Vitalware server. The following user databases are supported:

  • Unix password file
  • NIS (Network Information Services)
  • Windows Active Directory
  • LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol)

The following software packages are required by the Vitalware Server:

  • Perl 5.8.8 or greater - perl scripting language

    The following perl packages are required:

    • XML::Parser::Expat
    • File::FcntlLock

Vitalware requires no special backup software and does not use raw partitions. Any standard backup and restore software provided with the operating system or a third party product (e.g. ARCserve) may be used.

The disk space requirement for the Vitalware back-end (without record data or multimedia) is less than 2 GB (this does not include space required by the operating system).

Other storage requirements depend heavily on the anticipated amount of multimedia which is to be stored within the system, and recommendations vary accordingly.

A base memory level of 3 GB should be allocated to the server.

The additional memory requirement for the server is dependent on the number and roles of the connected users. Generally, the server memory requirement per concurrent user varies between 50 and 100 MB.

The Vitalware server may be virtualised. There is a performance overhead in running virtualisation however and if performance is critical, it is recommended that Vitalware is run on raw hardware if at all possible. The overhead with virtualisation is typically 5 to 10% but can be as high as 15%.

In an environment running virtualisation directly on raw hardware, VMWare ESXi or Citrix XenServer is recommended.

If Windows based virtualisation is required, we recommend VMWare over HyperV.

In all instances, we recommend either RedHat Linux or CentOS Linux as the guest operating system.

Vitalware workstations must run Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 8, Windows 7, 2012, or 2008. The disk space requirement on the client computer is less than 2 GB (without caching of multimedia and reports), although at least 10 GB of available free disk space is recommended.

Minimum requirements include a video card capable of at least 800x600 resolution, with at least 16 b

it colour. Other minimum (and recommended) requirements are:

Windows 8, 8.1, 10

Pentium 2.0GHz Dual Core CPU, 2048 MB RAM (4096 for 64 bit Windows)

Windows 7

Pentium 2.0GHz Dual Core CPU, 2048 MB RAM (4096 for 64 bit Windows 7)

Windows 2008, 2012

Pentium 2.0GHz Dual Core CPU, 2048 MB RAM (4096 for 64 bit Windows)

It is possible to run the Vitalware Windows client on Apple workstations through the use of Windows emulation tools. Some tools available include:

  • Parallels (http://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/)
  • VMware (http://www.vmwar.com/products/fusion/)

Please contact Vitalware Support for further details.

Windows users may also use Terminal Services or Citrix, which can be useful for providing high speed Vitalware access over low speed connections to remote sites or for teleworkers.

The Vitalware client can be installed in one of two ways:

Local

The full Vitalware client is installed on each PC. Each PC will need to be updated for Vitalware client upgrades.

Network (recommended)

The major portion of the Vitalware client is installed on a network drive to which all Vitalware users have access. Only a small Vitalware client needs to be installed on each PC, and in most instances only the network drive needs to be updated for Vitalware client upgrades.

The web server must run Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 1.6 and a Java Servlet Container such as Tomcat 6 or Jetty 7. Minimum memory for the server hosting the servlet container is 2GB; typically the webserver is a separate server from the Vitalware backend.

All data and multimedia reside on the Vitalware server and are transferred between the server and each client PC as required. Multimedia can also be stored on a separate server or network attached storage device (SAN). Record data transferred between PCs and the server only places a small load on the network.

Multimedia files transferred between PCs and the server may place significant load on the network depending on the size of the files and network throughput.

The network must support TCP/IP.

For direct connection between the Vitalware client and server a minimum network bandwidth of 1GB/s is required. If thin client technology is in place (e.g. Citrix or Terminal Services), the network between the end user and thin client gateway may be substantially slower than this (with Citrix, even a connection across a dial-up modem is feasible).

The Vitalware database engine, Texpress, has a number of standard technologies built into the DBMS for extracting data. These technologies include http, XML (the two most common standards used in the world today) and SQL.

Technologies such as the SQL interface are designed on the standards available. The SQL interface is designed to SQL92 with many enhancements for subsequent design advances. All of the information required to use this tool is published. Many people outside of Axiell have significant expertise in this and other interfaces to Texpress.

With Vitalware's data export tool it is possible to export data in a wide range of formats, including XML, CSV, Blank padded, and a variety of others.

Licensing for Vitalware is by concurrent user access to the Vitalware server. Thus Vitalware can be made accessible to a wide user base with the licence only affecting the number of users who run the system simultaneously.

Vitalware incorporates a fully integrated web interface suitable for Internet and Intranet access. Depending on the expected Internet / Intranet load a site can choose to run one or more Vitalware web servers (in the nature of the web one Vitalware web server can service several users apparently simultaneously). Note, however, that each Vitalware web server is considered a concurrent user in terms of licensing.

The number of licences that should be allocated to web servers depends on the expected number of web searches. A general guideline is to dedicate one licence out of every five to ten licences to servicing web searches. The allocation of licences for web use may be changed at any time. The more licences dedicated to web use, the more web searches can be serviced concurrently.

Other than operating system software no other software is necessary in order to use Vitalware. However, many other software packages can be used in conjunction with Vitalware, in particular a web browser, email system, Microsoft Word and Excel and Crystal Reports Developer.

Vitalware can store any multimedia resource. It is able to show / play most common image, video and audio formats directly, and can invoke a separate "helper" application for any other formats.

Multimedia resources are added interactively to the Vitalware Multimedia module from a local or network drive accessible from a client PC. When a multimedia record is saved, Vitalware automatically creates a thumbnail and any other derivatives as required. The multimedia resource (and derivatives if any) are then uploaded and stored on the Vitalware server. Once the multimedia record is saved, Vitalware does not keep a reference to a multimedia resource on the client PC.

Multimedia resources are downloaded to each client PC on demand. A multimedia cache can be used on each PC to reduce network traffic. Vitalware client options can be set to configure the multimedia download and cache facilities.

Vitalware supports over 100 image file formats, including:

  • BMP Microsoft Windows Bitmap Image
  • DCX ZSoft IBM PC multi-page Paintbrush
  • DNG Digital Negative
  • GIF CompuServe Graphics Interchange Format
  • JP2 JPEG 2000
  • JPEG Joint Photographic Experts Group
  • PCD Photo CD
  • PCX ZSoft IBM PC Paintbrush
  • PNG Portable Network Graphics
  • TGA Truevision Targa Image
  • TIFF Tagged Image File Format

Vitalware's image capabilities are extensible, automatically supporting any image formats registered by applications installed on a computer.

Vitalware supports the following metadata standards:

  • EXIF Exchangeable Image File Format (Version 2.3, April 2010)
  • IPTC International Press Telecommunications Council (Version 1.1, July 2009)
  • XMP Extensible Metadata Platform (Revision December 2008)

Metadata is automatically extracted from the following file formats:

Standard

Formats supported

EXIF

JPEG, TIFF

IPTC

JPEG, TIFF, PICT, PS, PSD

XMP

JPEG, TIFF

Audio formats supported by Vitalware include:

  • AIFF Audio Interchange File Format
  • AU Audio File Format
  • MIDI Musical Instrument Digital Interface
  • MP3 MPEG Audio Stream, Layer III
  • RMI MIDI in RIFF File Format
  • SND Sound File Format
  • WAV Waveform Audio
  • WMA Windows Media Audio File

Vitalware's audio capabilities are extensible, automatically supporting any MCI compliant audio CODECs installed on a computer.

Video formats supported by Vitalware include:

  • ASF Advanced Streaming Format
  • AVI Audio Video Interleave File
  • M1V MPEG-1 Video File
  • M2V MPEG-2 Video File
  • MP4 MPEG-4 Part 14
  • M4V
  • MODJVC Everio GZ-MG20U Digital Video File
  • MPEG MPEG 1 System Stream
  • WMV Windows Media File

Vitalware's video capabilities are extensible, automatically supporting any MCI compliant video CODECs installed on a computer.