Microsoft Application Center - Supported Configurations
Microsoft Corporation
Application Center 2000
The Web application deployment and management tool
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Overview
This document provides information about supported configurations, sizing, and functionality for Microsoft Application Center 2000 (AC) Service Pack 2 (SP2) deployments. Updates to this document will be posted to the Web at https://www.microsoft.com/applicationcenter/
Application Center 2000 makes it easy to build, manage and monitor web applications and clusters. AC was designed with specific scenarios in mind and under which it performs very well. However, due to the nature of how software is utilized, we are finding customers that are utilizing AC in environments or situations where it was not designed to run. This supported configuration guide is designed to improve the success of customer deployments of AC.
On This Page
Support Matrix
Supported Installation Combinations
Scalability
Networks
Localization/Globalization
No Support List
Support Matrix
The following table lists supported operating systems for AC SP2.
Supported Installations of Operating Systems (AC SP2)
Operating system |
Cluster controller or member |
MMC Console |
Web Console |
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Windows NT 4.0 SP4 or later |
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Windows 2000 Professional SP1 |
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Windows 2000 Professional SP3 or later |
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Windows 2000 Server SP1 |
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Windows 2000 Server SP3 or later |
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Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP1 |
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Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP3 or later |
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Windows 2003 Server, Standard Edition |
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Windows 2003 Server, Enterprise Edition |
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Windows 2003 Server, Web Edition |
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Windows XP Professional |
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Windows XP Professional SP1 |
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Windows XP Home Edition |
Note: Setup does not specifically halt installation on any unsupported platforms.
Minimum Hardware Requirements
To use AC SP2, you must have:
Computer with 400 MHz or higher Pentium-compatible CPU, minimum
256 MB of RAM, minimum (more memory improves performance).
110 MB of available hard-disk space for the full server installation, or 20 MB for the Administrative client installation (additional space is required for site content and databases)
CD-ROM drive.
Super VGA with 800x600 or higher-resolution monitor.
Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device.
10 MBPS network connection.
Test Hardware Utilized
The scalability tests for the large replication tests (10 GB and 50 GB):
4 proc 550 MHz
768 RAM
Raid 10 disks with 100 GB logical drives for these tests.
CD-ROM
Mouse: Yes, Microsoft compatible
Network: 2 NICs, 100 Mbps each on different subnets.
The scalability tests for the other replication tests:
2 proc 800 MHz (1 proc disabled for RF)
512 MB RAM
HD: No RAID 12 GB partitions for this test.
Mouse: Yes, Microsoft compatible
Network: 2 NICs, 100Mbps each on different subnets.
Minimum Software Requirements
To use AC SP2, you must have:
Operating system:
Microsoft Windows 2003 Server, Standard Edition
Windows 2003 Server, Enterprise Edition
Windows 2003 Server, Web Edition
Windows 2000 Server
Windows 2000 Advanced Server
Note: For the appropriate Service Pack requirements, refer to the Supported Installations of Operating Systems table earlier in this document.
Supported Installation Combinations
This information describes which versions of AC and the underlying operating systems are supported. Anything specifically not stated is not supported.
AC versions:
All cluster members must be at the same AC service pack level.
Mixed Version Deployments:
All cluster members must be running on the same OS and OS service pack level. For example it is unsupported to have Windows 2000 and Windows 2003 servers in the same cluster.
There is no support for deploying between AC servers that are on different versions of AC or different versions of OS.
Deployments from any AC cluster to another AC cluster are only supported when the service pack version of AC is equal between the clusters
Deployments from any AC cluster to another AC cluster are only supported when version of Windows (Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003) is the same between the clusters
Scalability
Replication
AC replication technology is able to deploy three distinct sets of information in a seamless fashion, that of content, configuration and components.
Typically replication performance is affected by the following variables:
Size of the content
Number of individual files and directories
Number of IIS web sites and virtual directories
Number of targets for a deployment
Speed and RAM of source and target servers
Throughput of the network
HTTP or CLB load
General Replication Supportability Limits
The table below illustrates supportability limits. Deployments with configurations that exceed the specifications below may work, however, they are unsupported. Furthermore, these limits can not be combined, for example, deploying 50 GB of content to 11 targets is not supported.
Deployment Configuration |
Limit |
---|---|
Maximum targets for a single deployment |
11 targets |
Maximum number of files in a deployment |
2 million |
Maximum number of files per directory |
9000 |
Maximum number of combined sites and vdirs |
500 |
Maximum amount of content for a deployment |
50 GB |
Maximum number of simultaneous deployments |
11 deployments |
Because the amount of data transmitted impacts the number of targets it can be deployed to, the following table illustrates the supported combinations of targets and amount of content:
500 MB |
1 GB |
10 GB |
50 GB |
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1 target |
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2 targets |
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3 targets |
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4 targets |
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5 targets |
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6 targets |
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7 targets |
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8 targets |
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9 targets |
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10 targets |
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11 targets |
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Maximum Configuration by Resource Type
Application Center supports deploying a wide variety of resource types that make up todays web and application tier applications. The table below illustrates the supported maximum for each resource type. Note: the combination of resources will affect the absolute maximum as depicted in the chart above.
AC Resource Type |
Maximum |
---|---|
Files and Directories |
50 GB and 2 million files and 9000 files per directory |
Web Sites and Virtual Directories |
500 |
Registry keys |
500 |
DSNs |
500 |
COM+ |
200 |
.Net Global Assemblies |
1000 |
Automatic Synchronization
It is not guaranteed that Automatic synchronization will in fact deploy every change. Due to limitations in the NT eventing infrastructure, it is possible that file change notifications may be dropped or missed. This one of the reasons periodic synchronizations always are enabled with Automatic synchronization.
Periodic synchronization must not be configured to an interval that is so frequent that it would cause simultaneous synchronization jobs. If it is configured as such, it would violate the maximum number of concurrent deployment jobs illustrated in the general supportability limit table above.
Component Load Balancing
Component Load Balancing (CLB) is a feature that provides dynamic load balancing for COM+ applications.
Load balancing of up to 200 COM+ components is supported with CLB. Load balancing of more than 200 components may work but is unsupported.
Request Forwarding
The request forwarder is used for session coherency. It sits between the client and the application and ensures that client requests are sent to the correct cluster member. This load-balancing feature ensures that clients maintain session state. If a client has established a session with a specific member and if subsequent requests are load balanced to the wrong member, the request forwarder routes the requests to the appropriate member.
To be supported, the amount of web traffic that is actually request forwarded, i.e. session on the wrong member server, must be less than 10% of the overall traffic being load balanced across the Application Center cluster.
Cluster Services
12 nodes per cluster limit
All cluster members must be at the same AC service pack level
All cluster members must be running on the same OS and OS service pack level. For example it is unsupported to have Windows 2000 and Windows 2003 servers in the same cluster.
Networks
Application Center does not support running clusters or deploying across slow networks. AC was tested on a minimum of 100 MB Ethernet. While slower networks may work, this is an unsupported configuration.
Localization/Globalization
Localization/Globalization Support
AC itself has been localized and is shipped in English and Japanese only. AC is also globalized and has been tested on multiple localized operating systems.
Supported Languages: Operating Systems
The table below indicates the operating system support that AC SP2 can be installed and used on any of the languages that are marked with a checked box.
Language |
Support |
Language |
Support |
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Arabic |
Hungarian |
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Brazilian |
Italian |
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Bulgarian |
Japanese |
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Chinese (Simplified) |
Korean |
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Chinese (Traditional) |
Latvian |
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Chinese (Hong Kong) |
Lithuanian |
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Croatian |
Norwegian |
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Czech |
Polish |
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Danish |
Portuguese |
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Dutch |
Romanian |
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English |
Russian |
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Estonian |
Slovak |
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Finnish |
Slovenian |
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French |
Spanish |
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German |
Swedish |
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Greek |
Thai |
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Hebrew |
Turkish |
IS supported on the relevant language.
IS NOT supported on the relevant language.
No Support List
There is no support for 64-bit computers.
Application Center Resource Kit tools are unsupported