Optimal Virtual Sever Requirements for Windchill\Intralink

[Robert-Altman]

I have been FINALLY giving the go ahead with our upgrade from Intralink 3.4 to Windchill\Intralink.

Would like to get the ball rolling by requesting our IT-Group to supply properly configured Virtual Servers.

May ask for your recommendation:

1. What is preferred operating software to install on, “Sever 2012 R2”?
2. What would recommendation for quantity of RAM, 16 to 24 GB?
3. Is VMware the preferred visualization software?
4. What did I forget to ask?

Thanks in advance,

Robert

[BenLoosli]

Check out the PTC guide on hardware.

http://support.ptc.com/WCMS/files/139004/en/Windchill10HWSizingGuidelinesforWindowsOracle-Oct2014.pdf

Also look at the Future Hardware planning guide.

http://support.ptc.com/WCMS/files/69784/en/PTCWindchillFuturePlatformSupport_Summary_111115.pdf

My recommendation would be to go with more than you need to allow for growth in users and software requirements.

OS: Windows Server2012r2

Memory: 32GB

Cores: 6/12 single/dual processors - do NOT enable Hyperthreading! I had IT turn it off in the BIOS before we went live.

That would be good for up to about 400 users according to the Sizing Calculator. I have dual hex-core (12) processors with 32GB memory on Windows Server2008r2 and my user count is less than 15. I don't have any complaints about the system speed. I do reboot the systems every morning automatically at 5:00AM.

[BineshKumar1]

1. For Windchill 10.2, the supported operating systems are Windows - 2008R2, 2012, 2012 R2, RHEL 5 & 6, Solaris 10 & 11, AIX 6.1/7.1. The best choices out of it would be Windows Server 2012R2 - as it is the latest and greatest from Windows, and has better memory management over 2008 release. If you  have the skill set in house to manage Linux environments, RHEL 6 is a great option - JVM and Oracle works great with Linux .
2. Windchill visualization requires you to have a server configured as CAD worker. This is a seat of Pro/E which translate models and drawings to light weight viewables. CAD worker is also responsible for the automatic conversions  to PDFs, DXF, STEP, IGES and so on. This server should be sized enough so that Pro/E should be open the largest assembly you have in the system -say same as an engineering workstation.
3. Amount of RAM and number of CPU's totally depends on the max load the server is supposed to handle.Also depends on your preference whether to have Oracle on same machine as Windchill as or different. Typically 24Gig with 6 Cores should be plenty enough if you less than 25 heavy concurrent CAD users. If you are opting a virtualization, you can add CPUs and RAMs on the fly as needed. Sizing recommendations for both options are present in Hardware Sizing Guide.
4. As far as Visualization is concerned, PTC supports almost all popular virtualization technologies like VMWare ESX, Microsoft Hyper V, LPARs, RHEL Xen and so on. Most widely used  is VMWare and a lot of SMBs use Hyper V as well. Over the last few years, most of the PDM/PLM implementations I have done used virtualization. VM snapshots are easy options for backup and you can use the best out of the resources using virtualization.
5. If you are using Oracle as your database for intralink, I assume it is provided by PTC. Oracle mandates the entire physical cores to be licensed even though your VM uses a few. It is worth checking this with PTC to ensure that you don't have any non compliance down the line.
6. Make sure you have all your clients upgraded to match PTC recommendations - client operating system, RAM, browser, JRE, Office Applications if you are planning to use DTI. Read the client recommendation from here - http://support.ptc.com/WCMS/files/167881/en/Windchill10.2M030SoftwareMatrices21216.pdf

This is what I could think of. Hope it helps.

Thank you

Binesh Kumar