4.6 Requirements for the Dashboard and CMS

The Dashboard and CMS are both Web-based applications. Both require access to the Operations Center server. While they can be installed on the same server as Operations Center, they do not need to be on the same host machine.

For more information, see the Operations Center 5.0 Dashboard Guide or Operations Center 5.0 Configuration Management System (CMS) Guide.

Table 4-8 lists the deployment notes for the Dashboard and CMS:

Table 4-8 Dashboard and CMS Requirements

Host Server

For supported platforms, see Section 4.1, Operating Systems.

For databases, see Section 4.3, Databases.

The Dashboard/CMS server must have:

  • JDK 6.0 or higher. For more information, see Section 4.1.1, Java Runtime Environment.

  • Environment variable called %JAVA_HOME% in Windows or $JAVA_HOME in Linux/Unix set to point to your JDK directory.

For the Web/Image Server, the Apache Tomcat requirements are:

  • The Dashboard installs with Apache Tomcat v6.0.37 and Image Server

  • CMS installs with Apache Tomcat v6.0.37

Deployment

The Dashboard, CMS, and Operations Center be at the same Operations Center patch release.

When installed on a different physical server than the Operations Center server, the Dashboard/CMS server must resolve to the Operations Center server for communications.

Operations Center Server

For CMS, Version Tracking must be configured on the Operations Center server.

For more information, see Operations Center 5.0 Version Tracking Guide.

User Access

Users must use a Web browser to access the Dashboard and CMS. For supported browsers, see Section 4.2, Client Platforms.

Web browsers must be configured to allow Active X controls. If the correct plug-in is not installed, you are prompted to install it.

To access the Dashboard Layout and ChartBuilder (IE only) portlets , the Adobe SVG Viewer 3.0 must be installed on the user’s machine.

Additional Information

The Dashboard is compatible with portlets that are JSR‑286 compliant. Any portlet that uses this standard can be deployed in the Dashboard.

NOTE:Novell provides support for Operations Center portlets only. The Dashboard leverages portlets from third-party sources including Liferay v.5.2.3. For support for any third-party portlets, contact the vendor that provided the portlet.

Because the Operations Center Dashboard offers flexibility to design your own dashboards, it might be necessary to upgrade hardware, increase memory allocations, alter page designs (including number of charts or expressions on a chart), or limit the amount of users to achieve optimal performance. Performance varies based on the number of users, complexity of installation, and amount of data in your dashboard pages. We suggest you contact consulting for help in implementing a high performing solution.