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Introduction

The following is a list of the pre-requisites that must be in place before a ServiceOptimizer installation can commence.

IT Knowledge Prerequisites

ServicePower assumes that any customer deciding to install and manage the application has the required knowledge to support complex IT systems. Specifically, customers must be knowledgeable in the following areas:

The setup, configuration, management and monitoring of their chosen operating system and database;
Network firewall configuration;
Network routing;
Network load balancing;
SSL certificates;
High Availability (HA);
Network Attached Storage (NAS);
Storage Area Network (SAN);
RAID;
Server / database clustering;
Master / slave failover configuration;
Server and network monitoring; and
Server backup and restoring.

Hardware Requirements

It is not possible to specify hardware requirements within this document as the sizing of the system depends on things such as number of employees being scheduled, the number of jobs being scheduled, the workflow used for those jobs, etc.

ServicePower strongly recommends that you work with our consultancy team to determine the hardware requirements for your specific ServiceOptimizer use case.

Software Requirements

Requirement Type

Requirement

Operating System

One of:

Windows 2019;
Windows 2012 R2; or
Windows 2012.

Note that ServiceOptimizer is a 64-bit application; the operating system must support 64-bit applications.

Database

One of:

Oracle 19c;
Oracle 12c R1;
MS SQL Server 2019;
MS SQL Server 2014; or
MS SQL Server 2012.

Windows Specific Requirements

The Windows installer for ServiceOptimizer requires that Windows Installer Version 2.0 or higher to be present on the machine on which the product is being installed.
In addition, ServiceOptimizer will require both the Microsoft ODBC 17 for SQL Server on Windows and the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable Package 2017. However, these packages do not need to be installed as prerequisites for launching the ServiceOptimizer Windows MSI Installer - the installer will launch a Prerequisites Setup Wizard if required, to allow the package(s) to be installed.

Oracle Database Specific Requirements

Database Server

At least one Oracle database instance must be available. (Multiple database instances may be desirable to support separate development/test/production environments, or to support multiple ServiceOptimizer instances.)
The Oracle server installation may be on a separate machine if required. If this is the case, note that the Oracle client libraries must be installed on the ServiceOptimizer application server.
Kernel parameters for shared memory must be configured on the database server as per the Oracle Installation Guide.

Net

Oracle Net must be installed and configured to enable connections to the database instance. (This is true even if ServiceScheduling is installed on the same server machine as the Oracle database instance.)

Database User

A separate database user must be created for each ServiceOptimizer instance. Each user must be provided with a sufficient quota on one or more tablespaces to allow for the storage of the technician and job data for the ServiceOptimizer instance.

Database Privileges

Each ServiceScheduling database user will require the following privileges:
- SELECT privilege on SYS.V_$SESSION
- ALTER SESSION
- CREATE PROCEDURE
- CREATE SEQUENCE
- CREATE SESSION
- CREATE SYNONYM
- CREATE TABLE
- CREATE TRIGGER
- CREATE VIEW

Database Initialisation Parameters

ServiceScheduling will run using the default value of all initialization parameters, with one exception: OPEN_CURSORS should be checked to ensure it is set to a minimum of 300.
The ServicePower schema needs to be set to have the following:
- The locale of the Database server is assumed to be UK;
- Database instance must have the following settings:
  - NLS_CHARACTERSET is AL32UTF8; and
  - NLS_LANG is English.

Client Libraries

ServiceOptimizer requires 64bit Oracle client libraries.

Perl

To run the ServiceOptimizer scripts, an installation of Perl will be required (Note: 64 bit Perl required.)
The Perl installation must include the relevant DBI and DBD for the appropriate database (DBD::Oracle modules for Oracle); these may need to be installed separately, in addition to the main Perl installation.
The standard Oracle 12c installation includes a suitable version of Perl (including the DBI and DBD modules). If your database platform is Oracle 12c the PATH and PERL5LIB environment variables should be configured to use this version of Perl.

Disk Space

The amount of storage space required will depend on the number of technicians being scheduled and, most importantly, on the number of jobs carried out by each technician. Consideration should also be given to the amount of historical data to be stored.
The ServicePower implementation team can provide advice on database storage requirements as part of the ServiceScheduling implementation process. As a general guideline, however, you should allow for a minimum disk requirement of:
- Oracle Software: 3,500 Mb
- Database instance: Total: 7,600 Mb
  - System tablespace: 300 Mb
  - Temporary tablespace: 300 Mb
  - Undo tablespace: 500 Mb
  - Redo logs: 1,500 Mb
  - ServiceScheduling data (one instance): 1,500 Mb

MS SQL Server Specific Requirements

Database Server

MS SQL Server must be installed using mixed mode security.
If ServiceOptimizer is running on a separate computer to the SQL Server instance, then both computers should be part of the same Windows Domain.
The database host operating system should be configured as set out in Microsoft documentation and no specific modification to the default installation is required.
The MS SQL Server installation and configuration should also follow the guidelines and recommendations set out in the documentation provided by Microsoft. It should be noted that the default collation Latin1_General_BIN or similar case non-specific collation is used.

Database Initial Setup

The initial setup of the database will need to be done by a DBA, i.e. a user with the 'System Administrator' role.

Database Upgrades, and Database Maintenance (e.g. sp_dbtidy)

Users that need to upgrade the database will need to be able to perform schema changes. Such a user should be given at least the 'db_owner' role, and preferably the 'System Administrator' role.
A database tidy facility (called sp_dbtidy) needs to add and remove indexes, so it also needs to be run as a user who is a member of the 'db_owner' role.

ServiceScheduling User

It is possible to run ServiceScheduling instances (spsysmon et al, or the ServiceScheduling clients' application server) in either trusted user mode or as a specific MS SQL Server login. This database user needs as a minimum full access to all tables, stored procedures/functions, and views within the ServiceScheduling database and full access to the TEMP database.

ServiceScheduling Clients Users

Other users who just access the database (such as a user of a ServiceScheduling Client that accesses the database) can be given lower access privileges; but as a minimum, this should allow access to all tables, stored procedures/functions and views.

Perl

To run the ServiceOptimizer scripts, an installation of Perl will be required (Note: 64 bit Perl required.)
The Perl installation must include the relevant DBI and DBD for the appropriate database (DBD::ODBC for SQL Server); these may need to be installed separately, in addition to the main Perl installation.

Disk Space

A typical installation will require the following disk space:
- SQL Server Installation: 600MB
- Typical ServiceScheduling Database Datafile: 1.0GB
- Logfile: 1.5GB