The Accelrys Enterprise Platform (AEP) installation guide provides a basic set of system requirements for your server. While these values will indeed get you up and running, they may not be adequate for your usage scenario. Correctly sizing your server is critical for your Enterprise’s successful deployment of AEP. There is no one-size-fits-all answer for how big your server should be, so we will cover multiple scenarios and considerations to keep in mind. Following these guidelines, your Enterprise deployment will more successful and your users will be happier. Specific scenarios covered may include Application (BioReg, ChemReg) deployment, Next Generation Sequence usage, and Modeling and Simulation usage

1. (ATS4-PLAT06) Considerations for
Sizing and Deployment
Ian Kerman
Support Scientist, Platform Support
Ian.Kerman@accelrys.com

2. The information on the roadmap and future software development efforts are
intended to outline general product direction and should not be relied on in making
a purchasing decision.

3. Agenda
• Considerations for Sizing
• Considerations for Deployment
• Considerations for Virtualization
• CPU
• Memory
• Disk Space

4. First…
• …this is not a session on performance tuning or optimization
• Sessions that cover this topic:
– ATS2-07 (Solving Large Computing Challenges with Pipeline Pilot)
– ATS2-25 (Advanced Planning for Pipeline Pilot Deployments)
– ATS3-PLAT08 (Optimizing Protocol Performance)
– ATS3-PLAT11 (Advanced Planning for AEP Deployments & Migrations)
– ATS4-PLAT03 (Balancing Security with Access for Development)
– ATS4-PLAT08 (Server Pool Management)
– ATS4-PLAT10 (Planning Your Deployment for a 64-bit World)

5. Considerations for Sizing
• Number of Concurrent Users / scisvr Processes
– Peak vs. Average Usage
• Define Job Types
– CPU, Memory, or I/O Bound
– HPC
• User Performance Expectations
• Plan for future growth

6. Considerations for Deployment
• Identify your user types
– Web User, Internal User, External User
• Define entry points
– Internal, External Network, Web, CRO

7. 1
2 AEP Admin
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8. Considerations for Virtualization
• Virtualization is not officially supported, but we are
working on it
• If you need to use virtualization…
– Make sure the virtual server is properly sized
– Virtual resources should be “reserved”
– Can be difficult to troubleshoot performance issues

9. CPU
• 2-4 scisvr Processes per Core
– 2 for CPU Bound Jobs
– 4 for I/O Bound Jobs
• AEP performs well with Hyper-Threading
• Benchmarking with the NGS collection has shown better
performance with Intel Xeons than with other processors1
• Jobs that benefit the most from CPU investment
– Next Gen Sequencing
– Discovery Studio
– High-usage Web Applications
(1) Accelrys Pipeline Pilot and HP ProLiant servers: A performance overview, Technical white paper, February 2012

10. Demo
• Server Sizing Worksheet: CPU Section

11. Memory
• 1 GB per scisvr Process
• Swap space should be 2x amount of memory
• Jobs that benefit the most from Memory investment
– Next Gen Sequencing (Assembly)
– Data Caching Components (Merging, Joining, Sorting, etc)
– Java-heavy Protocols (Reporting)

12. Demo
• Server Sizing Worksheet: Memory
Section

13. Storage
• Disk Space
• Disk Performance
• Network Storage

14. Demo
• Server Sizing Worksheet: Storage
Capacity Section

15. One More Thing…
• Don’t forget about your network
– Database Servers
– File Servers
– Clusters and Grids
– Local vs. Remote

16. Summary
• Documented server requirements are just a starting point
• Consider number of users, types of jobs
• See the new Deployment Guide in AEP 9.0
• Other Tech Summit Sessions:
– ATS2-25 (Advanced Planning for Pipeline Pilot Deployments)
– ATS3-PLAT11 (Advanced Planning for AEP Deployments &
Migrations)