The production VA is supplied as a compressed zip file and is built using VMware Server version 2.0 (build 122956) with the following configuration:

• 1 x CPU
• 2048Mb RAM
• Hard Disk - SCSI 50Gb (to grow as necessary in 2Gb file increments)
• 1 x CD/DVD Drive (auto detect)
• 1 x Network Interface Card - (bridged)
  The Network Interface Card (eth0) is configured to use DHCP. Should you require static network settings please consult your Linux System Administrator.

The configuration of the Community Edition VM is described here.

Deployment Considerations

The VA is packaged in a compressed zip file which contains a single VMware virtual machine compatible with either of the following products from the VMware suite:

• VMware Virtual Infrastructure (ESX Server version 3.0.2 or later)
• VMware Server (version 2.0, build 122956 or later)

In order to use the VA under VMware Virtual Infrastructure, you will need to convert the VA to run on VMware ESX Server, using the VMware Converter product. Please refer to your Virtual Infrastructure administrator and VMware documentation for further details.

When starting the VA for the first time, you may be prompted about your "identifier". It is recommended that you choose the relevant option to "create a new identifier". This ensures that the MAC address of the Network Interface Card is unique and avoids any conflicts.

The RAM and CPU configuration may need to be changed to suit your hardware environment and should be increased for larger deployments. Please consult your VMware administrator for details. The following are the maximum supported limits for the two supported deployment platforms, best performance will be obtained using these settings:

• VMWare Server 2 - 2 CPUs 8Gb RAM
• VMWare ESX 3 - 4 CPUs 16Gb RAM

VMware have documented their recommended timekeeping best practices for Linux based VMs should you need to apply them. The KnowledgeBase article can be found here.

Disk Size Considerations

Depending on your Tideway Foundation VA performance requirements and your VMware Virtual Infrastructure policies you may need to resize the virtual disk or prefer the Tideway Foundation database to be installed on a separate disk to the operating system.

We do not recommend shrinking the virtual disk without first contacting Tideway Customer Support.

The default size is suitable for 150 OSIs. If you need to support more than 150 OSIs, you must add an additional virtual disk. You need administration-level knowledge of Tideway Foundation, VMware and Linux in order to create the additional virtual disk. If you require assistance please contact Tideway Customer Support.

To configure a separate database disk, complete the following steps:

1. Snapshot (copy) the Tideway Foundation database if required.
2. Shutdown the VA.
3. Add a new SCSI disk - either physical or virtual.
4. Restart the VA.
5. Stop the tideway services.
6. Partition the new disk.
7. Format the required partition (ext3).
8. Mount the required partition on /mnt/disk2.
9. Ensure that the ownership of /mnt/disk2 is tideway:tideway and is writable by the Tideway user.
10. Add /mnt/disk2 to /etc/fstab.
11. Copy /usr/tideway/python/model/link/link_twin_disks.conf to /usr/tideway/etc/link.conf.
12. Reinitialize the tideway model.
13. Start the tideway services.
14. If necessary, import the snapshot.