Chapter 19 Running a server

If you require the on-site version of Tercen (called Tercen Enterprise) then send an email to support@tercen.com.

Server hardware

The recommended hardware specification for a high-end server is:

CPU : Xeon, 8 Cores
RAM : 64 Gig
HD  : 1TB SSD
OS  : Linux

Smaller servers can be used (e.g. not a Xenon CPU but i7 or i5). The number of users and the type of data analysis activity determines the size required.

An important rule of thumb is to have at least 8Gigs of RAM per CPU. Hence (e.g. 4 Cores requires 32 Gigs).

By default we recommend Linux but Tercen Enterprise also runs on Windows and Mac OS servers.

Server resources

A Tercen Enterprise server allows for multiple researchers using the same server. Each researcher is using CPU and Storage resources. A server may be easily swamped with requests and therefore a system of resource management is in place. There are different categories (i.e. CPU, Data, Storage, API calls) of resources and different levels of utilization (i.e. 0,1,2) where 0 represents the lowest level of resource utilization. Ideally the right level of resources should be assigned for different users. A researcher who exceeds their limit gets an error. A resource utilization information bar is shown to each user in the graphical user interface. The bar indicates the level of resource utilization and the amount left.

Server resources are configured using config.yaml file.

Go to the folder named resources\tercen in the Tercen installation folder (usually C:\Tercen), in it there is a file called config.yaml.

The file contains three profile levels: 0,1,2 Each user is associated with one of the levels. The default is 0 (the lowest level of resource allocation).

Level	Resource
0	Low amount of resources
1	Medium amount of resources
2	Highest amount of resources

There are settings associated for each level for each category of resources.

The current categories are:

Category	Description	Name in yaml file
Table	resource for table (i.e. size)	TableProfile
CPU time	resources for CPU time	CputimeProfile
Storage	resources for storage	StorageProfile
Run	resources for a run	RunProfile
API calls	resources fro the API	ApiCallProfile

Increasing the value for any of these settings gives extra resources.

If you change these profile settings then you need to restart the Tercen application for your changes to take effect.