Problem:

When sizing a server (or servers) to provide back-office support for a Micro Focus Application Development Environment (MF/ADE), you need to consider the major services it will provide and the number of users it will be supporting.  Major services include:

Resolution:

Micro Focus MFE Server Sizing

General

When sizing a server (or servers) to provide back-office support for a Micro Focus Application Development Environment (MF/ADE), you need to consider the major services it will provide and the number of users it will be supporting.  Major services include:

Major Services for an MF/ADE Server

- Shared file storage

    source code

    built prod-level executables

    test files, databases

    Master copy of software & configs

- Personal workspace (sometimes)

- Shared Resource Managers

    SyncMon tasks

    Revolve master-project rebuilds

    MFE master-project rebuilds

    XDB Server(s)

    CICS Region(s) (rare)

If serving 25 or fewer developers, server sizing can usually be done rather casually, using any contemporary (P4) processor with lots of memory (~1GB) and a rough estimate of disk space.  As you move toward hosting 50 developers, look carefully at how the server will actually be used, and budget for and tune the major server components (memory, processor, etc.).  As you approach 100   users,  spend significant time with these calculations, and even pilot some activities.  In these instances, it may be necessary to spread some of the load across several servers.   

Disk Space

There are five major components to consider here:

1.  Application source code, built executables, archives, workfiles and other derivatives.  A rule of thumb, estimate 5-6x actual source size.  Actual source size can be calculated as 50MB per 1000 source members (or per million lines of code).  So, for a moderate source footprint of 25,000 source members, we'd need about 7.5GB.

2.  The O/S and other base software will occupy about 2-3GB.  

3.  The Micro Focus software footprint will occupy about 500-700MB.

4.  Disk space for test data I would estimate at 250MB per programmer for the first 10 programmers, then 100MB each after that.  So, for 25 programmers, we'd estimate 4GB.  Further analysis of their plans to share test beds, store scratch/test data locally, etc. may dramatically alter this number.

5.  User Workspace, if hosted on the server, should be estimated at 100MB per programmer for the first 10 programmers, then 50MB per programmer after that.

Processor

Don't shy away from multiple 2GHz P4's (or faster as available), especially if there will be heavy use of multi-user resource managers (e.g., XDB Server, CICS Server), or a need for very timely rebuilds of large Revolve or MFE projects.  However, if not exploiting shared resource managers, you might go with a more modest-priced processor, since project rebuilds, while large, are often scheduled during off-hours.

Memory

Start with 1GB.  The choice here (together with processor) will dramatically affect performance of large Revolve and MFE rebuilds, and enable support of larger numbers of concurrent users.  So, for a modest team of 25 that does not need "immediate" rebuild turnaround, 1GB would certainly be sufficient.  But for larger numbers of concurrent users, or for heavy-duty frequent (hourly?) project rebuilds, consider more.

Networking and O/S

The O/S choices are Windows 2000/2003 Server (or perhaps XP for smaller installs).  These should be tuned (and perhaps additional memory budgeted) to host the intended number of concurrent user connections.  These should be carefully analysed as you approach or exceed 50 users.

Access

The server desktop should be accessible (either physically, or via a remote desktop utility such as PCAnywhere) to the Micro Focus Application Development Environment (MF/ADE) Administrator, the SCM Administrator (for access to SyncMon and related tasks), and any DBA, CICS or similar administrators responsible for server-hosted resource managers.