Alfresco One 5.

1 On-Premises

Reference Architecture
 Copyright 2017 by Alfresco and others.
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ii
 Document History

DOCUMENT VERSION DESCRIPTION OF CHANGE DATE

1.0 First version release. 19 January 2017

iii Alfresco Software Ltd. Confidential

 Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ....................................................................................... 1
DOCUMENT PURPOSE ............................................................................................... 1
INTENDED AUDIENCE ................................................................................................ 1
ASSUMPTIONS ......................................................................................................... 1
GLOSSARY OF TERMS............................................................................................... 2
ALFRESCO ONE OVERVIEW .............................................................................. 3
ALFRESCO ONE ARCHITECTURE ................................................................................ 3
ARCHITECTURE DIAGRAMS FOR THE STANDARD DEPLOYMENTS ............. 4
DEPLOYMENT SIZE DEFINITIONS ................................................................................ 4
Starter......................................................................................................................................................................... 5
Business ..................................................................................................................................................................... 6
Enterprise ................................................................................................................................................................... 7
Enterprise – Scaled .................................................................................................................................................... 8
KEY COMPONENTS ................................................................................................... 9
Repository and Share servers ..................................................................................................................................... 9
Database server ......................................................................................................................................................... 9
Content Store ............................................................................................................................................................. 9
Index server ................................................................................................................................................................ 9
Load Balancing ......................................................................................................................................................... 10

HARDWARE SPECIFICATIONS ........................................................................ 10

STARTER .............................................................................................................. 10
BUSINESS ............................................................................................................. 11
ENTERPRISE.......................................................................................................... 11
ENTERPRISE - SCALED ........................................................................................... 12
SOFTWARE SPECIFICATIONS ......................................................................... 13
SUPPORTED SOFTWARE STACKS ............................................................................. 13
CONFIGURATION AND VALIDATION ............................................................... 13
VALIDATION ........................................................................................................... 14
BENCHMARKING .................................................................................................... 14
TUNING ................................................................................................................. 14
SCALING ............................................................................................................... 14
SIZING .................................................................................................................. 15
RESOURCES ..................................................................................................... 16
CONTACT ........................................................................................................... 16

iv
 Executive Summary

Executive Summary
This document is a high-level best practices guide for deploying Alfresco One in an on-premises
installation. It describes the recommendation for the Alfresco One deployment architectures.

Document purpose
The purpose of this document is to describe reference architectures for Alfresco One in an on
premises installation.
Reference architectures define a blueprint for customers to build systems that are capable of
supporting a specific size of deployment. The deployment sizes are included in this document
(see Deployment size definitions section).
Once the reference architecture for the required deployment size is installed on premises,
customers can then benchmark, scale, and tune the system.
The purpose of this reference architecture document is to:
 Reduce risk for customers by offering a proven deployment architecture
 Enable high performance implementations
 Demonstrate how to scale
 Provide information to enable deployment in a variety of technical situations
This document endeavors to specify the hardware and software requirements for building an
Alfresco system for several sizes of deployment (see Deployment size definitions section).
This reference architecture document is intended for use in conjunction with other Alfresco
technical white papers, such as the Sizing Guide and the Scalability Blueprint. For more
information about these documents, and other resources, see the Resources section.

Intended audience
This document assists anyone who has responsibility for building the infrastructure of an
Alfresco One on-premises deployment.
The typical audience includes system designers, implementers, and administrators, who will
install and administer Alfresco One.

Assumptions
This document assumes a general knowledge of Alfresco One.
Those implementing the chosen reference architecture will require an in-depth knowledge of
Alfresco One administration and ideally be an Alfresco Certified Engineer (ACE) or an Alfresco
Certified Administrator (ACA) (https://university.alfresco.com/certification). An in-depth
knowledge of Alfresco clustering is also highly recommended.
This Reference Architecture document details the deployment of Alfresco One 5.1.x and above.
For the specific supported platforms for Alfresco One 5.1.x, see the Supported Platforms page
on the Alfresco website:
https://www.alfresco.com/services/subscription/supported-platforms

Alfresco One 5.1 On-Premises Reference Architecture 1

 Executive Summary

Supported software stacks for the reference architectures are described later in this document
in the Software specifications section.
Hardware requirements for the different deployment sizes are covered in the Hardware
specifications section.
Note: It is assumed that you can install and configure for scale your chosen operating
system and DBMS.
It is assumed that the ratio of concurrent / total users is 1/10. That is, for every
10 users defined in Alfresco, 10% are using the system at any given time.

Glossary of terms
The following table provides a list of terms and acronyms used in this document:

Acronym/term Meaning

ACA Alfresco Certified Administrator

ACE Alfresco Certified Engineer

AWS Amazon Web Services

DBMS Database Management System

EBS Elastic Block Store

ECM Enterprise Content Management

LB Load Balancer

HA High Availability

HDD Hard Disk Drive

JVM Java Virtual Machine

SSD Solid State Drive

vCPU Virtual CPU

EVT Environment Validation Tool

The main Alfresco glossary, with an extensive list of acronyms and terms, can be found here:
http://docs.alfresco.com/5.1/glossary/glossary.html

2 Alfresco One 5.1 On-Premises Reference Architecture

 Alfresco One overview

Alfresco One overview

Alfresco One is an Enterprise Content Management (ECM) platform allows you to manage any
type of content: from office documents, to scanned images, photographs, and even large video
files. The built-in workflow feature allows companies to automate document-intensive business
processes, saving time and money. The native collaboration features enable secure
collaboration, inside or even outside the firewall.
Alfresco One includes hybrid, on premises, cloud, and mobile deployment options. As a hybrid
ECM solution, it combines the security of an on premises ECM platform with the agility and
flexibility of the cloud.
With the hybrid functionality, document management, collaboration, and process automation
can be synched to the cloud, avoiding the risks associated with uncontrolled consumer file
sharing and enabling secure collaboration outside of the firewall.
Further information on Alfresco One can be found on the Alfresco website
(http://www.alfresco.com) and in the Alfresco documentation (http://docs.alfresco.com).

Alfresco One architecture

At the core of the Alfresco One architecture is a repository for storing content supported by a
database server that persists metadata. Out-of-the-box applications provide standard solutions
such as document management, records management, and web content management.
Programming interfaces support multiple languages and protocols upon which developers can
create custom applications and solutions.
Alfresco One is a Java application that runs in an application server, such as Tomcat.
There are three main tiers:
 Repo-tier - repository
 Web-tier – Alfresco Share user interface
 Index tier - Solr indexing
The reference architectures for larger deployment sizes use clustering of nodes to ensure that
scaling capability. In the reference architectures the two main tiers, repository and Alfresco
Share, run on the same node, although there can be multiple clustered nodes.
See the Alfresco documentation for more information on the main system components:
http://docs.alfresco.com/5.1/concepts/alfresco-components.html
Note that although Alfresco One supports a wide variety of content store options, the reference
architectures assume the default content store (the File Content Store) is used.
Alfresco One supports clustering of nodes. This offers an option for horizontally scaling your
system to meet your requirements.
Further information on setting up clustering can be found in the Alfresco documentation:
http://docs.alfresco.com/5.1/concepts/ha-intro.html

Alfresco One 5.1 On-Premises Reference Architecture 3

 Architecture diagrams for the standard deployments

Architecture diagrams for the standard deployments

The following sections describe the architecture diagrams for the standard deployments.

Deployment size definitions

Alfresco defines a number of standard deployment sizes. These deployments are known as:
 Starter
 Business
 Enterprise
 Enterprise - Scaled

The following table provides the size definitions for the Starter, Business, Enterprise, and
Enterprise - Scaled deployments.

Starter Business Enterprise Enterprise - Scaled

Users 300 500 1000 5000

Other factors should be considered for the size of each deployment, such as the predominant
type of document stored in the repository. For example, does the repository primarily store
office documents, images, or XML content?
These additional factors are covered in the Sizing Guide and Scalability Blueprint.

4 Alfresco One 5.1 On-Premises Reference Architecture

 Architecture diagrams for the standard deployments

Starter

Alfresco One 5.1 On-Premises Reference Architecture 5

 Architecture diagrams for the standard deployments

Business

6 Alfresco One 5.1 On-Premises Reference Architecture

 Architecture diagrams for the standard deployments

Enterprise

Alfresco One 5.1 On-Premises Reference Architecture 7

 Architecture diagrams for the standard deployments

Enterprise – Scaled

8 Alfresco One 5.1 On-Premises Reference Architecture

 Architecture diagrams for the standard deployments

Key components
Each reference architecture diagram comprises the key components of an Alfresco One
deployment. This section outlines the specific implementations of each of the components.

Repository and Share servers

In each reference architecture, there is at least one server running the Alfresco application with
Share. Where the size of deployment requires multiple nodes, access to the nodes are handled
by a load balancer. This ensures that network requests (such as HTTP(s), FTP and CIFS) are
evenly distributed between the multiple nodes.

Note: The specific configuration of this load balancer is dependent on the protocols it is
expected to handle.

Database server
The Alfresco and Share nodes, and index servers, are configured to communicate with a
standalone database server. All metadata for repository content is stored in this database. The
database server can represent a single point of failure, so you should have suitable failover
systems in place.
Alternatively, advanced features of the selected database such as replication and sharding
can be used, as required.
Configuration of advanced database features is vendor dependent and is out of the scope of
this document.

Content Store
For the reference architecture, the default content store is assumed. This is the File Content
Store. Alfresco supports many content store types, which are detailed in the official Alfresco
documentation.
The content store is an abstraction, and using a different content store has little impact on the
reference architecture.
Alfresco also supports multiple content stores. Where multiple content stores are involved, each
store needs to be attached to all of the Alfresco repository nodes in the cluster, as well as any
deployed index servers.

Index server
The index server (based on Alfresco plus Apache Solr) is responsible for indexing content,
processing search requests, and returning search results.
Detailed information about Solr and how it is used in an Alfresco One deployment is available in
the official Alfresco documentation:
http://docs.alfresco.com/5.1/concepts/solr-home.html

Alfresco One 5.1 On-Premises Reference Architecture 9

 Hardware specifications

Load Balancing
The choice of load balancer will depend on your preferred vendor and anticipated system loads.
A range of possibilities may be deployed including dedicated hardware, or generic servers
running load balancing software such as Nginx, Apache HTTP, and so on.
See the Sizing Guide for additional information on estimating likely loads.

Hardware specifications
This section describes the hardware requirements for each reference architecture.

Note: If you are going to use cloud-based computing resources such as AWS or
Rackspace to build a reference architecture, then refer to the AWS Reference
Architecture, the Scalability Blueprint, and the Sizing Guide documents for
information on specifying resources such as vCPUs, RAM, and storage.

Starter
The following table specifies the hardware requirements for building the Starter reference
architecture.

Server CPU RAM Storage Notes

(GiB)

Alfresco/Share/Index Quad core, 16 500GB HDD Local disk is used for application
Server Intel Xeon files, temporary files, and index.
E5-2676 v3

Database Server Eight core, 64 Variable Size and performance of storage

Intel Xeon dependent on size of repository.
E5-2670 v2 See the Sizing Guide for formulas.

Content Store N/A N/A Mounted Size and performance depends on

storage, size of repository. See the Sizing
local, SAN, Guide for formulas
or NAS.

There is no High Availability (HA) system in place in the Starter architecture.

10 Alfresco One 5.1 On-Premises Reference Architecture

 Hardware specifications

Business
The following table specifies the hardware requirements for building the Business reference
architecture.

Server CPU RAM Storage Notes

(GiB)

Alfresco/Share Quad core, Intel 16 500GB HDD Local disk is used for application
/Index Server Xeon E5-2676 files, temporary files, and index.
v3

Database Eight core, Intel 64 Variable Size and performance of storage

Server Xeon E5-2670 dependent on size of repository.
v2 See the Sizing Guide for formulas.

Content Store N/A N/A Mounted Size and performance depends on

storage, size of repository. See the Sizing
local, SAN, Guide for formulas.
or NAS.

The Business architecture has a duplicate system in place for High Availability (HA).

Enterprise
The following table specifies the hardware requirements for building the Enterprise reference
architecture.

Server CPU RAM Storage Notes

(GiB)

Alfresco/Share Quad core, Intel 16 500GB HDD Local disk is used for application
Server (2) Xeon E5-2676 files and temporary files
v3

Database Sixteen core, 128 Variable Size and performance of storage

Server Intel Xeon E5- dependent on size of repository.
2670 v2 See the Sizing Guide for
formulas.

Index Server Quad core, Intel 32 500GB SSD Index servers require high disk
(1) Xeon E5-2670 performance. See the Sizing
v2 Guide for detailed index sizing
formulas.

Content Store N/A N/A Mounted Size and performance depends

Server storage, local, on size of repository. See the
SAN, or NAS. Sizing Guide for formulas.
The Enterprise architecture has a duplicate system in place for High Availability (HA).

Alfresco One 5.1 On-Premises Reference Architecture 11

 Hardware specifications

Enterprise - Scaled
The following table specifies the hardware requirements for building the Enterprise - Scaled
reference architecture.

Server CPU RAM Storage Notes

(GiB)

Alfresco/Share Quad core, 16 500GB HDD Local disk is used for application files
Server (4) Intel Xeon and temporary files.
E5-2676 v3

Database Sixteen 128 Variable Size and performance of storage

Server core, Intel dependent on size of repository. See
Xeon E5- the Sizing Guide formulas.
2670 v2

Index Server Quad core, 32 500GB SSD Index servers require high disk
(2) Intel Xeon performance. See the Sizing Guide for
E5-2670 v2 detailed index sizing formulas.

Content Store N/A N/A Mounted Size and performance depends on size
Server storage, of repository. See the Sizing Guide for
local, SAN, or formulas.
NAS.

The Enterprise x5 architecture has a duplicate system in place for High Availability (HA).

12 Alfresco One 5.1 On-Premises Reference Architecture

 Software specifications

Software specifications
This section lists the specific software required to build a reference architecture.

Supported software stacks

The software stacks define several key pieces of system software used in a reference
architecture. The reference architecture is not prescriptive about the vendors used to provide
this software, only that it is listed as supported in Alfresco’s Supported Platforms document.
1. Operating system
2. Database server
3. Application server
To allow for flexibility, a reference architecture allows you to choose from several supported
stacks, depending on your requirements and preferences. For example, if you prefer using
enterprise grade commercial database servers and commercial Linux, there is a supported
stack. If you prefer to use Microsoft software there is also a supported stack you can use. If you
prefer free open source software there is also a supported stack.
https://www.alfresco.com/services/subscription/supported-platforms

Configuration and validation

Ensure that your Alfresco One installation is suitably configured for your deployment. See the
following Alfresco documentation for details.

Configuration type Documentation

Repository http://docs.alfresco.com/5.1/concepts/intro-core.html

Share http://docs.alfresco.com/5.1/concepts/share-configuring-intro.html

Database http://docs.alfresco.com/5.1/concepts/intro-db-setup.html

Content store http://docs.alfresco.com/5.1/concepts/manage-cs-home.html

Solr http://docs.alfresco.com/5.1/concepts/solr-overview.html

Authentication and security http://docs.alfresco.com/5.1/concepts/auth-intro.html

Alfresco One 5.1 On-Premises Reference Architecture 13

 Configuration and validation

Validation
Alfresco provides an environment validation tool (EVT) that helps ensure the environment into
which Alfresco will be deployed is correctly configured, running a supported stack, and meets
some minimum performance requirements. It is recommended that the EVT be run on a new
environment before it begins accepting production workloads.

Benchmarking
Once you have installed your system you will need to benchmark it in order to assess its
performance. Once benchmarked the system can be tuned, and scaled if required.
See the Sizing Guide and Scalability Blueprint documents for benchmark results.

Tuning
Alfresco One is a Java application. Many of the performance tuning methods you can apply to
Alfresco One are as for other Java applications - for example making sure enough RAM and
stack is allocated to the JVM.
Some notes on tuning the JVM to suit Alfresco One can be found in the following
documentation:
http://docs.alfresco.com/5.1/concepts/jvm-tuning.html

Scaling
Once a reference architecture is deployed it will be necessary to benchmark, tune and scale the
deployment. This may occur soon after installation to meet your requirements, but may also
happen over time as your requirements grow. Alfresco provides a Scalability Blueprint
document to assist you with scaling your solution.
Briefly, there are two possibilities for scaling:
 Scale up - upgrade machines (more CPU, more RAM, more cache, bigger HDD)
 Scale out - add more machines - more clustering - add dedicated transformation server
The scaling requirements will depend on the customer’s specific needs, but would typically
based on number of concurrent users, number and types of documents, required
transformations, rate of ingestion of new documents and so on.
Scaling out is not linear and it is generally advisable to scale up your nodes initially, prior to
scaling out, especially the repository nodes.
A typical scenario that would allow the reference architecture to scale out to an Enterprise x5
deployment (see Size definitions section earlier in this document) would require increasing the
Alfresco/Share nodes from two to four, and increasing the index server nodes from one to two,
increasing the number of shards as required. The database server would also need to be
scaled up (and out) accordingly.
See the Scalability Blueprint document
(https://www.alfresco.com/resources/whitepapers/alfresco-scalability-blueprint) for further
information on scaling out.

14 Alfresco One 5.1 On-Premises Reference Architecture

 Configuration and validation

Sizing
The reference architecture provided in this document is a vetted starting point for an Alfresco
deployment. The hardware recommendations provided will support the size of deployment
indicated in each sizing option. Deployments that vary significantly from the reference
architecture (such as higher concurrent / total user ratios, extremely large repositories or
metadata complexity beyond typical use cases) should refer to the Alfresco Sizing Guide for
assistance in determining the required hardware.

Alfresco One 5.1 On-Premises Reference Architecture 15

 Resources

Resources
Further information can be found from the following resources:

Resource Link

Alfresco documentation http://docs.alfresco.com

Alfresco consultancy services https://www.alfresco.com/alfresco-consulting

Installing Alfresco http://docs.alfresco.com/5.1/concepts/master-ch-

install.html

AWS Reference Architecture

Alfresco Scalability Blueprint https://www.alfresco.com/resources/whitepapers/alfresc

o-scalability-blueprint

Alfresco Sizing Guide https://www.alfresco.com/resources/whitepapers/alfresc

o-one-51-sizing-guide

Clustering for redundancy http://docs.alfresco.com/5.1/concepts/cluster-scenario-

redundancy.html

Clustering for high throughput http://docs.alfresco.com/5.1/concepts/cluster-scenario-

throughput.html

Contact
Details of Alfresco consultancy services can be found at the following page on the Alfresco
website:
https://www.alfresco.com/alfresco-consulting

16 Alfresco One 5.1 On-Premises Reference Architecture