Server Planning and Installation Guide

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Server Planning and Workstation

Installation Guide

Congratulations for choosing Orion as your firm’s software provider. As one of the leaders in law firm software for North America we want to thank you for allowing us the opportunity to meet your financial and practice management needs. This document serves as an overview for preparing and installing Orion at your firm and is designed for the firm’s technology supervisor. We are committed to assisting you in a smooth deployment. For additional support including technical assistance, please do not hesitate to call us at 800-305-5867. The following chart shows the general components for the system installation:

Orion likes to ensure that everything is installed and ready to go at least two weeks prior to the scheduled kick-off meeting. The kick-off meeting is the scheduled date between the firm’s administrator and the assigned project manager from Orion and is typically 90 days before the go live date with the Orion software. By ensuring that the software is installed prior to this date, it allows for critical users to evaluate and test certain parameters assigned during the kick-off meeting. This is critical assuming a conversion is being completed for the firm.

Planning Your Installation

Orion will assign a technician whose primary responsibility will be to install all the necessary server components. It will be the firm’s responsibility to install and perform any client workstations. This technician will also serve as the point of contact for any installation questions or other needs that the firm may require. At the end of this document is an Installation Checklist. This item will assist you in preparing for the server installation and in providing Orion with the necessary information to install and support your firm. Please review this item and return it to your support technician.

Orion Law Management Systems • 1-800-305-5867 • www.orionlaw.com

Remote Support

Because Orion will be performing the server installation, we will need remote access including a user account with the necessary rights. This account must remain active after the server installation, and is required by the support agreement. This allows for support technicians to respond and provide support at significantly faster levels than otherwise available. The majority of support related questions is client specific and requires us to review and evaluate each request individually. Orion prefers RDC for remote connection, although Citrix is also acceptable. Other third party software will require prior approval. Should you require IP addresses to lock down the connections between firewalls, it can be provided. The following is required,

1. Server IP address. If the Orion server is not internet facing, it is acceptable to remote into a terminal server and then connect to the Orion server. Orion prefers Remote Desktop Connection.
2. If the connection is Citrix, we require the exact Citrix client required for connection. Due to the number of different Citrix clients and connection methods available, please provide us with exact directions on how to connect to the Orion server, such as one that you would provide an end user.
3. The Domain and username (Orion prefers Orion for user name).
4. The Orion account must have appropriate rights and privileges to install and maintain software. Orion prefers belonging to the Domain Administrator account. Often, a local user or administrator is NOT sufficient due to the nature of communications across the network. Especially in firms where group policy is extensively configured.

Pervasive PSQL

Orion requires a third party SQL product to operate. For this we use Pervasive PSQL. Pervasive PSQL is one of the most widely used and dependable SQL database software in the marketplace. It offers some of the best relational and transactional database speeds in industry. Pervasive offers full ODBC database connection and can be accessed using third party tools. Orion will install Pervasive on the server and provide the firm with the necessary client installers to install the Pervasive client at the workstation.

Virtualization

Orion can be installed in a virtualization environment. However, care and planning should be used before deploying this scenario. Orion, like most database products requires proper I/O throughput for acceptable speed. Since any I/O request inside a VM has to pass through a translation layer and then get passed to the physical hardware, it takes longer to perform each operation. This can be compounded by multiple VM’s running on the same host using the same physical drives. The same is true for network transmissions. As the database receives and responds to requests, all network traffic must pass through the hypervisor layer which can increase latency.

Server Planning and Workstation

Installation Guide

Orion Law Management Systems • 1-800-305-5867 • www.orionlaw.com

Server Planning and Workstation

Installation Guide

Troubleshooting can be much more difficult in a VM environment, as the interplay or problems from one VM to another running on the same physical machine get much more complicated.

Orion is fully supported in a virtual server with respect to functionality. This means that Orion will help you troubleshoot any issues due to crashing or other problems on virtual servers. However, we do NOT guarantee performance in these environments. We can only guarantee performance using our recommended requirements of a separate stand- alone server. If you choose to virtualize, please ensure that your hardware resources will meet or exceed the performance as listed in our recommended server requirements. At a minimum Orion should be configured with its own dedicated NIC card and disk drives, we continue to recommend RAID 10 and SSD even in a virtual environment. We encourage you to explore using SSD even in a SANS system, or exploring routes to utilize SSD just for our application. Many firms continue to prefer Orion is installed in a virtual environment, which is fine, just be aware we do NOT recommend it for the best possible performance.

Server and Workstation Requirements

There are many factors to include when preparing for the hardware that will house the Orion database software. The most notable is the size of the firm, and which modules they have installed. The following is provided as a general reference for planning purposes. You are encouraged to communicate your server hardware planning with your assigned technician. This ensures that the server will be appropriate to your unique firm in terms of speed and performance of the Orion application.

Generally speaking, Orion recommends being placed on its own dedicated server. This eliminates potential conflicts and ensures resources dedicated to the processing of Orion. Below are the recommended guidelines and does NOT take into account any other applications or operating system overhead required for daily computing.

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Orion Law Management Systems • 1-800-305-5867 • www.orionlaw.com

Server & Workstation Requirements

Server Computer