To correctly size servers to host the FollowMe Q-Server software, one first needs to understand the existing environment and solution requirements.

• Understanding the environment
• Analysing requirements
• Server sizing
• Virtual machines
• Best practices
• Other Considerations

Understanding the Environment

1. Servers
   The current number of print servers in the environment
2. Printers/MFPs
   The number of printers and MFPs being used today and in the future
3. Users
   The number of users in total and per location which are printing
4. Print Jobs / Pages (Annual Output)
   The annual page output for copy and printing

Analysing Requirements

1. Calculate the servers to printer ratio
   Divide the number of printers by the number of servers
2. Calculate the user to printer ratio
   Divide the number of printers by the number of users
3. Calculate the print job volume to printer ratio
   Divide the number of printers by the number of print jobs
4. Estimate annual growth projections with organizations growth plans

Server Sizing

Devices per Server

1. In general it is recommended that no more than 200 devices are hosted off a single server instance
2. A single server instance is capable of 1000+ devices although due to the Windows printing architecture it is not recommended from a risk mitigation perspective
3. The server hardware should be a reflection of the following calculation:
   Number of devices / 200 = Number of Servers

Minimum Hardware Specification
These will vary although the minimum hardware sizing we support is below:

CPU	1GHz or above
Memory	256MB or above
Hard Disk Space*	10GB or above

* There should be at least this amount of hard disk space for the application installation and the working storage for print job data while the application is running

Recommended Hardware Specification
In most environments we would expect this configuration if not higher to cover common growth patterns:

CPU	2GHz or above
Memory	2GB or above
Hard Disk Space*	40GB or above

* There should be at least this amount of hard disk space for the application installation and the working storage for print job data while the application is running

Virtual Machines

The FollowMe Q-Server software supports virtual machine instances and architectures.  When running virtual machines one should ensure the following:

• Adequate resources have been allocated to the VM at the host level
• Disk I/O is taken into consideration as print jobs are in many instances stored locally in the server data directory

Best Practices

Use of an existing print server is the most common configuration, and the following consideration should be taken if doing so:

• An additional 10 to 20% of processing, memory and storage capacity should be available

Memory sizing

In general it is viewed that the best performance is gained by having ~512MB of RAM for each 2500 simultaneous users of a Windows print server

Other Considerations

Database Server

• Microsoft SQL Server (2005, 2008, 2008 R2, 2012, 2014, 2016 , 2017)
• Oracle (10+)

Print Server

• Print Queues (Printer Names / IP Addresses)

Networking

• Remote Sites
  (When an environment has many remote sites the configuration should be discussed with Ringdale to define the best possible architecture)