System Technical Requirements

EMu is a collections management system that provides both client-server and web browser access to a collection.

A typical hardware connectivity setup for an EMu installation is illustrated below. In this setup a multi-user server machine provides database server facilities to both:

  • Local and remote EMu client workstations

    and

  • Local and remote browser-based Internet / Intranet users

    Technical_requirements_diagram.gif

EMu Connectivity Overview

Large EMu sites in particular may have a dedicated web server located outside the corporate firewall. In this case EMu web services reside on the external web server and gain access to the EMu server via a secure connection through the corporate firewall.

Read on for details about:

The EMu server must run one of the following operating systems:

  • Linux / Unix

    All of the most popular Unix and Linux implementations can be used, including:

    • CentOS
    • Red Hat ES
    • Ubuntu
    • FreeBSD

We can provide advice on the best server to meet your requirements.

The following user authentication mechanisms are supported:

  • Unix password file
  • NIS (Network Information Services)
  • Windows Active Directory
  • LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol)
  • OpenID Connect

The following software packages are required by the EMu Server:

  • Perl 5.12 or greater - perl scripting language

    The following perl packages are required:

    • XML::Parser::Expat
    • File::FcntlLock

The following extra software packages are required by the EMu web server (IMu) if installed:

  • ImageMagick - image manipulation package
  • PerlMagick - perl interface to ImageMagick package

    The following perl packages are required:

    • HTML::Parser
    • Image::ExifTool
    • PDF::APi2

Please refer to the Axiell Go installation guide for details if Axiell Go is to be installed.

EMu requires no special backup software and does not use raw partitions. Any standard backup and restore software provided with the operating system or a third party product (e.g. ARCserve) may be used.

The disk space requirement for the EMu back-end (without record data or multimedia) is less than 2 GB (this does not include space required by the operating system).

Other storage requirements depend heavily on the anticipated amount of multimedia which is to be stored within the system, and recommendations vary accordingly.

The minimum base memory level depends on the indexing technology employed. For implementations using Texpress, a minimum of 4 GB should be allocated to the server; if SOLR is used, a minimum of 8 GB is required.

The additional memory requirement for the server is dependent on the number and roles of the connected users. Generally, the server memory requirement per concurrent user averages 1G per active concurrent licence with some variation depending on usage patterns.

The EMu server may be virtualized. There is a performance overhead in running virtualization however and if performance is critical, it is recommended that EMu is run on raw hardware if at all possible. The overhead with virtualization is typically 5 to 10% but can be as high as 15%.

In an environment running virtualization directly on raw hardware, VMWare ESXi or Citrix XenServer is recommended.

If Windows based virtualization is required, we recommend VMWare over HyperV.

In all instances, we recommend either RedHat Linux, CentOS Linux or FreeBSD as the guest operating system.

EMu workstations must run a minimum of Windows 10.

The disk space requirement on the client computer is less than 2 GB (without caching of multimedia and reports), although at least 10 GB of available free disk space is recommended.

Minimum requirements include a video card capable of at least 1024x768 resolution, with at least 24 bit colour. Other minimum (and recommended) requirements are:

  • Pentium x86_64 2.0GHz Dual Core CPU
  • 4096 MB RAM

It is possible to run the EMu Windows client on Apple workstations through the use of Windows emulation tools. Some tools available include:

  • Parallels (http://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/)
  • VMware (http://www.vmwar.com/products/fusion/)

Please contact EMu Support for further details.

Windows users may also use Terminal Services (RDWeb) or Citrix, which can be useful for providing high speed EMu access over low speed connections to remote sites or for teleworkers.

The EMu client can be installed in one of two ways:

Local

The full EMu client is installed on each PC. Each PC will need to be updated for EMu client upgrades.

Network (recommended)

The major portion of the EMu client is installed on a network drive to which all EMu users have access. Only a small EMu client needs to be installed on each PC, and in most instances only the network drive needs to be updated for EMu client upgrades.

The web server must run PHP 5.3 or later.

All data and multimedia reside on the EMu server and are transferred between the server and each client PC as required. Multimedia can also be stored on a separate server or network attached storage device (SAN). Record data transferred between PCs and the server only places a small load on the network.

Multimedia files transferred between PCs and the server may place significant load on the network depending on the size of the files and network throughput.

The network must support TCP/IP.

For direct connection between the EMu client and server a minimum network bandwidth of 1GB/s is required. If thin client technology is in place (e.g. Citrix or Terminal Services), the network between the end user and thin client gateway may be substantially slower than this (with Citrix, even a connection across a dial-up modem is feasible).

The EMu database engine, Texpress, has a number of standard technologies built into the DBMS for extracting data. These technologies include http, XML (the two most common standards used in the world today) and SQL.

Technologies such as the SQL interface are designed on the standards available. The SQL interface is designed to SQL92 with many enhancements for subsequent design advances. All of the information required to use this tool is published. Many people outside of Axiell have significant expertise in this and other interfaces to Texpress.

With EMu's data export tool it is possible to export data in a wide range of formats, including XML, CSV, Blank padded, and a variety of others.

Licensing for EMu is by concurrent user access to the EMu server. Thus EMu can be made accessible to a wide user base with the licence only affecting the number of users who run the system simultaneously.

EMu incorporates a fully integrated web interface suitable for Internet and Intranet access. Depending on the expected Internet / Intranet load a site can choose to run one or more EMu web servers (in the nature of the web one EMu web server can service several users apparently simultaneously). Note, however, that each EMu web server is considered a concurrent user in terms of licensing.

The number of licences that should be allocated to web servers depends on the expected number of web searches. A general guideline is to dedicate one licence out of every five to ten licences to servicing web searches. The allocation of licences for web use may be changed at any time. The more licences dedicated to web use, the more web searches can be serviced concurrently.

Other than operating system software no other software is necessary in order to use EMu. However, many other software packages can be used in conjunction with EMu, in particular a web browser, email system, Microsoft Word and Excel and Crystal Reports Developer.

EMu can store any multimedia resource. It is able to show / play most common image, video and audio formats directly, and can invoke a separate "helper" application for any other formats.

Multimedia resources are added interactively to the EMu Multimedia module from a local or network drive accessible from a client PC. When a multimedia record is saved, EMu automatically creates a thumbnail and any other derivatives as required. The multimedia resource (and derivatives if any) are then uploaded and stored on the EMu server. Once the multimedia record is saved, EMu does not keep a reference to a multimedia resource on the client PC.

Multimedia resources are downloaded to each client PC on demand. A multimedia cache can be used on each PC to reduce network traffic. EMu client options can be set to configure the multimedia download and cache facilities.

EMu supports over 100 image file formats, including:

  • BMP Microsoft Windows Bitmap Image
  • DCX ZSoft IBM PC multi-page Paintbrush
  • DNG Digital Negative
  • GIF CompuServe Graphics Interchange Format
  • JP2 JPEG 2000
  • JPEG Joint Photographic Experts Group
  • PCD Photo CD
  • PCX ZSoft IBM PC Paintbrush
  • PNG Portable Network Graphics
  • TGA Truevision Targa Image
  • TIFF Tagged Image File Format

EMu's image capabilities are extensible, automatically supporting any image formats registered by applications installed on a computer.

EMu supports the following metadata standards:

  • EXIF Exchangeable Image File Format (Version 2.3, April 2010)
  • IPTC International Press Telecommunications Council (Version 1.1, July 2009)
  • XMP Extensible Metadata Platform (Revision December 2008)

Metadata is automatically extracted from the following file formats:

Standard

Formats supported

EXIF

JPEG, TIFF

IPTC

JPEG, TIFF, PICT, PS, PSD

XMP

JPEG, TIFF

Audio formats supported by EMu include:

  • AIFF Audio Interchange File Format
  • AU Audio File Format
  • MIDI Musical Instrument Digital Interface
  • MP3 MPEG Audio Stream, Layer III
  • RMI MIDI in RIFF File Format
  • SND Sound File Format
  • WAV Waveform Audio
  • WMA Windows Media Audio File

EMu's audio capabilities are extensible, automatically supporting any MCI compliant audio CODECs installed on a computer.

Video formats supported by EMu include:

  • ASF Advanced Streaming Format
  • AVI Audio Video Interleave File
  • M1V MPEG-1 Video File
  • M2V MPEG-2 Video File
  • MP4 MPEG-4 Part 14
  • M4V
  • MODJVC Everio GZ-MG20U Digital Video File
  • MPEG MPEG 1 System Stream
  • WMV Windows Media File

EMu's video capabilities are extensible, automatically supporting any MCI compliant video CODECs installed on a computer.