Note: The hardware requirement is
intended to guide the clients of DP/RX Corporation on the minimum hardware
needed to implement a full system. The hardware
specifications contained herein are based on the current state-of-the art.
The clients have the option to secure a higher
level of hardware in both speed and capacity.
The file server is referred to as the main
repository of data, applications and other support files.
Following is the specification of the file server for DPRX
Teleclaim System:
DELL Power Edge Server or equivalent
Intel Pentium III 733 Mhz Single Processor
(Upgradeable to 2 processors), with 133 Mhz side bus, 256 Megabytes 133 Mhz RAM
, 3-20GB Ultra wide SCSI Hard Disks (if processing over 1 million claims per month 3-40GB disks),
Adaptec (or other) SCSI Controller with cache memory, 100 MB Network Card, Primary
Domain Controller, Windows NT 4.0 Server
with SP6, VGA Monitor, Keyboard, Mouse. This will acommodate all current activity and
up to 4 years of historical data online.
The adjudicator is a PC which interfaces with the file
server and the front end processor.
Intel Pentium III 733 Mhz processor, 128 Megabytes 133 Mhz RAM,
Ultra ATA/100 40GB hard disk @ 7200 RPM, Windows NT 4.0 Workstation with SP6, VGA Monitor, Keyboard, Mouse,
100MB Network Card.
The Front End Processor is a PC which interfaces
between the Adjudicator machine and the network system via
multiple communications ports. The network system could be an X.25
or a TCP/IP network protocol.
Intel Pentium III 733
Mhz processor, 64 MB RAM, 8GB hard disk, Windows 98
or Windows NT 4.0 Workstation, VGA Monitor, Keyboard, Mouse,
Network Card, Multi-port Digiboard (serial ports for X.25 only) for Windows 98
System, 1 100MB Network Card (2 for Windows NT System).
Intel Pentium III 733 Mhz Processor, 64 Megabytes
RAM, 8GB disk, Windows NT 4.0 Workstation SP6, VGA
Monitor, Keyboard, Mouse, 100MB Network Card.
These are to allow your Clients access to the system (Optional). These PC's are running on PC-DOS 7.0.
Intel Pentium 100 Mhz or equivalent (Minimum)
, 32 MB RAM, Network
Card, VGA Monitor, Mouse, Keyboard, Modem, PC Anywhere 5.0 for DOS.
These are to allow your Clients access to the system via the internet. These PC's are running Windows NT 4.0
Workstation with Service Pack 6.
Intel 266 Mhz
Pentium II Processor, 64 Mbytes RAM,
Network Card, VGA Monitor, Mouse, Keyboard, PC Anywhere 9.0.
10/100 24 ports Network HUB, as many as needed
Modems (Depends on number of Terminals)
TeleGlobe MEMOTEC X.25 PAD (for x.25 data
communications)
AT&T ParaDyne Modem with RS232 Interface
for X.25 PAD
AT&T ParaDyne ISDN Modem Comsphere 3610
(for TCP/IP)
3Com Office Connect NetBuilder (for TCP/IP)
Assorted UTP CAT 5 Cables
- Fault Tolerance System Plan
Implementing a fault-tolerant system in any
company requires careful planning and attention. This usually
involves additional expense on hardware. One of the most common
fault-tolerance strategys is called RAID or Redundant Array of
Inexpensive Disk.
RAID is a technology that has been around for
years now and its traditionally implemented in hardware. The concept
behind RAID is rather simple. Disk drives are typically one of the
areas in high performance computers that have the most bottlenecks.
They just can’t read data from the drive fast enough. This is one
of the problems RAID was designed to help resolve. The idea is that
by using multiple disks and spreading data across them all in
parallel, you can get a performance increase. In addition to
providing performance increase, RAID has the provisions for
providing data redundancy, either through mirroring or the use of
parity information.
The key to RAID is a technique called striping.
When the system tries to write a block of information to the array,
the array controller, breaks the information into smaller chunks for
a pre-determined size and writes these chunks in parallel across all
drives in the array.
RAID 1: Mirror and Duplexing: Mirroring is
accomplished by writing all data onto two separate physical disks,
providing 100 percent redundancy. If information on one disk is
corrupted, it can be automatically rebuilt using data on the
mirrored partition. Additionally, mirroring can improve performance
because the first available disk can be used to service a read
request. Duplexing is where each device of the array is put on its
own controller. As far as the RAID standards go, duplexing and
mirroring are the same, although duplexing offers greater redundancy
and reliability. RAID 1 provides robust redundancy, but its main
disadvantage is that it needs twice the number of drives.
RAID 5: String with Parity: RAID 5 solves the
problem of accessing the parity drive. This is done by spreading the
parity information equally across all the drives. If any drive in
the array fails, missing information can be reconstructed from the
remaining information and the parity information for that block.
This provides the same level of redundancy as RAID 1 without
incurring the cost penalty caused by needing 100 percent redundancy.
Fault-Tolerant:
The highest level of redundancy would be to have two identical
servers with a software fault-tolerant scheme such as Vinca. This would
facilitate complete uptime even in the event of a severe hardware failure
in one server. We highly recommend this scheme, especially when coupled with
hot-swappable power supplies and hard disk drives.
- Uninterrupted Power Supply
Since the system is running on a 24x7 process,
it needs sufficient power requirements. This UPS will provide the
system with power of up to 6 hours when there is a commercial
power failure.
Laser Printer (Check Printer i.e HP Laserjet 6L)
ID Card Printer (Optional)
Tape drive with sufficient capacity to store the whole network
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