13.1 Appliance Functional Overview by Type

This section is included only as background information. No planning steps are included.

The appliances in a large Filr deployment perform three distinct roles that are essential to delivering Filr services.

Table 13-2 Appliance Role Summary

	Filr	Filr Search	SQL Database (if needed)
Role	File access and sharing	Content indexing for searching purposes	Database storage retrieval of file metadata, system configuration, and user/group identities
Number of VMs Required	At least one and generally three as a best practice See Filr Performance and High-Availability. After that, as many as the service load demands.	Two See Filr Search Redundancy.	The best practice is to use a supported existing database server. The PostgreSQL appliance should only be used if an existing server is not available. See Database Sizing.
Dependencies	At least one Filr Search appliance Access to a MySQL or SQL database	None	None
Functions	Run a number of web-based services that are responsible for Filr client and web client (browser) interaction with the rest of the system. Synchronize Net Folders. Where content search indexing is enabled, extract indexable content from synchronized files and send it to the Filr Search appliance to be indexed. For all files and folders accessible through Filr, extract metadata and send it to the Filrsearch appliance to be indexed for file access.	Accept information to be indexed. Respond to user-initiated search requests from Filr Appliances. In a clustered environment, the Search appliance hosts the Memcached service.	Store and provide access to the following: Configuration settings for all of the Filr cluster appliances Information on the users and files within the system
Best Practices	Required: Configure /vashare to point to a remote NFS or CIFS disk that all Filr appliances share in common. Strongly recommended: Deploy at least three Filr appliances: two to provide high availability and one devoted to Net Folder Synchronization and content indexing (if applicable).	Strongly recommended: Deploy two Filr Search appliances to provide fault tolerance and eliminate a single point of failure for Filr and the Filr desktop clients. Strongly recommended: The Search appliance runs the Memcached service to enable clustering. To secure Memcached, you should deploy the Search appliance behind the firewall. For more information on securing Memcached, see Securing Memcached in the Filr 4: Administrative UI Reference.	Recommended: Consult with a qualified database administrator and use a high-availability in-house SQL or MS SQL installation whenever possible. Strongly recommended: In a clustered environment, you must deploy PostgreSQL appliance behind the firewall.