Understanding the following concepts can help you make decisions as you install eDirectory on the various platforms:
Hardware requirements depend on the specific implementation of eDirectory.
For example, a base installation of eDirectory with the standard schema requires about 74 MB of disk space for every 50,000 users. However, if you add a new set of attributes or completely fill in every existing attribute, the object size grows. These additions require more disk space, processor, and memory needed.
Two factors increase performance: more cache memory and faster processors.
For best results, cache as much of the DIB Set as the hardware allows. See Distributing Memory between Entry and Block Caches.
eDirectory scales well on a single processor. However, eDirectory 8.6 takes advantage of multiple processors. Adding processors improves performance in some areas, for example, logins, and having multiple threads active on multiple processors. eDirectory itself is not processor-intensive, but it is I/O-intensive.
Table 1 illustrates typical system recommendations for eDirectory for NetWare, Windows NT/2000, and Linux.
Table 1. System Requirement for NetWare, Windows, and Linux
Table 2 illustrates typical system recommendations for eDirectory for Solaris.
Table 2. System Requirement for Solaris
| Objects | Processor | Memory | Hard Disk |
|---|---|---|---|
100,000 |
Sun* Enterprise 220 |
384 MB |
144 MB |
1 million |
Sun Enterprise 450 |
2 GB |
1.5 GB |
10 million |
Sun Enterprise 4500 with multiple processors |
2 GB + |
15 GB |
Requirements for processors might be greater than the tables indicate, depending upon additional services available on the computer, as well as the number of authentications, reads, and writes that the computer is handling. Processes such as encryption and indexing can be processor-intensive.
Of course, faster processors improve performance. Additional memory improves performance because eDirectory will then cache more of the directory into memory. Of course, faster processors improve performance.
Because the internal eDirectory identifiers change, when upgrading to Novell eDirectory 8.6, the backlink process has to update backlinked objects for them to be consistent.
Backlinks keep track of external references to objects on other servers. For each external reference on a server, the backlink process ensures that the real object exists in the correct location and verifies all backlink attributes on the master of the replica. By default, the backlink process occurs two hours after the database is open and then every 780 minutes (13 hours). The interval is configurable from 2 minutes to 10,080 minutes (7 days).
After migrating to eDirectory 8.6, we recommend that you force the backlink to run by issuing a SET DSTRACE=*B command from the server console. On Linux and Solaris systems, run this command from the ndstrace command prompt. Running the backlink process is especially important on servers that do not contain a replica.