Server Architecture: UF Servers

UFDC Server Architecture

In the implementation at use at the University of Florida Libraries, most web services and data services are placed on two servers. The data server includes the SQL database, the caching service, and an instance of Solr/Lucene. A seperate Aware JPEG2000 server is used to provide zoomable access to JPEG2000 images of the digital resources. In addition, due to the number of pages ( over seven million as of early 2011 ), a seperate file server is used to house all of the digital resource files.

Figure 1: UFDC Server Architecture

In the image above, the data server interacts directly with the file server because the SobekCM Bulk Loader runs continuously on that server, monitoring various drop boxes and FTP boxes for new incoming packages to load into the library. While the system supports self-submittal and upload of files directly into the web application, this application allows for quick, large-scale loading of items from local directories or remote servers.

UFDC Server Details

All three application servers below run as virtual machines on the CNS VMware vSphere4 infrastructure. This configuration currently supports over 7 million page images, three hundred thousand issues, and 2.5 million human hits a month with ten search engine robot hits a second.

Web Server

This server runs the ASP.net web application which supports UFDC, dLOC, and several other names instances/portals. As such, this server is publicly available via HTTP and runs IIS 7.0 web server.

8GB of RAM - 2 cpus
C: drive - 320GB SAN Attached FC disk
Connected to UFDC shared storage of 13TB on CNS Managed storage
O/S - Server 2008 R2 (64 bit)
Monthly CNS hosting charge: $120
Server installation instructions

Database/Solr/Builder Server

This server has very limited accessibility and is restricted to access via the web server and several desktops used for development and testing. This runs Microsoft Enterprise SQL Server 2008 and also runs Apache Tomcat to host the Solr/Lucene indexes used for full-text searching. This server also runs the SobekCM Builder/Bulk Loader service. Previously, this supported the caching server, although this is no longer utilized due to changes to the memory profile of the web application.

12GB of RAM - 3 cpus
C: drive - 480GB SAN Attached FC disk - primarily used to store the database and the Solr/Lucene full-text indexes
Connected to UFDC shared storage of 13TB on CNS Managed storage
O/S - Server 2008 R2 (64 bit)
Monthly CNS hosting charge: $180
Server installation instructions: Database, Builder/Bulk Loader, Solr/Lucene

Aware JPEG2000 Server

This servers only purposes is to host the Aware JPEG2000 server and an experimental SobekCM Image Server used for highlighting regions on page images. As such, it is web-accessible so users can view the zoomable images and runs the Apache Tomcat Application/Web Server.

4GB of RAM - 1 cpu
C: drive - 80GB SAN Attached FC disk
Connected to UFDC shared storage of 13TB on CNS Managed storage
O/S - Server 2008 R2 (32 bit)
Monthly CNS hosting charge: $60
Server installation instructions

File Server

The file server is 14TB of shared storage on CNS Managed storage. This space is currently 90% full with all of the digital resource files for the system.