View source for OX HE Tutorial 1M

= Tutorial: High Available OX HE Setup for up to 1 Milion users =

'''This article describes what you need for a typical OX HE Setup for up to 1.000.000 Users, which is fully clustered, high available and scaling very flexible.'''

It contains everything you need to:
* Understand the design of the OX HE setup including additional services
* Install the whole system based on the relevant articles
* Find pointers to the next steps of integration


= System Design =

[[Image:SaaS-1M.jpg]]

The system is designed to provide maximum functionality and availability with a minimum of necessary hardware. If the services on one OX server fail, this is transparently handled by the load balancer. If one MySQL server fails, it is sufficient to take over the IP address on the other MySQL server in the cluster to stay fully in operation.

== Core Components for OX HE ==

* Minimum two (recommended three) OX HE servers (HW recommendation: 32GB RAM / 8 cores each)
* Minimum one MySQL cluster with two servers in Master-Master configuration (HW recommendation: 32GB RAM / 8 cores each)
* NFS Server to store documents and files
* Recommended for more than 500.000 mailboxes: one OX HE server dedicated for user provisioning (HW recommendation: 16GB RAM / 4 cores each)

== Infrastructure Components not delivered by OX ==

* An email system providing IMAP and SMTP
* A control panel for creation and administration of users
* A Load Balancer in front of the OX servers (optional, recommended)

= Overview Installation Steps =

'''To deploy the described OX setup, the following steps need to be done. '''


== Mandatory Steps ==
# Initialize and configure MySQL database servers
# Install and configure OX on all servers

== Steps depending on your environment ==
# Implement Load Balancer
# Connect Control Panel
# Connect Email System

== Recommended Optional Next Steps ==
# Automated Frontend Tests
# Upsell Plugin
# Mobile Autoconfiguration
# Automatic FailOver
# Branding


= Mandatory Installation Steps - Instructions & Recommendations =


'''The following steps need to be done in every case to get OX up and running:'''

== Initialize and configure MySQL database on both servers ==

MySQL will be configured as Master-Master configuration to ensure data consistency on both servers.
If one machine fails, the other machine will take over all functionality.

LINK_TO_DOCUMENTATION

== Install and configure OX on both servers ==

OX will be installed on minimum two servers. It will be configured to '''write''' to the '''first''' MySQL database and to '''read''' from the '''second''' MySQL database in one cluster. This will distribute the load during normal operation as smooth as possible. During FailOver the IP address of the failed MySQL server will be taken over to the working server, the system stays operable.

The NFS server will be mounted on all machines and registered as filestore.

LINK_TO_DOCUMENTATION

You also should install and configure the OXtender for Business Mobility

LINK_TO_DOCUMENTATION


= Installation Steps depending on your environment - Instructions & Recommendations =

'''The following components need to be implemented in your environment.'''


== Implement Load Balancer ==

A load balancer in front of the OX servers is necessary for this deployment size. It needs to handle the requests if one OX server fails.

If you already have a hardware load balancing solution in place, this can be used. OX is known to work with the standard load balancing solutions from BigIP, Barracuda, Foundry, ...

If you do not have a load balancing solution already in place, we recommend to use [http://www.keepalived.org/ Keepalived] as reliable and cost effective solution.

Read more about configuring [[Keepalived | Keepalived for Open-Xchange]]


== Connect Control Panel ==

'''You need a Control Panel to create and edit users.''' 

OX is designed to integrate into every solution you may already have in place and into existing solutions, like the Parallels Control Panels


=== Integrate your own Control Panel ===

If you already have a Control Panel in production, you should integrate OX with it. It is recommended to use the SOAP provisioning Interface for that purpose.

Read more about: {{DocLink|docpath=SOAP/admin/OX-Admin-SOAP.html|name=Provisioning using SOAP}}

A good start to test and to understand the necessary commands are the Command Line Tools. They have exactly the same calls like the SOAP API.

Read more about: {{DocLink|docpath=OX6-Provisioning/|name=Open-Xchange CLT}}


=== Integrate with Parallels Automation (POA) ===

If you want to use Parallels Automation (POA) to manage your users, there is an [http://www.apsstandard.org/app/#search=open-xchange APS package] available to integrate OX into the POA system.

Read more in the: [[POAIntegrationGuide]]


== Authentication ==

To avoid password synchronization issues, it is recommended to use your existing email authentication mechanism within OX. Then you do not need to add user passwords to OX, you simply use a plugin to authenticate against your IMAP server.

Read more about the [[Authentication_IMAP_Plugin_description | IMAP Authentication Plugin]]


== Connect Email System ==

Every email system providing IMAP and SMTP can be used as backend to OX. Best experiences are made with the widespread Linux based IMAP servers [http://dovecot.org/ Dovecot],  [http://www.cyrusimap.org/ Cyrus] or [http://www.courier-mta.org/imap/ Courier]. 

Other IMAP servers need to be tested thoroughly before going into production.

There are several possibilities to implement the Email system:

# You already have an email system available: Nothing needs to be done, it just needs to be configured
# You use Parallels Automation (POA): Nothing special needs to be done, everything you need is contained in the APS package
# You use Plesk Panel: Nothing special needs to be done, everything you need is contained in the OXtender for Plesk
# You want to setup a new Email system: It is recommended to use Dovecot, as this is very stable, fast, feature rich and easy to scale


=== Dovecot Setup ===

If you want to setup a new Email system based on Dovecot, it is recommended to use NFS as storage backend and to install at least two Dovecot servers, accessing this storage. With that setup you have best scalability and high availability with a minimum of complexity and hardware.

[http://wiki.dovecot.org/ Dovecot documentation including a QuickConfiguration guide]

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