Introduction to Nesstar Server

Hardware/Software Requirements

2GB of RAM (4GB is preferable). You may optimise the amount of memory your server is allocated by setting the "Java Heap Size" under Advanced Settings in the configuration tool.
2Ghz CPU or faster. Multi-core CPUs are recommended.
minimum 10GB harddisk.

For Windows Version

Windows 2000/XP/Vista/Windows 7 or Windows Server 2003/ 2008 R2

For Linux Version

Linux (Running on i386 or compatible processors)
Java 1.6
MySQL
Apache Ant >= 1.6

Nesstar Server Components

The major components of the Nesstar Server are:

The J2EE Server

The Nesstar Server is based on JBoss. JBoss is an Open Source application server that implements the Java 2 Enterprise Edition specification from SUN Microsystems.

The Nesstar Server code is mostly written in Java. The Nesstar Server is basically a container of objects that corresponds to statistical metadata and data concepts (studies, variables, etc.). This objects are defined in an object-oriented model, expressed as an UML Class Diagram. A copy of the model (in Poseidon/Argo UML or XMI format) is available on request.

The windows version of Nesstar server comes with an embedded copy of the Sun's Java Virtual Machine. For tthe Linux version of Nesstar Server Java 1.6 full sdk needs to be pre-installed.

The Web Server

The Nesstar server contains a standard web server (Tomcat). The server has a default Home Page, which is the point of entry to new users. The port and host are specified during configuration (immediately after installation) and are stored in ./config/nesstar.properties (If the standard port 80 is used, then the port can be omitted from the URL). This web server supports secure pages (see secure sockets layer for details).

The homepage provides links to the embedded clients (Nesstar WebView and the Object Browser) and to useful documents, such as this guide. It can also be customized to provide links to your own web content. See the section on Publishing Other Web Resources for more details. Further information can be found in the Configuration guide.

The Embedded Database (Windows only)

The Nesstar Server comes pre-packaged and pre-configured with a version of the MySQL database server in Windows version. The database is used to store the persistent state of the Nesstar objects and to provide efficient search and retrieval functionality. This can be disabled in favour of another database in the Configuration Tool. Further information can be found in the Database Administration section and also in the Configuration guide.

Note: For the Linux version of Nesstar Server MySQL needs to installed seperately.

The Statistical Engine

The Nesstar Server contains a version of the NSDstat statistical data engine and converter. The Statistical Engine provides all the statistical processing functionality of the server, e.g.: online variable tabulation, descriptive statistics, dynamic data subsetting and merging across multiple files.