Hardware requirements

The computer or computers that you install the RICOH ProcessDirector base product on must meet minimum requirements. If you install RICOH ProcessDirector features on the same computer, it might need more memory, storage space, CPU, or network bandwidth.

Different components and features of RICOH ProcessDirector are installed on separate computers. Those computers have different minimum requirements than the one that the base product and all other features are installed on. These components are:

  • Application servers

    See Application server computers for hardware requirements.

  • Secondary Server

    See Secondary computers for hardware requirements.

  • RICOH ProcessDirector Plug-in for Adobe Acrobat (part of the PDF Document Support feature)

    See RICOH ProcessDirector: Installing Document Processing Features, G550-20312, for a description of the requirements.

The performance of RICOH ProcessDirector and its attached printers depends on the availability and efficiency of memory, processors, disk space, and network resources in the system configuration. Performance also depends on the content of the print data streams being processed and the overall load on the system. For example, complex print jobs, such as those containing images or bar codes, require more resources than those containing plain text. For help determining which hardware configuration meets your print requirements, contact your Ricoh representative to request a workload analysis and system sizing.

    Important:
  • References to amount of RAM or free disk space are precise. Using commonly accepted estimates in your calculations might cause your system to fail prerequisite validation.

    For example:

    • 4 GB of free disk space is equal to 4,096 MB or to 4,294,967,296 bytes.

      4 GB is not equal to 4,000 MB or to 4,000,000,000 bytes.

      If the requirement is 4 GB, 4,000 MB is not enough.

    • 12 GB of free disk space is equal to 12,288 MB or to 12,884,901,888 bytes.

      12 GB is not equal to 12,000 MB or to 12,000,000,000 bytes.

      If the requirement is 12 GB, 12,000 MB is not enough.

  • RICOH ProcessDirector hardware requirements are for physical processors and CPU cores. As an alternative, you can run RICOH ProcessDirector on a properly configured virtual machine (VM) guest or logical partition (LPAR). Define the VM guest or LPAR so that the number of dedicated or entitled CPUs exceeds the recommended minimum hardware requirements for your configuration.

      Important:
    • Using fewer than the recommended number of physical processors can result in RICOH ProcessDirector workflow performance issues especially under load, failure of the RICOH ProcessDirector system, or failure to install RICOH ProcessDirector or any of its features.

    Examples:

    • On a physical server with 16 cores, do not configure the RICOH ProcessDirector guest environment to have 24 CPUs.
    • On a physical server with 16 cores, do not run two guest systems, each allocated 8 CPUs, where one guest is running the RICOH ProcessDirector software because the host software requires some resources.
    • Do not install RICOH ProcessDirector on a virtual host that is configured to overcommit the physical CPU resources.

  • Hardware requirements stated for other computing resources including memory, disk space, network I/O, and disk I/O should also be considered as requirements for a virtualized environment.

In this section:

  1. Primary computer
  2. Secondary computers
  3. Application server computers
    An application server has these hardware requirements:
  4. Other hardware requirements
  5. Supported RICOH printers
    These printers can be defined in RICOH ProcessDirector as Ricoh PDF printers. Find your printer and controller/DFE below to determine which datastream and port values to use when you define the printer.
Parent topic: Planning for installation