Vico Software Installation Guide

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Vico Software Installation Guide

This guide provides an overview of the Vico Office product and describes how to plan your deployment, install it, or upgrade to it. The guide is intended for users who install or upgrade this product for

professional purposes. The guide also includes an introduction for network administrators about the system configuration that they might need to implement.

This guide is divided into the following parts:

Introduction to Vico Office ... 3

System Components ... 3

Vico Office ... 3

Vico Project Server ... 3

Overview ... 3

An Object Oriented Database ... 4

Vico License Manager ... 5

Overview ... 5

License Server ... 6

System requirements ... 10

General Requirements ... 10

Vico Office Requirements ... 10

Vico Project Server Requirements ... 11

Vico License Manager Requirements ... 12

Configuration Options ... 14

Configuration 1 – “Standalone” ... 14

Configuration 2 – “LAN” (Recommended) ... 14

Configuration 3 – “WAN” ... 15

Working Offline ... 16

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Vico Office (VO) ... 17

Vico Project Server (VPS) ... 17

Vico Office with Vico Project Server ... 17

Vico License Manager (VLM) ... 17

System Configuration ... 18

Firewall Settings ... 18

UAC Settings ... 19

Licensing Process ... 20

License Management Server Connection Failure ... 21

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Introduction to Vico Office

System Components

The Vico Office system consists of three main components:

 Vico Office

 Vico Project Server

 Vico License Manager

Vico Office

Vico Office is the main program in Vico’s integrated solution for construction planning, controlling and constructability analysis and is needed for all users who will interact with project data.

The Vico Office Client provides a basic set of functions needed for creating, viewing and reporting of projects. Vico Office Modules are task specific programs that run in the Vico Office Client. A Module is activated when a license for it is available on the user’s system or via a license server.

Vico Project Server

Overview

Vico Project Server (VPS) manages the access and storage of project data. The VPS creates new

databases for each new project, and maintains the master list of projects that is visible in the Vico Office application. VPS can be installed together with Vico Office, or separately to a remote server.

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 Project Databases

 Master Database

 Shared Database

A separate Project Database is added for each project that is created on the VPS. One VPS can handle many projects; however, a large number of users might require additional VPS-s.

The Master Database contains the list of projects that a user that connects to the VPS will see in the Vico Office project list in the “Dashboard” view.

The Shared Database contains non-project-specific information such as report templates. An Object Oriented Database

Vico Project Server uses an object oriented database by Versant (Versant Object Database©), which works with data objects (instead of tables with records) that are stored in the client computer’s memory (the Client Object Cache), the server’s memory (Server Page Cache) and on disk, in database volumes. All transactions are continuously logged in a Logical Log File (for objects in the Server Page Cache) and a Physical Log File (for objects in the Database Volumes), which prevents data loss in case of an

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The Object Backend (OBE) process manages the communication (through queries) between VPS and Vico Office. The Clean Back End (cleanbe) process writes server memory pages to the database volume as soon as the maximum number of pages that should be kept in memory is reached. The number of pages that are kept in memory can be configured for both client and server (in respectively the front end profile.be file and back end profile.be file).

Vico License Manager

Overview

The Vico License Manager (VLM) handles licensing of Vico Office modules. Licenses can be installed locally or on a license server. The VLM component is installed together with the Vico Office software and generates license (.LIC) files based on the received license information. This process is explained in more detail in the “Licensing Process” chapter.

Single User Licenses (SUL) are installed locally and managed by the local VLM component.

Floating Licenses (FL) are installed on a License Server, and managed by the VLM Server component. The “Client” systems pull licenses from the pool of installed licenses on the License Server.

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Floating Licenses, installed on a License Server, can be managed using the License Server Administration utility. The utility is accessed as a web page, which can be started from the Start menu on the License Server via Vico Software > License Server > Server administration.

Setting up a License Server:

1. Appoint a computer that will act as the license server

2. Start Vico Office setup, select Vico License Manager (VLM) to install the Vico License Server on that machine (“server”)

Alternatively, you can download and install Vico License Server separately: Vico License Server 3. Install (by opening .LIU License Installation files – wait for 15-20 seconds) the floating licenses on

the “server” computer (example license names: ‘VO Takeoff Manager’; ‘VO Cost Planner’; VO Cost Explorer’, etc)

.LIU files should be associated with Vico License Installation Utility (LIU). If the file association is missing, please download and install this utility separately: License Installation Utility

4. Start the Server Administration page on the License Server (Start menu > Vico Software > License Server > Server administration) and click ‘Reread/Restart’ – the License Server should now be up and running.

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1. Download Vico software from our products pages. Install Vico Office on each user’s computer. We recommend you restart your system after installing.

2. Install (by opening the ‘Vico Office Client’ license (.liu file attached to license notification) – wait for 15-20 seconds) on the client computer(s)

3. Set the connection to Vico License Manager (License Server) at Dashboard/VLM Server field in Vico Office.

Alternatively, you can download and install the Vico Client Utility on each user’s computer, and during the installation you will have to enter the name of the “server” computer

4. Everything is set up; when you start Vico Office, it will check out the ‘Vico Office Client’ license locally, and should be able to check out the module licenses from the server.

License Pool, license usage

To get the list of installed licenses, click on ‘Status’ menu item on the left, then on the ‘Vico’ button under ‘Server Status’.

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To revoke a license, and put it back to the license pool, click on ‘Remove’:

For further information about license usage and user activity tracking contact Vico Software Technical Support at [email protected].

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System requirements

General Requirements

The Vico Office program interacts with the remote VPS over a network connection. To warrant optimal performance of the system, the network connection should have the following characteristics:

 Low Latency

Recommended maximum value for latency is 20ms. A dedicated VPS system over a Local Area Network or Network Attached Storage are good solutions, Storage Area Network is not.

 High Bandwidth

Project data needs to be transferred from the VPS to the Vico Office user interface continuously and in high volume; for good performance of the Vico Office views, a high bandwidth

connection between VPS and Vico Office is therefore required.

 Firewall Exceptions

Vico Office communicates with the VPS over a TCP/IP connection using dedicated ports, and so does the VLM. Firewall exceptions are required in Windows firewall and – if applicable – in additionally installed software and/or hardware firewalls.

Vico Office Requirements

The following are the requirements for correct installation of the Vico Office software. Supported operating systems:

 Windows Vista

 Windows 7

Hard disk usage: a minimum of 10GB free disk space is required for a full installation. Memory: a minimum of 4GB is required; 16GB or more is recommended.

Video Card: high-end OpenGL card with at least 512 MB onboard video memory (ATI or NVIDIA) Open port requirements:

 Ports 20, 21, 1026 and 1027 (inbound and outbound traffic to enable crash reports to be uploaded to the Vico servers)

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Vico Project Server Requirements

The following are the requirements for the Vico Project Server. Supported operating systems:

 Windows Vista

 Windows 7

 Windows Server 2008 R1/R2

Hard disk usage (defined in the profile.be configuration file):

 At least 100Mb for the VPS program

 1GB should be calculated with as a per project minimum, but projects can be much larger

 20MB for “Shared” and “Master” databases Memory (defined in the profile.be configuration file):

 Maximum 300MB per concurrently used project

 40MB for the “Master” database

 40MB for the “Shared” database Firewall exceptions for specific programs:

 NotificationDaemon.exe (C:\VERSANT\7_0_1); uses TCP/IP port 5088

 versantd.exe (C:\VERSANT\7_0_1\bin); uses TCP/IP port 5019

 obe.exe (C:\VERSANT\7_0_1\bin); uses TCP/IP port range 6000-6200 (this can be defined using an environment variable called VERSANT_SERVER_PORTS); each project uses a dedicated port, therefore a range is used.

Notes:

 A high bandwidth and low latency connection to the Vico Office systems is required for good performance

 Storage Area Network is a good storage option for the databases

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Vico License Manager Requirements

The following are the requirements for the Vico License Manager. Supported operating systems:

 Windows Vista

 Windows 7



Windows Server 2008R1/R2 Open port requirements:

 Two ports are needed for floating license communication:

o Port 2764 for establishing a connection to the VLM License Server for floating licenses o A random port for further for communication with the VLM License Server for floating

licenses. The second port can also be specified in the .LIC license file on the License Server with a text editor such as Notepad, by adding ‘vico.opt XXXX’ to the second line in the .LIC license file, where ‘XXXX’ is the desired port number.

After editing the .LIC file(s), the License Server has to be restarted by clicking on “Shutdown”, then “Reread/Restart Servers” on the Server Administration page that is accessible as described in the “License Server” section of this document.

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 Port 9000 for the License Server Webpage Admin. If needed, this port can be changed to a custom port number in the “XYNTService.ini’ file.

1 - Open the XYNTService.ini file in Notepad to edit the port number

2 - The Server Webpage Admin should now refer to the same port number

Disk space: 2MB Memory: 3MB Notes:

 Licenses are stored in the folder C:\ProgramData\Vico Software\VicoLM

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Configuration Options

The Vico Office solution can be installed in various configurations. This section provides an overview of the available installation options and describes typical usage for each.

Configuration 1 – “Standalone”

Configuration 1 is recommended for demonstration and offline work only.

In this configuration, Vico Office and Vico Project Server are installed on the same system, which means that the same computer is both server and client. Project databases, Master database and Shared database are available without

connecting to a server. Note:

The communication between Vico Office and VPS takes place via TCP/IP. Server and client both have the same TCP/IP address – this is considered a threat by most antivirus and firewall software. If it is not possible to make adjustments to firewall and/or antivirus software, Vico advises against the use of configuration 1.

With the ‘Standalone’ configuration, both Vico Office and VPS are installed on the same machine

Configuration 2 – “LAN” (Recommended)

Configuration 2 is recommended for most use cases.

In this configuration, a dedicated system is setup as Vico Project Server, and work stations with Vico Office installed connect to the VPS over a Local Area Network.

Multiple users can access the same project at the same time, which enables “Work As One”: parallel work on a project as a team.

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1. With locally installed single user licenses 2. With a License Server and Floating

licenses – users ‘pull’ licenses for the various modules from a pool of licenses installed on the server

Note:

Because of hardware limitations of the server (related to memory usage), a large number of users might require additional VPS-s to be setup.

Option 2 – with License Server and Floating Licenses

Configuration 3 – “WAN”

Configuration 3 is designed to provide on-site project teams access to a VLM License Server that is setup in the office.

This configuration requires access to the VLM Server from outside the office; this can be achieved by placing the license server

computer inside a ‘DMZ’.

Setting up a License Server in the DMZ can provide access to floating licenses from outside the office.

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Working Offline

Offline work is supported through the “Compare & Update” functionality in Vico Office. To work offline on a project that exists on a project server, the following steps are required:

1. Create a project on the system that will be taken offline 2. Run Compare & Update and copy all project content from the

project server to the new project

3. Work offline

4. Connect to the project server and open the project from the server 5. Run Compare & Update and copy the changes to the server

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Installation Options

The Vico Software installer provides four software installation options:

Vico Office (VO)

Installs the Vico Office software without the Vico Project Server. After installation, the Vico Project Server that will contain projects can be specified by entering a network IP address or a computer name. Vico Project Server (VPS)

Installs the component that will run the Project databases, Master database and Shared database. Select this option if you want to run databases on your local system.

Vico Office with Vico Project Server

This option installs both Vico Office and the Vico Project Server, which results in configuration 1, described in previous section.

Vico License Manager (VLM)

With this option, only the license server component is installed, which allows for installation of floating licenses that can be used by other computers that are connected via LAN or WAN.

Note: Vico Office cannot be installed on a system with VLM installed, as Vico Office requires a Single User License for the Vico Office Client. Single User Licenses cannot be installed on license server systems.

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System Configuration

Firewall Settings

Vico Office communicates with the Vico Project Server via the TCP/IP protocol. This communication takes place through dedicated ports, which should be open on both Vico Office system and VPS system. The Vico Office installer attempts to make required changes in the Windows firewall. Any additionally installed firewall software should be configured manually.

Additionally, the Vico License Manager and the Vico Crash Reporter require specific ports to be open. In addition to the systems on which the software is running, the License Manager and Crash Reporter may require ports to be open on installed firewalls on routers and modems, to be able to communicate with respectively the Vico Software license administration system and the Vico Crash Report server.

The table below provides an overview of all open port requirements and program exceptions.

Note: in case of 5019, 5088 and 6000-6200 ports/port range we recommend setting the exception for the related .exe process.

Port Process Component(s) Open on

Router/Modem

5019 versantd.exe  Vico Office

No 5088 NotificationDaemon.exe  Vico Office

No

6000-6200 obe.exe  Vico Office

No 20, 21, 1026, 1027 chilkat.exe  Vico Office

(Crash Report Uploader)

Yes 2764 and additional

random port (or specified explicitly as described in “Vico License Manager Requirements”)

 Vico Office

 Vico License Server

No (Yes in case of WAN access to license server)

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UAC Settings

Windows User Access Control can block the Vico Project Server to Vico Office communication in the specific case where:

 UAC is active and

 The user account does not have “Administrator” rights

If it is not possible to deactivate UAC, or to provide the user with an “Administrator” account, Vico Office can be started in elevated mode by running the program as Administrator (right-click on the Vico Office program shortcut, select properties and select the “Run this program as an administrator” option).

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Licensing Process

The licensing process for Vico Software consists of three steps: 1. Receive a License Installation Utility

file (LIU).

This can be a new license, or an existing license that is reassigned using the Customer Portal. 2. Copy the LIU file to the target

computer. For Single User Licenses, this is the computer that will be used with Vico Office; for Floating

Licenses, this is the License Server computer.

3. Initiate the license generation process by double-clicking on the LIU file.

The License Installation Utility (part of Vico Office) connects with the Vico License Management Server and generates a hardware specific license file.

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License Management Server Connection Failure

In case of a License Management Server connection failure, the License Installation Utility displays a message and automatically generates a License Request File. The License Request File should be sent as an attachment to

[email protected]

Note that only the request file should be attached to an otherwise empty e-mail. No edits or other attachments are allowed! (Edited e-mails and additional attachments will result in failure of the automatic process!)

After receipt of the request file, an email with the license file is automatically sent by the Vico License Management Server. Next, the license file should be saved on the target computer. Double click the file to finish the installation.

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Virtualization

Vico Software does support a system configuration in a virtualized environment; however, standard licensing will not work. For licensing on virtual systems, please contact your Vico account representative.