Server Requirements

These requirements apply to your ENPS Primary and Buddy Servers, and servers that will be running NOMWebService.

The requirements apply to both physical and virtual servers. For additional advice see Virtual Server Considerations.

For Mobile Server requirements, see the separate ENPS Mobile Administration Guide.

Requirements vary based on the number of users at your site and other factors. Performance and speed will be enhanced if processor, memory, and available disk space exceed the minimum requirements. You may also need additional servers as your organization grows.

Hardware

Component	Minimum	Recommended	Notes
CPU	8 cores	8+ cores
RAM	32GB (See Notes)	32GB+	32GB+ is sufficient for many sites, but more may be needed to ensure optimal performance at sites with larger archives. As a rule of thumb, have as least as much physical RAM as the size of your index.
Hard Disk	300GB	500GB	RAID array, level 1, 5 or 10. SSD drives are preferred.
Network	100 Megabit	100+ Megabit

All hardware must have the appropriate drivers.

Hard drives

A minimum of 6 hard drives (SCSI, SAS, SSD or similar enterprise-level storage devices) are required for best performance; 8 drives allow for highest availability. 3.5" platter hard drives are preferred as they have been found to provide slightly better performance compared to 2.5" drives.

Sites using virtual servers should implement storage configurations that provide equivalent separation, performance, and fault tolerance as the physical RAID configurations described below. This may be achieved using multiple virtual disks or storage tiers, but does not require a one-to-one mapping between physical drives and virtual disks.

A second RAID array has potential benefits but is not required.

Software RAID is not supported or recommended.

A network-based or local backup system is strongly recommended.

Best Performance Configuration – 3 RAIDS (min. 6 drives)

1st RAID (level 1)	2nd RAID (level 1)	3rd RAID (level 1, 5 or 10)
Operating System (C:\)	Index (E:\)	ENPS Work (F:, G:, H:\)

Normal Performance Configuration for 64-bit systems – 2 RAIDS (min. 4 drives):

1st RAID (level 1)		2nd RAID (level 1, 5 or 10)
Operating System (C:\)	Index (E:\)	ENPS Work (F:, G:, H:\)

The recommendations above mean that sites which have previously run ENPS with only C: (system) and D: (index and ENPS data) drives in the past, should change their drive configurations to include at least 3 drives—system, index and ENPS data—when building 64-bit servers for use with ENPS.

For acceptable performance, the index should be on its own partition; for optimal performance it should also be on its own RAID array. Having the index and ENPS data on the same partition can slow down access to ENPS data during times of heavy indexer activity.

In virtual environments, these recommendations refer to logical separation and storage performance rather than the physical number of drives. Virtual machines do not need to present the same number of disks, provided that the underlying storage delivers equivalent performance and that the operating system, index, and ENPS data are separated (for example, using distinct virtual disks or storage tiers).

Software

Component	Required	Notes
Windows Server	2016 / 2019 / 2022 Windows Server 2025 is supported from ENPS 9.6.1 onwards.	64-bit only. Ensure that Windows Server is up-to-date with Microsoft service packs and security patches.
.NET Framework	4.8
Amazon Corretto	17	The Platform Installer prompts to upgrade if not already on this version. Do not install any higher or lower versions of Corretto. Remove any versions different than Corretto 17 from the server.
Solr	9.5.0	The Platform Installer automatically installs this version if not already installed.
Chromium	103.0.12	The Platform Installer automatically installs this version if not already installed.
Google Chrome	Latest version	Install on all servers. Not required on Windows Server 2022 / 2025.
Adobe Reader	Recent versions	Required to index PDF files.

Virtual Server Considerations

Keep the following requirements in mind before you install an ENPS Server on a virtual machine:

See Server Requirements above for guidance on storage performance equivalency in virtual environments.
The Associated Press does not support third party software such as VMWare. You should contact the virtual machine vendor for support issues related to their software.
You are solely responsible for meeting the virtual machine's requirements for hardware, networking, wire ingestion, and integration.
There should be a minimum of 2 GB of RAM available to the host machine after the virtual machine is mounted.
Make sure that anti-virus software on the host machine does not scan virtual machine files. Just like a physical ENPS Server, an ENPS Server in a virtual machine environment should be cautious of running anti-virus software with real-time scanning. See the Anti-virus topic for more information.
Do not run an ENPS Primary server and its corresponding Buddy server as virtual ENPS Servers on the same machine simultaneously.