Technical Specifications

Please note, the specifications for BarcodeTicket and VisitorSafe are current as at 26 Jan 2005 and subject to change without further notice.

SUMMARY:

In providing any recommendation for hardware and software, we need to qualify our results first. As usual our software must pass through a serious of tests allowing us to fine tune its performance and we highly recommend that you do the same after installation. In particular you should always keep a backup copy of the database and plan your capacity properly. As a guide if you are using anything like 256 M RAM then your peak performance will be around 15-20 concurrent users. For anything like 100 concurrent users, we recommend at least 1 G of RAM. Please note that if you are using Access Database then you can only have 10-20 concurrent users as Access locks itself up. Using a MSSQL database as an example, we notice that for 150-200 concurrent users and with at least 50,000 data, the response time is about 1.5 mins which is unacceptable therefore we encourage you to create a new table and rename the old one. The graph below shows you what we mean. The X axis is the number of users and the Y Axis is time in seconds (Average Response Time ART)

The kink at 220 users is explained by the fact that we cleared the memory before the run was done. You should have some kind of memory management tool in your system to do this at a periodical basis. What this means is that unless your memory is sufficient, the response time will always be slow. A good indicator is page faults/sec in performance monitor in WinNT 4.0. The above results was achieved via a PC with 900 MHz and 192 M RAM. We used a software call openload to load pages continuously over a period of 12 hours. We do this 10 times up to 50,000 data each run to collate the results and to ensure there is no inconsistency. We did not test beyond 250 concurrent users given our present hardware specifications. Another important consideration is that the random numbers in this software must be unique at the first instance since if it is not unique then it is forced to create another to be checked and so on causing bottleneck. The software is also designed to check each random number against those in the database so the larger the database, the longer it takes to check and reiterate. Therefore, we constantly try to create a super random generator so that it is always unique the first time. Secondly to achieve greater security for these unique numbers, they have to be sufficiently random so that theoretically, it will be impossible for anyone to guess the numbers or derive the formula to do so. This test of randomness is critical and we use the RUNS TESTS to show this. This software actually has two random generators. More random generators does not mean instant randomness and one has to study the relationship between them to ensure that they do not cancel each other out. We can provide you with the tools to fine tune your application after installation as well as interpret your results. If you are a serious users then this last step is crucial and while the tests will run for a week, we highly recommend it. This software is build for performance and I can assure you that we constantly try to improve its performance under the most demanding circumstances.

The minimum requirements below are truly literally minimum.

Minimum System Requirements

For Verification: Internet-ready PC, with a barcode reader which can read 2-5 Interleaved.Barcode reader should be Inter-Leaved 2-5 enabled.

For Hosting: Win NT 4.0 running on 166 MHz with 64 RAM or more and connected to the Internet. Service Pack 4.0 and Option Pack 4.0 must be preinstalled. IE 5.0 and above is recommended. Netscape will not work properly. You will also need a Microsoft Data Component called MDAC_Typ.exe which is downloadable from Microsoft (about 6.0 M) for data access if you are using PWS in Win98. We do not recommend that you use Win98. Either Microsoft Office 97 or MS SQL 7.0 is required. Email is send using CDONTS. Our package comes with an Access-Database 97 which can be ported to MS SQL 7.0 and Oracle for best performance. A demo.sql or visitorsafe.sql script is also included.

For Client: Any Internet-ready PC linked to a printer with reasonable output quality such as an ink-jet or laser, to enable clear and detectable bar-code printing. IE 5.0 is preferred although Netscape 4.0 is slow because of the client Javascript.

Other Requirements: If you are considering Barcodeticket, then you will need to register yourself with a payment gateway such as the following which we support. There is no requirements for Visitorsafe as it does not have any credit card requirements.

paypal.com

2checkout.com

Please note, which ever gateway that you use, this decision must be made and consider appropriate under your own circumstances. Be sure to read all the fine prints.