Designing a Qlik Sense Lab Environment
Windows Server for Qlik Sense Admins
Overview
In this guide, we’ll talk about options that are available for building a Qlik Sense server lab environment. We’ll discuss:
Ideal use case for each option.
Pros and cons of splitting sever roles to individual servers vs. keeping them on one server in a lab environment.
Overall goal of this guide is to help get clarity on what the complete lab environment will look like and how to decide on the number of additional servers to build.
4
POINTS
2
TAKEAWAYS
MED
COMPLEXITY
Option 1: Consolidated Lab (2 VMs)
To have a minimal, fully-functional server lab environment, we really only need two servers - a Domain Controller and a Qlik Sense server. This two-server lab environment is ideal if you are simply focused on testing Qlik Sense and have limited hardware resources (low RAM, hard drive space, and low number of CPUs).
Domain Controller
The Domain Controller will give you an AD DS and DNS roles for domain administration as well as for managing users and computers in your lab environment.
Later on in the course I will also show you how to add Active Directory Certification Services (AD CS) role which will enable you to issue certificates for your Qlik Sense server.
The Domain Controller can also serve as a file server where you can store things like installation files and Qlik Sense backups.
Qlik Sense Server
The Qlik Sense server, of course, will be the machine where you would learn how to install and configure Qlik Sense. It will be a server that you can test security rules, test backups, upgrades, recovery of your Qlik Sense server, and anything else you’ll need to test.
Pros & Cons
The pros of this environment is that it is efficient and simpler to maintain. Another pro is that you will only need one Windows Server license to license both VMs. So, no additional licensing costs.
The cons is that all the domain related roles will be on a single server - on the Domain Controller. This can make it challenging to reproduce and troubleshoot any domain-related issues.
Option 2: Semi-Realistic Lab (4 VMs)
This would be an environment that is balanced between realism and practicality. It would consist of the following four servers:
Domain Controller
With AD DS and DNS roles
Qlik Sense Server
Active Directory Certification Services (AD CS) Server
Used for issuing SSL\TLS certificates to Qlik Sense server
File Server
Used to store user files and Qlik Sense backups
This is an ideal setup if you have moderate host machine hardware resources (10-12 core CPU, 32+ GB of RAM, 512+ GB hard drive) and want a fair balance of role separation and efficiency.
Pros & Cons
The pro of this environment setup is clear separation of user and computer, certification, and file management servers.
The cons are that it requires a more powerful hardware and an additional Windows Server license.
Option 3: Full Simulation (5+ VMs)
This would be an environment that you would build if your learning and testing goals include enterprise-level role management and realistic simulation of a Qlik Sense server in a production environment.
This type of environment would consist of:
Domain Controller
With AD DS and DNS roles
Qlik Sense Server
Active Directory Certification Services (AD CS) Server
File Server
Used to house shared network directories for user files, installation files, etc.
Backups Server
Used for backups storage.
Optionally, a Standby Qlik Sense Server
For testing Qlik Sense recovery and migration.
Pros & Cons
There are not a whole lot of pros to further separating file servers. Pros of having a dedicated Backups server is that it gives you a chance to practice backups replication - storing backups on the Backups server and on a file server. If you will want to go even further, it also enables you to explore an option for building out centralized Qlik Sense backups management server.
As for the standby Qlik Sense server, that can technically be added to any of the options. The benefit of a separate Qlik Sense server is the ability to test recovery and migration of Qlik Sense to a different machine.
The cons are:
Heavy resource usage.
16-20 core CPU, 64+ GB of RAM, 700+ GB of hard drive space.
More Windows Server licensing costs.
Generally, more setup and maintenance.
Will need to configure multiple servers, install updates on multiple servers, boot up and shut down multiple server, etc.
Recommendation
If you are uncertain about which option to go with, I recommend starting with Option 1: Consolidated Lab and then scaling up whenever it will be clear that you need additional servers. That’s the path I took and it worked well for me, which is why I’m recommending it. You can always add additional servers later on and have those new servers take on dedicated roles.
Guide
Summary
All Set!
Key takeaway here is that you’ll need to consider both the purpose of the lab environment that you are building and amount of resources that you have on the machine where VMs will be running.
Another takeaway is that you can always add more servers to your domain. So, if you’re not sure how many servers you need, I recommend starting with just two - the Domain Controller and a Qlik Sense server - and then adding more server later on as needs come up.
Once you have decided on the lab environment that you would like to build, jump over to the next lesson where we’ll go through the exercise of building and configuring additional server. I’ll see you in the next lesson!
References
Up Next
Create and Configure Additional Windows Server
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