Group Tracker - Technical Overview

What does it take to run Group Tracker in your company? Based on our own experiences in corporate IT, we built Group Tracker to be easy to install and easy to administer.

The following diagram summarizes the requirements and is discussed in greater detail below.

Client Machines

Your users must be running a PC-based operating system, such as Windows 2000, Windows XP, Mac OS X, or Linux. Group Tracker runs within a web-browser, although it looks and acts like a "regular" Windows program. The best results are obtained using Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0, running on a Windows platform.

Also, Group Tracker reports are presented in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF). Your users will need the (freely available) Adobe Acrobat Reader to view and print reports. Using the PDF format means that all reports can be easily archived or emailed and is compatible with the widest variety of printers.

No updates to the clients are required once the product is installed: as we release new versions of the product, the upgrade is installed only on the server. You don't have to re-install it on every PC in your organization. This feature lowers your cost of ownership of the product, by making life easier for your IT department!

The Server

The Group Tracker software itself is installed on a single application server. This can be a beefed-up PC, or a full-blown server. We test the product on Windows 2000 as well as RedHat Linux, although it is possible to run it on any platform for which Java is available. This could include IBM AS/400, Mac OS X, Sun Solaris, and others.

Group Tracker includes all required software. It provides its own SSL-enabled web server, so no other licensed software (besides the database server!) is required.

The Database Server

You will also need a database server installed, such as Microsoft SQL Server or MySQL. If you are currently running a Microsoft SQL Server or another database server, then we suggest you utilize that investment.

You can run Group Tracker and the database on the same machine.

More Information

We can assist with specific hardware purchase recommendations as well as software installation. We may also be able to accommodate other platforms than listed above (both server and database). Please contact us with your particular needs.