Plan for your installation

The topics in this section describe the components, prerequisites, and some common deployment scenarios for Nintex Automation. Use the information here to plan your installation and integration with third-party technologies.

It is important that the person installing the product understands the relationships between the various product components, as well as their organization's existing network and IT architecture. They should also understand concepts like networking principles, Kerberos, Network Load Balancing, IIS configuration, Domain Configuration, and SQL Server best practices.

Product components

The platform consists of many components that work together. For more information see understanding components.

Prerequisites and supported software versions

When you plan and prepare for your installation, read the topics on software and hardware requirements and apply those requirements to your environment. Also, review the Compatibility and Support Matrix for information on specific versions of software that the product supports.

Environments

Best practice in application design recommends more than one environment to support the typical development-test-deploy stages of a software development life cycle. Most organizations have multiple product environments. For example, environments for development, testing and production. You should plan out which environments your organization requires, where you will install those environments, and how you secure them against unauthorized use.

Accounts used in Nintex Automation

Various system and user accounts and permissions are necessary when installing, configuring, and running the product. For more information see Accounts used in a Nintex Automation Installation and Required permissions.

Firewall ports

For network traffic to flow between systems, various firewall ports need to be opened. For a guide on the ports used by the product, see Firewall ports.

Topologies and Tiers

You can install the product on many different configurations, depending on your organization’s needs. The Supported Topologies section introduces a number of installation configurations, from simple single-server environments to multi-server distributed farm environments.

To plan for a scalable environment, consider the following:

Server Tier The K2 Server is the server responsible for hosting the product application windows service and supporting components, effectively the Application Server. This tier can be scaled out onto multiple servers to allow for redundancy and high availability.
Web Tier The web components (such as the Workspace, Runtime and Designer websites, web services etc.) can be scaled out onto multiple servers to allow for redundancy and high availability.
Database Tier Scaling out the database onto multiple clustered servers can increase performance.

Best Practices

Once you understand the components, environments, and topologies, review the topic Tips and Best-Practices for recommendations on planning and installing your environment.