How to buy | Contact us | Log In

System requirements

Home | Support centre | Technical centre | General support | System requirements

Self-hosting: What do I need to run Clarity programs on my webserver?

The webserver should be running PHP with a SQLServer or MySQL database. PHP modules for curl, gmp and mcrypt are required as is the ZEND optimizer. If you connect to SQLServer, you also need the PHP odbtp module and installation.
More details.

Hardware requirements:

The important thing is that you can run the above software on your webserver. Clarity programs don’t have any minimum RAM or processor speed requirements. It is generally true that more RAM helps a website perform better, as does separation of the database server and webserver. Clarity programs stream audio and video, but you don’t need any special hardware for this.

Top

Self-hosting: What database do I need, and why?

All the Clarity programs will work with a SQLServer or MySQL database. Some reasons for choosing one or the other are listed below:

  • MySQL. You need to have your own installation of this program, as it is not included with the Clarity software. This is an open source database. The most popular version is the Community Server which is free. There is also an Enterprise version available for purchase. Either version is very powerful and will work with many tens of thousands of learners. It runs on Windows or Linux.
  • SQLServer. You need to have your own installation of this program, as it is not included with the Clarity software. This is a Microsoft product and is a very powerful database and will work with many tens of thousands of learners. It only runs on Windows servers. PHP doesn't work very smoothly with the default SQLServer drivers, so you will need the odbtp drivers instead.

The Clarity programs do not have any different functions between the databases.

Top

Self-hosting: How much space is required by the Clarity programs?

  • Author Plus takes up about 1.5MB excluding the content you create.
  • Results Manager takes up about 30MB.
  • Tense Buster content takes up 210MB.
  • Study Skills Success content takes up 50MB.
  • Active Reading content takes up 270MB.
  • Business Writing content takes up 40MB.
  • Road to IELTS content takes up 550MB.
  • Its Your Job takes up 250MB.
  • Customer Service Communication Skills takes up 70MB.
  • Clear Pronunciation takes up 200MB.
  • Hotel English takes up 400MB.

Top

Network: What do I need to run Clarity programs on a Windows network?

The software can run on any Windows-based computer on the network with a shared folder. The Windows version used should be 2000, XP, Vista, 7, or any Windows Server version. Learners will need write permissions to an Access format database (Microsoft Office is NOT required). Due to the use of the Access database, it is not recommended to run more than about 40 concurrent computers. Also note that if you are using a regular version of Windows (i.e. non-server), this may limit you to 10 computers on your network.

Hardware requirements:

You don't need any special hardware to run Clarity programs on your network. It is generally true that more RAM helps a server run more programs at once. The Clarity programs stream audio and video, but you don’t need any special hardware for this. The computers should have headphones, ideally with a microphone, and a monitor with at least 800x600 resolution.

Top

What is the bandwidth needed for the Clarity programs?

Online or self-hosted: The overall bandwidth required to run Clarity programs for learners is almost completely governed by the amount of multimedia used in the course. A typical unit (which might be the amount of work a student does in one session) is about 5MB. So you can calculate your overall bandwidth based on the number of students and the amount of work you think they will do in a month. Peak bandwidth occurs when a group of learners all start the program at the same time. At this point, each learner will download 1MB in 10 seconds.

Running Clarity programs over a 56k dial-up connection will be very slow. Learners should have a broadband connection or its equivalent.

If a Clarity program is running over a Windows network, a 10MB connection is recommended - it is highly unlikely your network will use less than this anyway.

Top

What do my learners need?

For the webserver versions, learners can link from any browser running on Windows, Mac or Linux. The following list shows known minimum versions:

  • Internet Explorer - at least v5.5
  • Navigator - at least v6.0
  • Firefox - at least v1.0
  • Safari - at least v2
  • Opera - at least v8

The Adobe Flash Player has to be installed. It must be v9 or higher for full compatibility, although the programs will play without video and printing if you have v7.

For network versions, the workstation can be running Windows 2000, XP, Vista or 7. Mac networks are not currently supported. There are no minimum RAM or hard disk requirements for the workstation.

Top