Environment optimization

This guide outlines the best practices for maintaining and optimizing a Relativity environment. Follow these recommendations to ensure stability and optimal performance of all workspaces.

This page contains the following sections:

• Release updates
• Training and support
• Environment optimization checklist

See these related pages:

• Configuring Windows server
• Configuring SQL Server
• Configuring Analytics server
• Configuring Data Grid servers
• Setting up your workspace
• Maintaining your Relativity environment
• Expanding your Relativity environment

Release updates

Note the changes and additions to this guide for each service release:

• We typically release a new major version of Relativity once a year.
• Product updates are released once a month. You can view Relativity release notes on this site.

Training and support

This guide is often provided to system admins who may not have any exposure to the Relativity interface. For more information, you can access the following resources:

• User tutorials - our Relativity tutorials are designed to help users become familiar with Relativity quickly. Using interactive tutorials that cover specific Relativity features, you can experience hands-on learning at your own pace. To view these tutorials, visit the Tutorial page on relativity.com.
• Documentation - we constantly strive to ensure that all users of Relativity are educated on the full functionality of the platform. To help you and your team stay well informed, we post all documentation on this website. To access documentation from previous versions of Relativity, see the Documentation archives.
• Relativity Community - you can access the Relativity Community from the Relativity.com Support page. If you need a Relativity Community account, contact Relativity Support.

Environment optimization checklist

Use the following checklist to help manage and plan for your Relativity environment. To sort order, click the appropriate column header.

Reference	Task	Done
Release updates	Review patch releases once a month.
Training and support	Review user tutorials.
Training and support	Review Relativity documentation.
Training and support	Explore the Relativity Community.
Configuring Windows server	Configure the Windows server for optimum performance.
Microsoft Windows server service packs	Verify that the latest Microsoft server service pack is installed.
Windows power plans and CPU performance	Configure Windows power plans for high performance.
Windows visual effects	Configure Windows visual effects for high performance.
Windows processor scheduling	Configure Windows processor scheduling.
Windows NTFS fragmentation	Install an automatic disk defragmentation tool.
Configuring virtual memory	Manually set the size of the paging file to 4095 MB or higher.
Antivirus directory exclusion list	Exclude the SQL Server, agent server, web server, Analytics indices, dtSearch indices, and the file repository from the antivirus software.
Management server	Create a management server with SSMS and the RDC.
Configuring SQL Server	Configure SQL Server for optimum performance.
Optimize for ad hoc workloads option	Optimize SQL Server for ad hoc workloads.
Max degree of parallelism option	Set max degrees of parallelism.
Optimize the TempDB database	Optimize the tempdb databases.
SQL maximum server memory	Set SQL Server max memory.
Instant file initialization	Enable instant file initialization.
File allocation unit size	Set the file allocation unit size.
Microsoft SQL Server service packs	Verify that the latest SQL Server service pack is installed.
Autogrowth settings	Set auto growth settings for SQL Server files.
SQL Server best practices analyzer	Install and run SQL Server 2012 Best Practices Analyzer.
RAID levels and SQL Server	Review RAID Levels and SQL Server storage options: Verify that the tempdb data files reside on the fastest disks. Verify that data, log, full-text, and tempdb files reside on separate disk volumes.
Java heap size (JVM)	Set the Java heap size to one-third of total RAM.
Configuring the Analytics server	Configure the Analytics temporary directory.
Index directory requirements	Store the Analytics index locally, if possible.
Setting up your workspace	Set up you workspace following best practices.
Fixed-length vs. long text field types	Use fixed-length fields when possible.
Fixed-length text field considerations	Set your fixed-length text fields to the appropriate size.
Unicode support	Define the Unicode Enabled field property prior to import.
Data imports	Don't run the Relativity Desktop Client on a Relativity production server.
Views and searching	Follow best practices for views and searching.
Tally/Sum/Average mass operation	Create indexes on groups that you Tally on.
Group by for Pivot	Create a non-clustered index on fields that are being grouped on for Pivot.
User notifications	Learn how to use various user notification methods.
Analytics performance considerations	Review Analytics performance considerations.
Monitoring environment performance	Ensure you have the right amount of memory when creating indexes.
Monitoring environment performance	Review native imaging and processing performance considerations.
Managing your Relativity environment	Review maintenance plan recommendations.
SQL backups	Create backups for: Relativity system databases Relativity system database logs System databases and logs
Full backups	Ensure Verify backup integrity is selected for full backups.
SQL recovery models	Set the SQL recovery models.
Relativity data backups	Create backups for: dtSearch and Analytics index shares Relativity web server install directories Native and image file shares
Check Database Integrity task	Schedule a weekly check database integrity test.
SQL table index management	Set up and schedule the IndexOptimize smart script for index and statistics maintenance.
Updating statistics	Update statistics to improve query performance.
Database log management	Review database log management recommendations.
Shrink Database task	Ensure AUTO_SHRINK is not enabled.
Job email notification alerts	Set SQL Database Mail on all Relativity SQL Servers and add these notification alerts to all scheduled Relativity maintenance tasks.
Monitoring environment performance	Review environment monitoring guidelines.
Windows and SQL Server log analysis	Set up these alerts for SQL and Windows server logs: Low disk space on the servers Server becomes unresponsive Website becomes unavailable
Resource utilization	Gather benchmarks for Relativity servers' resources.
Monitoring disk usage	Measure disk latency.
Workspace management and maintenance	Create needed indexes on workspaces with 500,000+ records.
Analysis of long running queries	Analyze and try to optimize long-running queries.
Full-text index management	Manage full-text indexes.
Audit record table	Manage the Audit Record Table, if needed.
SQL Server table index fragmentation	Understand, identify, and remove fragmentation.
Expanding your Relativity environment	Review Expanding your Relativity environment.
Agents	Scale agents as needed.
Relativity Desktop Client import or export	Create a dedicated web server for the RDC.
Expanding your Relativity environment	Create a dedicated agent server for the dtSearch query requests.
Physical memory on the SQL Server(s)	Increase RAM on the SQL Server if needed.
SQL Server failover clustering	Add additional servers for increased throughput and performance as needed.
Distributed Relativity SQL Servers	Create a distributed SQL Server if needed.
Web load balancing	Use a web load balancer if needed.
Terminal services	Create terminal servers if needed.
Bandwidth tester	Test the capacity of a network connection with the Relativity bandwidth tester.