The Bizzdesign Horizzon platform has a general set of software requirements for the Enterprise Studio application, Horizzon web portal, and Horizzon Server, which also acts as a license server.

As resource requirements are largely driven by the usage of the software, the necessary hardware depends on various factors. Important factors are the number of users and type of users the system faces, and what size and type of model packages will be used within the system.

On this page:

Components of the Bizzdesign Horizzon platform

Enterprise Studio

• Bizzdesign Enterprise Studio is a collaborative business design software solution that offers powerful, integrated modeling across multiple disciplines.
• Enterprise Studio is a powerful 64-bit, Windows-based, desktop application and is bundled with the Activity Console, a vital component of the Team Platform functionality in Enterprise Studio. Enterprise Studio and the Activity Console together form the client-side solution for easy and fast collaboration between users.
• As Enterprise Studio and the Activity Console run client-side, its resource requirements are mainly driven by the need of the individual user. For most users, a recent multi-core CPU workstation, 4 GB of system memory and a reasonably fast hard drive should be sufficient (7200 RPM or faster would be preferred). As model packages and usage of our tool grows, a system with 8, 16 GB, or higher of system memory is preferred.
• Enterprise Studio Online is the hosted solution of Enterprise Studio.

Horizzon

• Horizzon is the web portal of Enterprise Studio that can be used to share real-time content from Enterprise Studio (model packages, projects) with a wide range of users.
• Horizzon also hosts the Team Platform functionality administration, managing working together on model packages, user and group administration, and user roles and permissions.
• Horizzon runs in a web browser.

Horizzon Server

• The Horizzon Server facilitates working together on model packages, stores the administration of shared model packages and the participating users, and provides the license to Enterprise Studio.
• The Horizzon Server is a lightweight Java^®-based server, which should run on a sufficiently scaled server machine with high-performance networking attached. The exact requirements depend on various factors. In principle, the server does not need a lot of resources to do its work due to the distributed nature of Bizzdesign team collaboration solution.
• The Horizzon Server requires a PostgreSQL^® database, in the same network as the Horizzon Server, with a very fast and low latency network connection.

On-premise deployment architecture of the Bizzdesign Horizzon platform

The following scheme shows the deployment architecture of an on-premise Enterprise Studio, including the infrastructure of Enterprise Studio and the Horizzon Server, the licensing infrastructure, and the relations between these components.

Hardware guidelines

There are several factors involved which influence resource requirements for the Bizzdesign Horizzon platform, including types of users, model packages and user collaboration.

As each situation is unique, the resources should be tweaked for each situation. Bizzdesign is more than able to help you determine your specific hardware setup. Several examples are available to guide you. Depending on your own situation you can use these examples to help size the needed hardware. It is recommended to use an SSD (or NVME) drive for optimal performance.

Types of users

Light user A light user is someone who makes a few (smaller) contributions with Enterprise Studio per week and keeps up to date with new interesting changes in the model packages and projects the user is involved in. Alternately a light user is only involved in a small project with a limited number of changes every week, or an admin user keeping track of the progress of the model package, but not actively modeling.

Medium user A medium user is more actively involved in the modeling process, contributing to several model packages and projects, or to several models in one model package. The user keeps up to date with the latest changes daily.

Heavy user A heavy user is modeling with Enterprise Studio daily, contributing heavily to one or more model packages and projects. The user makes several new contributions per day, or one bigger contributions every (other) day.

Types of model packages

As a baseline to help understand how model packages are sized, the example model package "Archisurance and Profit with Canvas" is used, which is one of the example model packages for the ArchiMate^® metamodel in Enterprise Studio. This example model package has roughly 1300 user objects.

Small model package A small model package is comparable to 50 times the Archisurance and Profit with Canvas example available in Enterprise Studio (roughly 65,000 user objects).

Medium model package A medium model package is comparable to 250 times the Archisurance and Profit with Canvas example available in Enterprise Studio (roughly 325,000 user objects).

Large model package A large model package is comparable to 500 times the Archisurance and Profit with Canvas example available in Enterprise Studio (roughly 650,000 user objects).

Extra-large model package An extra-large model package is comparable to 1000+ times the Archisurance and Profit with Canvas example available in Enterprise Studio (over 1,300,000 user objects).

Types of user collaboration

Short cyclic user collaboration In short cyclic user collaboration styles the interaction between users is very frequent, users tend to exchange small and concise contributions instead of waiting many days/weeks or even months to share their results with their peers. In a short cyclic approach, there will be many small contributions, which are frequently distributed and consumed by other users. Bizzdesign recommends such an approach, as it positively enhances collaboration and helps to spread resource usage.

Long cyclic user collaboration In long cyclic user collaboration styles the interaction between users is less frequent. Users tend to wait longer periods (a week or more) before publishing (committing) their contribution to their peers in the model package or project. Also, projects wait longer periods (a month or more) before synchronizing with their main model package. This requires slightly more resources on the Horizzon Server side to accommodate this (which are dynamically increased/decreased as demanded).

Java Virtual Machine memory

The Horizzon Server component uses a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) to run, which requires additional settings to ensure the JVM can fully use the desired memory. The steps needed to configure the JVM can be found in the Enterprise Studio Installation procedure.

Example deployment sizes

The following tables show the hardware requirements for the relevant servers, based on an example basic, medium and large size deployment of respectively 400, 750 and 1500 users. 

Horizzon Server hardware

The listed memory must be fully usable by (e.g., allocated to) the Horizzon Server JVM. 

Horizzon Server PostgreSQL database

Enterprise Studio for different types of users

The following requirements apply to all deployment sizes. 

Network and firewall requirements

To ensure proper operation it is recommended to allowlist the URLs used by the different service components in all proxy servers, virus scanners and other security software that is in use within your network. The relevant URLs are:

• For on-premise installations of a Horizzon Server the protocol (HTTP or HTTPS), URLs and port numbers are configured when setting up the server components.
• When using a Horizzon Server, Enterprise Studio and Horizzon as a service hosted by Bizzdesign (SaaS services) all components are accessed using the HTTPS protocol over the default port (TCP port 443). In this case, the following URLs should be allowlisted:
  • Horizzon and Horizzon Server: https://*.horizzon.cloud/
  • Userflow: https://*.userflow.com (Bizzdesign uses third party tool Userflow in Horizzon for integrated user onboarding and support)
• When using Enterprise Studio Online (the hosted solution), it is recommended to allow browser pop-ups from https://*.amazonappstream.com/

• Enterprise Studio Online: https://*.amazonappstream.com/, https://appstream2.*.aws.amazon.com/, https://appstream2.*.amazonaws.com/ and https://*.cloudfront.net/

• Bizzdesign has a number of fixed IP addresses, which are used for outbound traffic originating from Enterprise Studio Online (the hosted solution). If your organization uses Enterprise Studio Online and uses IP-based allowlists to control access to internal resources, please refer to IP addresses for Enterprise Studio Online for more information.

• Enterprise Studio Online uses websockets; when using a proxy server or other network security measures, please make sure these allow websocket connections.

• Bizzdesign uses the service status page https://status.bizzdesign.io/ to inform the customer about maintenance on the cloud software solution and status of the services. Please allow this site to receive status information.
• Horizzon uses the following URL to perform a security check on Horizzon user passwords: https://api.pwnedpasswords.com/range/. Please allow this site to perform the check.

Software requirements

Enterprise Studio

Enterprise Studio can be used in a Windows^® 10, Windows 11, or Windows Server 2019 environment. To install Enterprise Studio, you must have administrator rights on that computer. The tool requires the following configuration:

Enterprise Studio Online

For a good performance of Enterprise Studio Online, it is advised to follow the bandwidth recommendations from AWS™ for Graphics applications.

For more information, please refer to:  https://docs.aws.amazon.com/appstream2/latest/developerguide/bandwidth-recommendations-user-connections.html

Horizzon Server

The Horizzon Server is a multithreaded, high-performance Java-based server. The following tables detail the minimum software requirements along with a set of recommended software products and their versions. We strongly recommend configuring two co-located machines for the Horizzon Server and the database server. These recommended settings apply to environments that have an average user load and tool usage. Additionally, configuring Horizzon requires a mail server.

Horizzon

Horizzon is the web portal for sharing real-time content from Enterprise Studio. Horizzon can be used with a modern web browser (Chrome or Edge) in a modern environment like Windows 10.