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Some of the main Forsta Plus features require third party software. Software and licenses are to be purchased, installed and maintained by the Client, at the Client's own expense, unless the 3rd party software is distributed with the Forsta Plus installation.
It is recommended that servers are dedicated to running Forsta Plus and that no other software than the requirements (except for monitoring/management tools) and Forsta Plus are installed. This is to avoid any potential conflicts with other applications running on the same servers. If the investigations from a support request identify problems caused by other software, the support may be deemed chargeable as per the support agreements.
The operating system components and 3rd party applications that are needed will depend on the Forsta Plus features installed on a server.
Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)
SQL Server Integration Services must be installed on batch servers to support import features and sampling for Community Panels and respondent uploads. SSIS is also used by Data Central Server Rules, Excel exports from Forsta Express, and respondent upload to CATI projects. SSIS might require additional SQL Server licenses for batch servers that are set up to run these task types. Note that you will also need "Microsoft SQL Server Management Tools - Complete" installed as part of the SSIS installation.
- A re-installation of Forsta Plus will also be needed if SSIS is installed after Forsta Plus has been installed.
- The ‘SSISRuntimeVersion’ variable under Batch servers roles in System Configuration must be set to the correct SQL version before re-deploying. Refer to Appendix A for the variable definition.
Forsta API Development
To connect to ForstaAPIs, SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) is required.
Log Files
Starting with features introduced to General Availability in Confirmit Horizons v22 Continuous Deployment version, some application and service logs are stored in a new location and format. Where logs traditionally were stored in SQL, they are now logged directly to disk using a built-in logging framework. The log directory for these logs is determined by the Confirmit.Site.LogPath variable in Octopus. As with IISlogs, there may be reasons why logs need to be kept in an unchanged format for an extended period, so these logs are not cleaned up by the Horizons application. We strongly recommend that you determine your requirements for keeping logs for audit purposes, and clean them as necessary (go to Horizons Logging Format for more information).