Shinydocs Pro Pre-Installation Checklist
The purpose of this checklist is to determine the readiness of an environment for a Shinydocs® Pro deployment. A project start may be dependent on the completion of this checklist.
A successful implementation requires a dedicated virtual machine or bare-metal system. A single-machine configuration supports up to 40 TB* of your data from various sources (combined).
* The 40 TB threshold is a general guideline. Above 40 TB, we recommend separating Shinydocs Pro Control Center and the Shinydocs Search Engine onto dedicated servers to ensure performance under crawling, OCR, and search workloads.
Operating System
Shinydocs Pro is designed for Microsoft Windows:
- Windows Server 2019 or newer
Hardware requirements for up to 40 TB of analysis (single-server)
|
CPU |
12-16 core** |
|
Memory (RAM) |
64 GB*** |
|
Disk |
SSD required
|
|
Network |
Gigabit connection |
** CPU sizing for initial analysis
Text extraction and OCR are CPU-bound. The initial analysis of your content sources is the most demanding phase, so we recommend provisioning toward the higher end of the CPU range (16+ cores). Once initial analysis completes, Shinydocs Pro only processes changes, and you can scale back if needed.
Note: Source system throttling (SharePoint, iManage, etc.) may limit throughput regardless of available CPU.
Scaling beyond 40 TB
Deployments above 40 TB require Shinydocs Pro Control Centre and the Shinydocs Search Engine to run on separate, dedicated servers. This prevents resource contention between content analysis workloads (crawling, OCR, classification) and search workloads (indexing, querying). Both servers should meet the hardware requirements listed above.
40 TB to 200 TB
A single Shinydocs Search Engine server is sufficient, separated from a single Shinydocs Pro Control Centre server. Both servers should meet the hardware requirements listed above.
Above 200 TB
Larger deployments require multiple Shinydocs Search Engine servers, and at 300 TB or more, a dedicated Shinydocs Search Engine coordinator node. Specific server counts and configurations depend on your content volume, content profile, and usage patterns.
Customers planning deployments above 200 TB should contact Shinydocs to develop a sizing plan tailored to their environment. We will work with you to determine the right number of servers, coordinator requirements, and storage allocation.
Ollama AI server - Starting point hardware recommendation
|
CPU |
4 CPU cores |
|
Memory (RAM) |
16 GB |
|
Disk |
200 GB free disk space (allows for multiple models) |
|
Network |
Gigabit connection |
|
GPU |
Nvidia based GPU with minimum 16 GB VRAM This is specification is for entry level performance suitable for testing. GPUs and VRAM may need to be increased based on performance. |
Software
Starting in Shinydocs Pro 26.1, we have officially switched to .Net 10.
Note: .NET 10 requires CET support. If your Windows environment does not support CET, the Shinydocs Control Center service will fail to start with Error 1053. To diagnose, run the following in an elevated command prompt:
"[install dir]\ControlCenter\Shinydocs.Platform.ControlCenter.Web.exe"If you see a fatal error stating "Your Windows doesn't fully support CET," ensure all available Windows updates are installed.
This software will be automatically installed when you follow the Shinydocs® Pro installation:
- Shinydocs® Search Engine
- Shinydocs® Dashboards
- Shinydocs® Extraction Service
- Shinydocs® Control Center
- Shinydocs® Search
- Java 21 Runtime Environment
- Microsoft® .NET Desktop runtime 10
- Microsoft® .NET ASP Core runtime 8
- Microsoft® Visual C++ Redistributable
Access to content
Scanning file share content requires that the file share(s) are on the same domain as the computer running Shinydocs Pro. For detailed requirements for each connector, check out 🛠️Configure Content Sources
Please Note: Shinydocs® Pro works best with a service account with read (for scanning) and write (for file deletion) access in your desired repository. For file share scanning, the service account will need interactive logon enabled (Group Policy dependent).
Default Ports Required By Shinydocs Pro
The following ports are required to be accessible for Shinydocs Pro though some* may not require access external to the server on a basic deployment.
|
Service |
Port |
|---|---|
|
Control Center |
9701 |
|
Search |
9702 |
|
Search Engine |
9200/9300 |
|
Extraction Service |
9711 |
|
Dashboards |
5601 |
The Search Engine, on a single system deployment will only require localhost (127.0.0.1) access as would the Extraction Service. If customizations or additional servers are configured for Cognitive Toolkit or scaling up is required there ports may need to be opened though restrictions are advised to limit access to those specific servers.
Shinydocs Protocol
Shinydocs Pro, in both Control Center and Search, features the ability to click on a result in the Catalog or in Search results and take you to the file’s original location, reducing the generation of convenience copies across your organization. When Shinydocs Pro is installed on your servers, the Shinydocs Protocol is automatically installed on that system. When deploying Search to end-users and Control Center for admins, you should also install the Shinydocs Protocol on their machines. The protocol is a simple, small msi with no dependencies.
You can download that installer here: Download protocol-installer.msi from Shinydocs' Egnyte
Endpoint and Security Software Considerations
Endpoint protection includes anti-malware, anti-virus, and other file scanning loss prevention software. For the performance and stability of Shinydocs Pro, ensure you have set up the proper exclusions with your organization’s endpoint protection solution. While these items should be scanned before they are installed, we do not recommend day-to-day operation without exclusions.
Using Sophos, SentinelOne, or CrowdStrike for AV and security? These applications, while helpful in security, heavily hinder Shinydocs Pro’s ability to process content quickly. Please exclude as much Shinydocs Pro software as possible (including JVM injected agents) for the best performance.
Endpoint protection software can be configured to accommodate the needs of Shinydocs Pro and manage exceptions. Please refer to your software’s documentation to help implement these exclusions.
Path Exclusions
Your installation locations may be different if you changed the <installation folder> during installation, the default is the C:\Program Files\Shinydocs Professional\ folder.
<installation folder>\ControlCenter\Dashboards\ExtractionService\Search\SearchEngine
C:\ProgramData\Shinydocs\ControlCenter\Dashboards\ExtractionService\logs\SearchEngine\search- Also, if the index has been moved to it’s own location, i.e. E:\ShinyIndex\data, this should be excluded as well.
Process Exclusions
- Shinydocs.Platform.ControlCenter.Web.exe
- ShinydocsSearch.exe
- opensearch-service-x64.exe
Did you know?
There can be a major throughput performance impact when analyzing file shares that have on-access scanning enabled. With on-access scanning enabled at the file source, all files analyzed by Shinydocs Pro will first be scanned by your endpoint protection scanning process which can lead to slower than expected performance.
Shinydocs Pro does not store the files being analyzed, only the metadata and text.