MEO Prerequisites and Setup

Audience: Citizen devs System/Security Administrators

Skill Prerequisites: System Administration and Maintenance

This section lists the prerequisites and configuration necessary for installing the Multi-Environment Orchestrator on your Plant an App environment.

Hardware and Software requirements

Hardware requirement	Details
CPU	2.4GHz single core (note that this is the minimum requirement and that it will vary according to your setup and needs).
RAM	512MB RAM (note that this is the minimum requirement and that it will vary according to your setup and needs).
Disk space	1000MB per managed Plant an App instance (note that this is the minimum requirement and that it will vary according to your setup and needs).
Network requirements	Outbound HTTPS port(s) open, required to connect to the VCS (Version Control System). Note that HTTP/S ports are also required for the traffic between MEO and your Plant an App application instance. See the "Choosing between HTTP and HTTPS" section, below.

note

An outbound connection is also required to recover the MEO installation files from the Plant an App online repository, however this is not mandatory; the files in question can be transferred to your MEO host machine by other means.

Software requirement	Version and notes
Operating System	MEO can be installed both on Windows and Linux-based operating systems: - Windows: 10, 11, or Server 2019. - Linux: any distro that can run Docker and its Compose plugin (see below).
Docker	Version 20.10 or later.
Docker Compose	This is a Docker plugin. Depending on your Operating System, it will come either bundled with Docker, or will need to be installed separately. Please see the official Docker documentation for more information.
MS SQL Server	2014 or higher; Express/WebEdition/Standard/Enterprise editions.
VCS (Version Control System) Repository account	Supports GIT-based versioning systems (such as GitHub) that uses a PAT (Personal Access Token) for authentication.

Network - Choosing between HTTP and HTTPS

• HTTP

When MEO is hosted on the same machine (or the same private network) as your Plant an App application instance, a non-TLS HTTP connection is usually sufficient.

• HTTPS

When MEO is hosted externally and the connection to your Plant an App application instance goes over the internet, we strongly recommend using HTTPS, which involves setting-up a TLS certificate.

• Advanced security

Other than using HTTPS, when your MEO instance is hosted externally (or on a different network that requires open-internet communication), you can also use a reverse-proxy between it and your Plant an App application instance; this provides an additional level of abstraction, control and protection against common web-based attacks, like a denial-of-service attack (DoS) or distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS).

For this end, you can use a dedicated webserver such as Microsoft IIS or Nginx.

Database setup

Two Databases must be created, one for each MEO component: the Identity Provider and the Environment Orchestrator.

Each DB must be provided with a db_owner user and subsequent username and password.