Calculating

Bandwidth
Requirements for
OnBase

Technical White Paper

Document Version Foundation LTR 1.0
Last Updated: January 21, 2020

Research and Development Performance Team

Hyland Software, Inc.
28500 Clemens Road
Westlake, OH 44145
Phone: +1 440.788.5000
https://www.onbase.com/
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Intended Audience
This document is intended for OnBase implementers wanting assistance on calculating bandwidth
requirements for OnBase.

Abstract
This document focuses on explaining how to calculate bandwidth requirements for OnBase.

Version Statement
This document has been updated for OnBase Foundation but is applicable for previous versions as well.
Table of Contents
COPYRIGHT ................................................................................................................................................. 2
INTENDED AUDIENCE ................................................................................................................................ 4
ABSTRACT................................................................................................................................................... 4
VERSION STATEMENT ............................................................................................................................... 4
TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................................... 5
INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................................... 6
TEST ENVIRONMENT AND SETUP ........................................................................................................... 7
VARYING FACTORS ...................................................................................................................................... 7
Document Size ...................................................................................................................................... 7
OnBase Configuration Objects and Metadata ...................................................................................... 7
Queries .................................................................................................................................................. 8
Caching ................................................................................................................................................. 8
TEST CASES ............................................................................................................................................... 9
ENVIRONMENT............................................................................................................................................. 9
CAPTURING AND MEASURING BANDWIDTH........................................................................................ 10
CALCULATING BANDWIDTH. ........................................................................................................................ 10
Introduction
Ensuring that proper bandwidth is available for users is important for good performance and high
productivity. Users that have to wait too long to complete actions will not be happy or productive.
Bandwidth requirements for OnBase products can be measured and estimated to prevent a situation
like this.
Many factors will affect how much data is sent and received by OnBase modules, which is why an exact
calculation cannot be made. Factors such as document size and number of document types will
influence bandwidth requirements. More details about these factors will be discussed in a later section.
This document will cover how to setup a proper test simulating user activity and how to measure the
bandwidth used for actions. Examples and identifying areas of variance will be explained. This document
will be geared towards the Web and Unity clients. The procedures mentioned can be used for other
clients or modules that communicate with the Web or Application Servers as well. This document will
focus on viewing documents, since that is where the majority of the bandwidth is consumed by OnBase.
Other functions such as logging in and performing searches can be tested as well using similar methods.
Test Environment and Setup
Before jumping into the testing, it is important to make sure the environment is setup as it would be for
a regular user. Just like any test, you want it to match real activity as closely as possible. This section will
cover the important factors that should be part of your test and how to set it up properly.

Varying Factors
Factors that are going to affect bandwidth requirements are listed below.

Document Size
In most cases, the size of the document will be the biggest factor when calculating bandwidth. For image
and text documents, only a subset of their pages is loaded at a time. This would include what is seen in
the viewer and thumbnails (if turned on). The Unity Client will also pre-load a couple extra pages for
smoother scrolling. Not all the pages may be downloaded on retrieval, so that needs to be taken into
account when performing your test.
For other formats not natively viewed in the OnBase viewer, including PDFs and Office Documents, the
entire file must be downloaded to the client upon retrieval. The bandwidth used for downloading these
types of documents will be the entire size of the file on the disk group. If bandwidth for these types of
documents is an issue, especially for remote users with high latency and low bandwidth.

OnBase Configuration Objects and Metadata

The specific configuration of your OnBase system will also be a big determining factor in bandwidth
used. OnBase uses a Service-oriented architecture (SOA). In terms of bandwidth, this means the clients
issue requests to request information about the OnBase system. This includes information such as
document types, note types, keywords, document properties, etc. For example, a user logging in with
access to 10,000 document types will use more bandwidth than a user with access to only 20 document
types. The response from the server containing 10,000 document types is obviously going to be larger
than one that contains only 20. That is why using the built in MANAGER user will not give accurate
results and testing should be done as a regular user. The following list below covers the most common
areas that can have an effect on bandwidth. There could be more or less in your OnBase environment
depending on configuration and licensing.
 ► Number of document type groups the user has access to
► Number of document types the user has access to
► Number of keyword types on the document type
► Number of keyword values on the document
► Number of note types the user has access to
► Number of notes on the document
► Revisions and renditions for the document

Queries
How queries are executed can affect bandwidth. The biggest factor will be how many results are
returned from the search. Data for 2000 documents will be larger than data for 10 documents. Display
columns used for sorting results can be a factor as well.
The amount of document types and keywords used to perform the search matter, but also play a role in
conserving bandwidth by limiting the results returned to the client. Query restrictions, such as requiring
keywords, can be used to limit open ended searches.

Caching
Caching is done, when possible, by clients. Caching prevents re-downloading information that remains
constant. If users will be performing the same actions multiple times during a session, it is important to
not include the downloading of that information multiple times in your measurements since they will be
retrieved from the local cache after the first download. You can warm-up your test client by running
though a scenario once to cache this information before starting the actual test to observe this behavior.
The Web Client will cache images, scripts and style sheet files. They are configured in IIS, by default, to
be cached for 7 days. ActiveX controls are installed once and remain forever (until removed). These are
examples of resources that would not be downloaded every time and should be considered when
determining required bandwidth.
The Unity Client will cache bitmap and images configured for OnBase objects such as document types
and notes. They are downloaded once per user, per client workstation and remain for that specific
service location.
Other OnBase settings, that may not be so obvious, will be cached as well. These can include checking if
the current user has permission to enable the markup toolbar. The first time a document is viewed in
the Unity Client, this privilege is checked. Anytime a document is viewed after that, in the same session,
the request for that permission check will not be made. So if users are going to be logged in for a long
time, it would be more accurate to measure the performance of a document viewing after this
information has already been cached.

Test Cases
The built-in MANAGER account has every privilege and access to all document types. Testing with
MANAGER user will not give an accurate representation of bandwidth used. The proper setup will
include using a user in the same user group(s) as the users for whom you are calculating bandwidth.
The same goes for documents. Testing and measuring should be done with documents similar to what
will actually be used. File size and format are critical here.

Environment
There can be other factors, outside OnBase, that affect bandwidth. Two examples would be using HTTPS
versus HTTP or using an authentication method that requires extra requests instead of OnBase
authentication. Your test environment should be setup exactly like production in these cases for a more
meaningful test.
Capturing and Measuring Bandwidth
With a proper test environment and valid test cases, you can then begin measuring. For the Web and
Unity clients, bandwidth can be easily captured using a HTTP debugging proxy such as Fiddler. You can
run through a test scenario, such as viewing a document, and it will tell you the bandwidth used. The
amount of bytes sent and received will be displayed, as seen below.

Calculating Bandwidth.
Let’s go over a simple example of calculating how much bandwidth is used for a scenario. In this test,
the Unity Client was used to login and retrieve a single page image document. The results were broken
down into four user actions: login, document query, viewing a document and logout.

Action Bytes Sent Bytes Received

Login 17,063 35,004
Document Query 1,882 2,227
View Document 4,072 53,892
Logout 838 861

*The numbers listed are for our OnBase system. Performing your own tests will give much better results
and is strongly recommended.
From here, you can take the results and calculate bandwidth requirements. You will need to figure out
the level of activity for your users. For example, you may have about 200 logins and 4000 document
retrievals per day. With that information and knowing how quickly the data needs to be delivered, you
can estimate how much bandwidth will be required for your OnBase system to run at an acceptable
performance level.
Bandwidth needs should be based off being able to handle peak times. It is also important to account for
other applications using the network connection. These tests will only include OnBase and not any other
activity. Quality of Service (QoS) configuration should be setup to prioritize bandwidth appropriately.
Being able to handle all the systems requiring bandwidth is important to keep in mind so that there is no
network contention.