System requirements for HAN

Requirements for using HAN as management software for online resources

Internet access: Internet access via ports 80 and 443 (HTTP and HTTPS) must be ensured. This applies to HAN servers and all HAN clients. Proxy servers are supported. When using proxy servers, alternative ports may be used.

Server component, single-server installation

Operating systems: Supported: Windows Server 2019; recommended: Windows Server 2022 and 2025 onwards

Processor: 4-core CPU
CPUs must meet the minimum requirements of the operating systems. You can find the list of Windows processor requirements at learn.microsoft.com.

RAM: From 8 GB

Free hard disk space: At least 30 GB of free disk space; 50 GB or more is recommended
During the HAN 5 update, data is temporarily duplicated. Please ensure you have sufficient disk space available. For an in-place update, we recommend: at least as much free disk space as HAN 5 occupies.

Wildcard DNS record¹: FQDN of the HAN server; with a reference to the HAN server in the local DNS

Wildcard SSL certificate²: FQDN of the HAN server

IP address: Standard ports 80 and 443 are open (HTTP and HTTPS)

For hypervisors only: Paravirtual network adapter

If the HAN management server and the HAN web server are separate, the following minimum amounts of free RAM apply

Core server

HAN Management Server: 8 GB or more of free RAM

HAN Web Server: 2 GB or more of free RAM

Windows Server with a graphical user interface

HAN Management Server: 12 GB or more of free RAM

HAN Web Server: 6 GB or more of free RAM

High Availability

For High Availability (HA), a load balancer is also required to distribute the load across multiple web servers. A Layer 4 web load balancer is sufficient; this is not included in the HAN 6 package.

Hinweis: High Availability with Load Balancing is a paid add-on module. If you are interested, please contact your HAN sales partner.

Clients for access

Apart from a up-to-date web browser, there are no specific requirements regarding the operating system or hardware for the devices on which the online resources are to be accessed. No additional software or plug-ins need to be installed to use the search function.

1 Wildcard DNS record

An important part of managing e-resources is the statistical evaluation of the content offered and its usage.

This is made possible through use of the reverse proxy technique, so that online resources are retrieved over the HAN server rather than directly from the provider. The technical implementation involves parsing the source text of the online resource to route the connection through the HAN server. Starting with HAN v3 the required data, such as the target server and the selected resource (specified by its HAN ID), is integrated in the name of the HAN server.
The resulting URL takes the following form:

https://<provider server name>.<HAN ID>.<FQDN of the HAN server>/<URL>

This modification of the URL necessitates a wildcard DNS record in the host server to enable retrieval of the resource.

Example

The URL
https://www.nytimes.com/index.html

is rewritten as follows when called over HAN:
https://www.nytimes.com.nytinternal.hanserver.domain.com/index.html

HAN ID: nytinternal
FQDN HAN Server: hanserver.domain.com

2 Wildcard SSL Certificate

When online resources are called over SSL, the following problem arises: The address of a server certificate made out to the FQDN of the HAN server does not match the server name in the address used for retrieval. The user receives a certificate warning stating that, although the certificate is valid, the address does not match.

This problem is eliminated by using a wildcard certificate, which allows one (and only one) variable position preceding the server name.
Starting with HAN v3.1, a dot (.) is no longer required between the provider-server name and the HAN ID; a different character may be used instead. As a result, the variable part preceding the HAN server name is accepted as a match and thus is covered by the certificate.

Wildcard certificates are specified in RFC 2818 (https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2818.txt) und RFC 2459 (https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2595.txt)