Meridian Architecture

Meridian is primarily a client/server application, which means that some parts of the application run on a server and some parts run on client computers. A Meridian system can have several possible client processes and several server processes. The server processes are typically run on a single server. To see these server processes, use the Manage shortcut menu option of My Computer on the Meridian application server, or open Services from the Control Panel.

Below is a list of the Meridian server services that are available:

• AutoManager EDM Server

• Accruent License Server

• PowerWeb web server (Microsoft Internet Information Services)

• Meridian Document Content Service - provides document content to EDM server for indexing

• Meridian Content Indexing Service - hosts the IFilters. An IFilter takes a file and filters out what the readable text is in the file. This text is fed into Windows Search and indexed.

These services are managed with the Meridian Enterprise Administrator tool, although basic operations such as starting and stopping the services can be performed directly with the Services applet. The various client interfaces are described in the User's Guide and Explorer User's Guide sections of this website, which you should read as well as the System Administrator content. There is one other client-like interface, named Configurator, that is used to configure vaults for different requirements.

Although the deployment architecture of a basic Meridian-based system is fairly simple, Meridian can be the cornerstone of a enterprise content management system that is fully integrated with your existing infrastructure, similar to the following figure.

Additional configurations are possible as described in Deployment Strategies.