Software requirements

The following are the software requirements for Granta MI clusters.

SQL Server

A remote Microsoft SQL Server instance is required to provide data storage for the cluster. This instance must have FILESTREAM enabled.

To make the MI cluster resilient to a failure of the SQL Server instance, we recommend using SQL Server’s high availability features (see Microsoft documentation on "Always On availability groups" for more information).

Azure SQL Database and Amazon RDS are not supported for use with MI clusters.

Load balancer

Granta MI doesn't include a load balancing mechanism of its own. Choose a load balancer that best suits your needs.

See Load balancer requirements for configuration requirements.

Elasticsearch

A dedicated remote Elasticsearch instance or cluster must be provisioned to provide MI data search and indexing features for the MI cluster.

Granta MI 2025 R2 cluster setup has been certified against Elasticsearch version 8.13.0. Ansys recommends using this version, but later versions of Elasticsearch 8.x should continue to work.

If you plan to use the MI Log Aggregation feature, another, separate Elasticsearch instance will be required.

Granta MI

The minimum required version of Granta MI is 2025 R2.

Both cluster nodes must have:

The same Granta MI version.
The same version of MI Materials Gateway reports (if installed) and MI BoM Analyzer Reports (if installed)
Identical MI authentication and authorization configuration setup (Windows, User Manager or OIDC authentication) and the same rule engine.
MI Settings Service, MI Server, MI Service Layer, MI Selection Service, and MI Viewer installed.
MI Selection Service must use the same port on both nodes.
If MI Log Aggregation will be used, both nodes must have the MI Log Collector component installed.

MI Data Flow should be installed only on one node.

MI Search Server must not be installed on any node. Data search and indexing for the cluster must be provided by the cluster's remote Elasticsearch instance.

If any Granta MI settings are changed, you must restart MI Server on all nodes to ensure the change is reflected.

Windows accounts

If Windows authentication is required for the cluster, a Service Account with appropriate domain permissions is required. MI Server should be installed to be run by this account, as well as the IIS Application Pools for MI Viewer and Service Layer.