Best Practices – System Architecture

Sitecore recommended practices for System Architecture (hardware and software):

• All servers — Web and Database, should run on Windows Server 2008 R2 64 bit.
• The Web server(s) should run IIS 7.x with the latest security updates.
• Use IIS 7.x Integrated mode.
• The Database server(s) should run Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 64 bit with the latest security updates.
• The Web and Database servers should be on separate computers.
• Implement maintenance plans to defragment indexes on the core, master, and web databases on a scheduled basis on SQL Server.
• On IIS — Enable static content compression.
• On IIS — Enable dynamic content compression on the CMS server.
• On IIS — Make sure that the content expires header is set in the common headers, particularly for the sitecore folder.