Tracsis Rail & Technology Services Division

This is a quick note to answer some of the more common questions that IT departments sometimes have about installing and configuring the TrainTRACS system. Email us at support@tracsis.com if you have any further questions.

System requirements

The TrainTRACS system in detail

Environment

TrainTRACS is fundamentally a desktop application and needs no server or networking infrastructure to run. It stores its working data in a standard filesystem and interacts with other systems by reading and writing suitably-formatted files. It does not directly interact with any DBMS or other server system.

TrainTRACS runs on Windows operating systems and we currently recommend Windows 10 64-bit or Windows Server 2012 R2.

TrainTRACS requires no privileges beyond that of a normal user and needs no administrative configuration beyond a simple installation process. Each TrainTRACS project can only be opened by one user at once, and distinct projects do not interact.

When run, TrainTRACS stores a small amount of configuration data (notably, licence details) in the registry under the HKCU\Software\Tracsis plc key. It is important that this data is not altered or removed, as doing so may render the software unusable until a new licence can be issued.

Installation and updates

The latest version of TrainTRACS can always be found at the link below. Customer-specific login credentials are required for access. Please contact support@tracsis.com if these details are required.

Download TrainTRACS

Updates are delivered via the installer MSI. Updates can be installed (as an administrator) by double-clicking and then following the on-screen prompts. Installation takes less than two minutes.

We recommend updating twice a year at a minimum. Interim updates may be required by users due to changing business requirements/bug fixes – these updates are released on an as-needed basis.

Files and storage

Each TrainTRACS project is a set of files. Users are free to manage their files however they wish using standard tools. We recommend that each TrainTRACS project lives in a different directory for ease of management, and ideally users will have a directory naming convention that suits their process. Backups may be performed using standard file-based backup systems, and projects may be archived using ZIP or other compression programs.

The size of the working data set for each TrainTRACS project varies enormously according to the size of the problem, from a few MB up to 2GB+ for an extremely large problem. Much of this data is working data can be automatically recreated from the input data (given sufficient time).

It is essential that the working data is kept on a local storage device and not accessed over a network share as accessing working files remotely has a severe effect on the system performance. However, it does not require especially fast local I/O – there is little performance gain between modern retail-grade hard disks and the fastest server-grade storage hardware. SSDs do make a difference but are not a hard requirement.

Hardware and software requirements

The speed of TrainTRACS is largely dependent on the speed of the available processors, so it is worth investing in powerful CPUs. The general rule here is the bigger the better: at least 4 cores running at no less than 2.7 GHz is a reasonable starting point for medium-sized problems. The system can make use of up to 16 cores in parallel for larger problems. We also strongly recommend installing 2GB of RAM per available core.

We recommend prioritising the following aspects of the CPU, in order, whilst not ignoring any aspect outright:

1. Generation
2. Core count
3. Clock speed

TrainTRACS will run on a remote desktop with no difficulty. Note that in this setup the working directory must be on a storage device which is local to the remote machine, for the performance reasons described above. It is possible for multiple users to each run their own TrainTRACS projects on the same machine at the same time, but if the users concurrently try to use more processors than the system has available then they will suffer reduced performance. We therefore recommend only having one active TrainTRACS project on each machine at once.

Integration with other systems

TrainTRACS integrates into TRACS Enterprise by pushing and pulling data over the network. Users can sign into TRACS Enterprise using their existing credentials via the TRACS Enterprise menu.

TrainTRACS interacts with plan management systems such as VoyagerPlan and TrainPlan through a file-based interface. The management system exports a file which TrainTRACS imports, and once TrainTRACS has finished its processing it exports another file which the management system imports.

The VoyagerPlan client can run on the same machine as TrainTRACS, which makes the import/export process simpler. Alternatively, the VoyagerPlan client can run on a different machine from TrainTRACS and the files can be transferred via a network share. There is only a minor performance impact with this setup since the import/export step is a very small part of the whole process.

Licences and support

On first running the application, users will be prompted to request a licence for the application. A licence for TrainTRACS Workbench can be obtained via TrainTRACS Studio. This involves emailing a block of unique user/machine identification text to support@tracsis.com. Support will then respond with the licence – in the form of a second block of text. The user should then copy and paste this text into the licence manager to gain access to the program. This process requires no administration rights. Licences will need to be renewed when expired, in-line with the companies payment plan.

Support is provided to users and administrators by email at support@tracsis.com. If you have any further questions, please email us at this address.

Summary

• Desktop application
• No server or database component
• Working data stored in files
• Interacts with other system through files
• Use local storage
• Use lots of fast processors
• Windows 10 (64-bit)
• 2-minute installation via MSI packages