Few questions about confluence

[Gerga Alex]

Hello

1. What is the difference between USERS and ACCOUNTS? Here I see http://atlassian.com/software/confluence/overview/team-collaboration-software (users), here https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DOC/Server+Hardware+Requirements+Guide (accounts). I do not understand. Tell me please

2. Many administrators say that there (https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DOC/Server+Hardware+Requirements+Guide) is a table untrue. Java uses a lot more RAM. What is the real RAM need for 5, 10, 15, 25 users.

Thank You!

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

Users are people who are going to use the system

Accounts is a little more general, as you could be talking about:

• user accounts - each user needs an account in order to use the system
• "dummy" accounts - these look like users, but are set up to be used by scripts or programs either internal or external, or for flagging purposes or organisational reasons, or, or, or - the important thing is that there isn't really a human behind them.
• Accounts on the operating system to enable things to work.

Example - if I log into our confluence server, I log in as "nic" into the operating system. I can see confluence running as an operating system user with an account called "conflu", which logs into the database using an account called "conf". On the front-end confluence web-ui, I log in as "nicb"

RAM is a more difficult one. For a smaller installation under light load (i.e. up to 25 users, and no heavy reporting or automation requirements), then I'd say the document you have found is generally quite accurate.

[Gerga Alex]

1. So, are users like administrators that own the system and can control the accounts, distribute the spaces, accesses?

2. About the fact that confluence consumes a lot of RAM I was told by the persons that were using version 2.9.1. As I understood in version 4.1 this problem was solved. Am I right?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

1. I think you're trying to over-simplify it. Think of a user as a human. That human is given an account on a system. They use that account to do things in the system. One of the things they can do in the system *might* be to administrate other users. Most user-accounts won't have the rights to do that, but you do need some who can.

In the example I gave above, I've mentioned four accounts, but only one human user. That human (me) has a confluence account, and a unix account. There's a non-human account called "conflu" on the unix machine, and another account "conf" on the database.

Sometimes, people use "user" and "account" to talk about similar things, and the way I'm thinking of them may not be the same as the way other people use them. For example, someone might call "conflu" a "user", even though there's no human involved.

2. It does improve in later versions of Confluence - the jump from 2.9 to 3.something made a noticable difference in the systems I've upgraded. I've not spent a lot of time on 4.x yet, but at a glance, it's better than 3 as well.