Hardware Requirements

The Pentaho BI Suite software does not have strict limits on computer or network hardware. As long as you meet the minimum software requirements (note that your operating system will have its own minimum hardware requirements), Pentaho is hardware agnostic. There is, however, a recommended set of minimum system specifications:

Server
RAM At least 2GB
Hard drive space At least 1GB for the software, and more for solution and content files
Processor Dual-core AMD64 or EM64T
Workstation
RAM At least 1GB
Hard drive space At least 700MB for the software, and more for solution and content files
Processor Dual-core AMD64 or EM64T

It's possible to use less capable machines, but in most realistic scenarios, the too-limited system resources will result in an undesirable level of performance.

Your environment does not have to be 64-bit, even if your processor architecture supports it; while all modern desktop, workstation, and server machines have 64-bit processors, they often ship by default with 32-bit operating systems. If you want to run the Pentaho BI Suite in a pure 64-bit environment, you will have to install a 64-bit operating system, ensure that your solution database and Java Runtime Environment are 64-bit, and install the BI Suite via the archive-based or manual deployment methods.

Note: A 32-bit JRE has a hard memory limit of 2GB (1.5GB on Windows), so if you have 2GB or more of RAM, it pays to use a 64-bit JRE on a 64-bit operating system.