NetFlow Traffic Analyzer 2020.2 System Requirements

Release date: June 4, 2020

The system requirements for SolarWinds NTA 2020.2 provide the following sections:

• On-premise requirements for NTA
  • More on requirements for the NTA Flow Storage database server
  • Requirements for the Orion database server
  • More on requirements for the Orion database server
• Virtual machine requirements
• SolarWinds NTA port requirements
• Cloud instance requirements for the NTA SQL Flow Storage database in Azure

For additional information about requirements and configurations, see the Multi-module system guidelines. You should also review the NTA administrator guide and release notes for the exact product requirements beyond these minimums.

On-premise requirements for NTA

To deploy NTA locally, on a server, review the following recommendations.

Type	Requirements
Operating system	Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Microsoft Windows Server 2019
SolarWinds NPM	NPM 2020.2 SolarWinds NTA requires an appropriate SolarWinds NPM version hosted on the same server.
SQL server for the NTA Flow Storage database   More details	NTA and Orion Platform use two databases - the Orion database and the NTA SQL Flow Storage database. The Orion database stores SolarWinds Orion configuration data and all collected performance and syslog data. The NTA Flow Storage database is where SolarWinds NTA stores your flow data. SQL Server 2016, 2016 SP1, or 2016 SP2 SQL Server 2017 SQL Server 2019

More details on requirements for the NTA SQL Flow Storage database server

You cannot install Orion Platform products on the same server as SolarWinds Access Rights Manager (ARM).

• SolarWinds supports both the Orion database and the NTA SQL Flow Storage database in the same SQL server instance, as long as that instance is SQL Server 2016 SP1 or later.

  If you decide to use separate SQL servers for the Orion database and the NTA SQL Flow Storage database, the Orion database requires Microsoft SQL Server 2012 and later.

• For recommendations on sizing in NTA 2020.2, see What are the hardware recommendations for the NTA SQL Flow Storage database.
• For an example configuration, see User scenario: Recommended SQL server disk configuration.
• For more information on deploying the NTA SQL Flow Storage database in NTA 2020.2, see NTA 4.4 and Later Adoption: Frequently Asked Questions.
• SolarWinds supports Express, Standard, or Enterprise versions of the SQL server for Flow Storage database. For more information on using SQL server Express in a production environment, see Impact of using SQL Express server for flow data storage.

Requirements for the Orion database server

The table below lists software and hardware requirements for your SolarWinds Orion database server using SolarWinds NPM license levels.

Requirements	SL100, SL250, SL500	SL2000	SLX
SQL server     More details	SQL Server 2012, 2012 SP1, 2012 SP2, 2012 SP3, 2012 SP4 SQL Server 2014, 2014 SP1, 2014 SP2 SQL Server 2016, 2016 SP1, or 2016 SP2 SQL Server 2017 SQL Server 2019
SQL Server collation   More details	English with collation setting SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS German with collation setting German_PhoneBook_CI_AS Japanese with collation setting Japanese_CI_AS Simplified Chinese with collation setting Chinese_PRC_CI_AS
CPU speed	Quad core processor or better	Dual quad core processor or better	Dual quad core processor or better
Hard drive space                         More details	20 GB minimum 40 GB recommended	50 GB minimum 100 GB recommended	100 GB minimum 400 GB recommended SolarWinds recommends the following configuration: A hardware RAID Controller with a battery backed-up write back cache Disk Subsystem 1 Array 1: 2x 146 GB 15K disks RAID 1 (mirroring) for the OS Disc Subsystem 2 Array 2: 2x 146 GB 15K disks RAID 1 (Pagefile + Extra Storage) Disk Subsystem 3 Array 3: with 6x 15k 146 GB or 300 GB disks configured in a RAID 1+0 array for your SQL MDF and FILEGROUPS Disk Subsystem 4 Array 4: with 4x 15k 146 GB or 300 GB disks configured in a RAID 1+0 array for your SQL LDF Transaction LOG file Disk Subsystem 5 Array 5: with 4x 15k 146 GB or 300 GB disks configured in a RAID 1+0 array for your tempdb data file Disk Subsystem 6 Array 6: with 4x 15k 146 GB or 300 GB disks configured in a RAID 0 array for your tempdb log file
Memory	SL100 8 GB minimum 16 GB recommended	16 GB minimum 64 GB recommended	64 GB minimum 128 GB recommended
	SL250 &SL500 8 GB minimum 16 GB recommended
Authentication	Either mixed-mode or Windows authentication. If you require SQL authentication, you must enable mixed mode on your SQL server.
Other software	If you are managing your SolarWinds Orion database, SolarWinds recommends you install the SQL Server Management Studio component. The Installation wizard installs the following required x86 components if they are not found on your Orion database server: SQL Server System Common Language Runtime (CLR) Types. Orion products use secure SQL CLR stored procedures for selected, non-business data operations to improve overall performance. Microsoft SQL Server Native Client Microsoft SQL Server Management Objects

More details on requirements for the Orion database server

SQL server

• Use Express, Standard, or Enterprise versions of the SQL server.
• Use the 64-bit version of SQL server.
• You can set the database recovery model to Full Recovery if you use Always On Availability. SolarWinds recommends Simple database recovery mode to ensure best performance.

SQL server collation

• SolarWinds supports CI database on an CS SQL Server.
• SolarWinds does not support case-sensitive databases.

Hard drive space

• Due to intense I/O requirements, a RAID 1+0 drive is strongly recommended for the SolarWinds database, data, and log files with a dedicated drive for the server operating system and tempdb files.
• Other RAID configurations can negatively affect your SQL Server's performance.
• Mirrored drives for the OS and RAID 1+0 for database data files are recommended.
• Solid state drives (SSD) are recommended for all components.
• Per Windows standards, some common files may need to be installed on the same drive as your server operating system. You may want to move or expand the Windows or SQL temporary directories.

Virtual machine requirements

SolarWinds NTA may be installed on VMware Virtual Machines and Microsoft Virtual Servers if the following conditions are met in your virtual environment:

• Each virtual machine needs to meet the SolarWinds NPM requirements for virtual machines. For more information, see the SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor documentation.
• Each installation of NPM should have its own dedicated network interface controller.

SolarWinds NPM uses SNMP to monitor your network. SNMP traffic is generally assigned low priority, and thus you can experience gaps in monitoring data.

Port requirements

The following table lists ports that SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer uses to communicate with other devices and servers.

Port	Protocol	Service/Process	Direction	Description
80	TCP	World Wide Web Publishing Service	Bidirectional	Port used for web console and any other web servers.
137	UDP	NetBIOS	Outbound	Port for outbound traffic if NetBIOS name resolution is turned on. When NTA is trying to resolve the NetBIOS names of servers in their conversations, you may find a large amount of outbound UDP 137 traffic from the NTA collector to a number of external addresses. You can confirm the traffic by using the Flow Navigator to match the outbound connections to existing conversations. This is normal behavior when NetBIOS is enabled. An easy way to demonstrate the behavior is to disable NetBIOS in NTA and watch all outbound connections terminate.
161	UDP TCP	SolarWinds Job Engine v2	Outbound	Port used for sending and receiving SNMP information, including polling CBQoS-enabled devices.
1433	TCP	SolarWinds NetFlow Service SolarWinds NetFlow Storage Service	Outbound	Port used for communication between the NetFlow Service and the existing SQL server.
1434	UDP	SolarWinds NetFlow Service SolarWinds NetFlow Storage Service SQL Browse Service	Outbound	The port used for communication between the NetFlow Service and the Orion database. This port is required only if your SQL Server is configured to use dynamic ports.
2055	UDP	SolarWinds NetFlow Service	Inbound	Port for receiving flows on any SolarWinds NTA collector.
5671	TCP	RabbitMQ	Bidirectional	Rabbit MQ messaging.
17777	TCP	SolarWinds Information Service	Bidirectional	Port for sending and receiving traffic between SolarWinds NPM and other Orion Modules. Port used for communication between remote Flow Storage Database and NTA Main Poller.
17778	HTTPS and TCP	SolarWinds Information Service	Bidirectional	Open to access the SolarWinds Information Service API and agent communication.
17791	TCP	SolarWinds Agent	Bidirectional	Open for agent communication on any SolarWinds Orion server running Windows Server 2016.
Device-specific				Any port required by a specific device.

For a complete list of the port requirements for the SolarWinds Orion server, see the Port Requirements document.

Cloud instance requirements for the NTA SQL Flow Storage database in Azure

Instance Details	Medium (SL2000)	Large (SLX)
Instance type	D12_v2	D15_v2
CPU	4 CPU	16 CPU
RAM	30.5 GB RAM	122 GB RAM
Disk	System SSD 80 GB (included in D12_v2) + Data Azure Storage Disk Volume 500 GB (8 GB for every received sustained 1000 Flows/s with 30-days retention period)	System SSD 320 GB (included in D12_v2) + Data Azure Storage Disk Volume 2.5 TB (2.5 TB is Flow Storage, 300k FPS with 30-days retention, Azure Storage Disk with Provisioned IOPS recommended)