SolarWinds Platform requirements
This topic applies to all SolarWinds Platform products.
This document provides SolarWinds Platform requirements for Small, Medium, Large and Extra Large deployments, based on the number of monitored elements, such as nodes, interfaces, or component monitors as determined based on your license.
SolarWinds generally recommends the minimum hardware configurations for deployment in both on-premises environments (whether bare-metal or virtualized) and cloud platforms (such as Microsoft Azure, AWS, or GCP). You may use any cloud instance that meets the specifications outlined below.
Using other polling methods (SolarWinds Platform Agent, WMI, or SNMPv3) with authentication or more complex element types (applications, firewalls, load balancers, or wireless controllers) will increase hardware requirements for the server.
General requirements
Requirements |
Small |
Medium (501-2,000 elements) |
Large (more than 2,000 elements) |
XL (up to 1,000,000 elements) |
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SolarWinds Platform server
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CPU cores: 4 RAM: 16 GB Storage: 100 GB SSD Network: Low-latency connectivity to the database server and monitored endpoints |
CPU cores: 8 RAM: 32 GB Storage: 100 GB SSD Network: Low-latency connectivity to the database server and monitored endpoints |
CPU cores: 8/12 RAM: 32 GB Storage: 100 GB SSD Network: Low-latency connectivity to the database server and monitored endpoints |
CPU cores: 12 RAM: 64 GB Storage: 150 GB SSD Network: Low-latency connectivity to the database server and monitored endpoints |
Additional Polling Engines |
Only relevant for environments that monitor over 12,000 elements. |
CPU cores: 8 RAM: 32 GB Storage: 100 GB SSD Network: Low-latency connectivity to the database server and monitored endpoints |
CPU cores: 12 RAM: 64 GB Storage: 150 GB SSD Network: Low-latency connectivity to the database server and monitored endpoints |
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Additional Web Servers |
Less than 50 concurrent users CPU cores: 4 RAM: 16 GB Storage: 100 GB SSD Network: Low-latency connectivity to the database server and SolarWinds Platform Server
Up to 100 concurrent users CPU cores: 10 RAM: 32 GB Storage: 100 GB SSD Network: Low-latency connectivity to the database server and SolarWinds Platform Server |
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SolarWinds Platform database server |
CPU cores: 4 RAM: 16 GB Storage: 100 GB SSD Network: Low-latency connectivity to the SolarWinds Platform Server and Additional Polling Engines |
CPU cores: 8 RAM: 32 GB Storage: 100 GB SSD Network: Low-latency connectivity to the SolarWinds Platform Server and Additional Polling Engines |
CPU cores: 8/16 RAM: 64/128 GB Storage: 100/400 GB SSD Network: Low-latency connectivity to the SolarWinds Platform Server and Additional Polling Engines |
CPU cores: 32 RAM: 256/512 GB Storage: 2 TB SSD Network: Low-latency connectivity to the SolarWinds Platform Server and Additional Polling Engines |
SolarWinds Platform server / Additional polling engines
Hardware recommendations for the SolarWinds Platform server
Use the recommended hardware configuration to avoid potential performance issues caused by a heavy load or custom configurations such as increased data retention or more frequent polling intervals.
Requirement | Details |
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Operating Systems |
Following OSs are supported for SolarWinds Platform Server and Additional Polling Engines:
Desktop operating systems, such as Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit Pro or Enterprise, are supported for evaluation environments only. To make a smooth transition from your evaluation to production deployment, SolarWinds recommends that you avoid installing evaluations on desktop operating systems. Deployment restrictions for SolarWinds Platform Agents and SolarWinds Platform products:
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Operating system languages |
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IP address version |
CIDR notation is not supported for IPv6 addresses. |
Web server |
IIS is activated by the Configuration Wizard. You can install this SW manually to reduce your installation time. If you are not using Windows Authentication, make sure the Anonymous Authentication is enabled for the SolarWinds NetPerfMon website. Anonymous Authentication is used with the default forms-based authentication. |
Web browser support |
Performance of the computer where you open the browser significantly influences the speed of the SolarWinds Platform Web Console. SolarWinds Platform supports two most recent versions of the following web browsers available at the release date:
SolarWinds Platform also supports the following browsers:
Browser requirements:
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.NET Framework |
.NET frameworks are installed by the Installation Wizard. You can install this SW manually to reduce your installation time. Makre sure you run the same version of .NET on your primary server and any Additional polling engines or Additional web servers in the environment.
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Compliance standards supported on Windows versions |
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Account privileges |
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Other | Localization constraints: German and Japanese only for SolarWinds Platform, NPM, NTA, LA, NCM, SAM, and VMAN Calendar constraints: Gregorian calendar only |
SolarWinds Platform server port requirements
- Ports 4369, 25672, and 5671 are opened by default on the main server for RabbitMQ messaging. These ports can be blocked by the firewall. When running SolarWinds High Availability, ensure ports 4369 and 25672 are open.
SolarWinds does not recommend the use of HTTP (Port 80). Please use HTTPS (Port 443) to ensure that any web-related connections are secure.
Port | Protocol | Service/Process | Direction | Description | Encryption |
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user-defined, default: 22 | SSH |
SolarWinds Job Engine v2 IIS |
Outbound from the SolarWinds Platform server to the device | Port for accessing ASA devices through CLI | Device-based |
25 |
TCP |
SolarWinds Alerting Service V2 | Outbound |
SMTP port for non-encrypted messages |
n/a |
53 | UDP | SolarWinds Job Engine v2 | Bi- directional |
Resolving DNS queries | n/a |
80 |
TCP |
IIS | Inbound |
HTTP default for the SolarWinds Platform Web Console website. If you specify any port other than 80, you must include that port in the URL used to access the SolarWinds Platform Web Console. For example, if you specify an IP address of 192.168.0.3 and port 8080, the URL used to access the web console is The port might also be used for Cisco UCS monitoring. |
Non |
135 | TCP | Microsoft EPMAP (DCE/Microsoft RPC Locator service) | Bi- directional |
Required for devices polled via WMI. Used to initiate communication with the remotely managed host. | |
161 |
UDP |
SolarWinds Job Engine v2 SolarWinds Cortex |
Bi- |
Send and receive SNMP |
SNMP v1 and v2 are unencrypted. SNMP v3 uses AES and 3DES encryption. |
162 |
UDP |
SolarWinds Trap Service SNMP Informs |
Inbound |
Receive trap messages |
n/a |
443 |
TCP |
IIS | Inbound |
Default port for https binding. |
SSL |
465 |
TCP |
SolarWinds Alerting Service V2 | Outbound |
SMTP port used to send TLS-enabled email alert actions |
SSL |
514 |
UDP |
SolarWinds Syslog Service | Inbound |
Receive syslog messages |
n/a |
587 |
TCP |
SolarWinds Alerting Service V2 | Outbound |
SMTP port used to send TLS-enabled email alert actions |
TLS |
dynamic, random, greater than 1024 | TCP | SolarWinds Job Engine v2 | Bi- directional |
(DCE/Microsoft RPC Locator service) Microsoft EPMAP, only if you monitor nodes via WMI. This port is used by the SolarWinds Job Engine v2 service to communicate with Windows nodes. See WMI portocalypse on THWACK. | |
1433 |
TCP |
SolarWinds Alerting Service V2 SolarWinds Administration Service SolarWinds Information Service SolarWinds Information Service V3 SolarWinds Orion Module Engine |
Outbound |
Communication between the SolarWinds Platform server and the SQL Server. |
n/a |
1434 |
UDP |
SolarWinds Alerting Service V2 SolarWinds Administration Service SolarWinds Information Service SolarWinds Information Service V3 SolarWinds Orion Module Engine SQL Server Browse Service |
Outbound |
Communication with the SQL Server Browser Service to determine how to communicate with certain non-standard SQL Server installations. Required only if your SQL Server is configured to use dynamic ports. |
n/a |
5671 |
TCP |
RabbitMQ |
Bi- directional |
For encrypted RabbitMQ messaging (AMQP/TLS) into the main polling engine from all SolarWinds Platform servers (additional polling engines, HA servers, or additional web servers). Sending messages to RabbitMQ. |
TLS 1.2 |
17732 |
HTTPS/TCP |
SolarWinds Certificate Management Service | Bi- directional |
The port used for secure communication between the certificate management clients and certificate management service. | SSL/TLS |
17733 | TCP | SolarWinds Job Engine v3 | Internal only | The local port used by the SolarWinds Job Engine v3 for communication with the collector. | SSL/TLS |
17774 |
HTTPS/TCP |
SolarWinds REST Endpoint | Inbound to the SolarWinds Platform server |
Required for access to the SWIS API. |
SSL |
17777 |
TCP |
SolarWinds Orion Module Engine SolarWinds Information Service SolarWinds Information Service V3 SolarWinds Cortex |
Bi- directional |
Communication between services and SolarWinds Orion module traffic. Communication between the SolarWinds Platform Web Console and the polling engines. Communication between the main server and pool members. |
RSA handshake, AES 256 communication using WCF TLS 1.2 with Cortex |
17778 |
HTTPS |
SolarWinds Agent | Inbound to the SolarWinds Platform server |
Required for agent communication. |
SSL |
See SolarWinds Port requirements for a comprehensive list of port requirements for SolarWinds products.
Optional, individual components, such as SolarWinds Platform Agents and High Availability, have additional port requirements.
SolarWinds Platform Additional Web Servers
The Additional Web Server allows more users to access the SolarWinds Web Console without overloading the primary server. Do not install Additional Web Server on the same host as an SolarWinds Platform Server or Additional Polling Engines, this configuration is not supported.
Please note the time zones must match between the Additional Web Server and the Database Server to avoid timestamp issues.
SolarWinds Platform Database SQL Server
The following lists the requirements and recommendations for a SolarWinds Database Server
Requirement | Details | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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SolarWinds Platform SQL DBs |
During installation, SolarWinds Platform creates the following three databases:
You can deploy all three databases on the same SQL Server. You can change the default database names during installation. |
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SQL Server versions |
Use Standard or Enterprise editions of the following SQL versions. Support for Microsoft SQL Server Service Packs and Cumulative Updates is assumed unless otherwise noted. Supported versions
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Azure Cloud deployment guidelines |
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Limits and Recommendations |
When using MS SQL Express, make sure you are aware of the following limits:
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SQL Server Collation |
The SolarWinds Platform does not support case-sensitive databases. SolarWinds Platform supports the following collation settings:
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SQL Server roles and permissions |
The SolarWinds Platform requires following SQL server roles and permissions: Server roles>
Permissions:
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SQL storage recommendations |
The following recommendations apply to bare-metal environments only. If you have your SolarWinds Platform database installed on a virtual machine, these recommendations do not apply to your environment.
Database hardware recommendations for extra large environments For extra large environments with a physical SQL Server, SolarWinds recommends the following hard drive configuration. These recommendations are not valid for SQL servers running in a virtual environment.
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Authentication | Either mixed-mode or Windows authentication. If you require SQL authentication, you must enable mixed mode on your SQL server. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Other software |
SolarWinds recommends you install the SQL Server Management Studio component on your SolarWinds Platform database server. The SolarWinds Installer installs the following required x86 components if they are not found on your SolarWinds Platform database server:
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Deployment restrictions | You can’t share the SolarWinds Platform database with Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Exchange and Research in Motion (RIM) BlackBerry servers. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Ports to open |
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Account privileges |
SolarWinds recommends that SolarWinds Platform administrators have local administrator privileges on the SolarWinds Platform server to ensure full functionality of local SolarWinds tools. User accounts limited to the SolarWinds Platform Web Console do not require local administrator privileges. Users running the Configuration wizard must have DBO specified as the default database schema.
All SolarWinds services run under the LocalSystem account in order to protect critical and sensitive information, such as primary SolarWinds Platform certificates, or database credentials, from being accessed by shared accounts with lower privileges. |
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Network latency |
The latency (RTT) between each SolarWinds Platform engine and the database server should be below 200 ms. Degradation may begin around 100 ms, depending on your utilization and the size of your deployment. In general, higher latency will impact larger deployments more than smaller deployments. Ping the SolarWinds Platform SQL Server to find the current latency and ensure a reliable static connection between the server and the regions. |
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Other | Localization constraints: German and Japanese only for SolarWinds Platform, NPM, NTA, LA, NCM, SAM, and VMAN Calendar constraints: Gregorian calendar only |