NCM 2023.4 system requirements
Release date: November 1, 2023
SolarWinds strongly recommends that you install the SolarWinds Platform on a server that is neither public, nor internet-facing. To learn about best practices for configuring your SolarWinds Platform installation securely, see Secure Configuration for the SolarWinds Platform.
The Network Configuration Manager requirements vary based on:
- The number of nodes
- The frequency of configuration downloads
- The length of time that configurations are maintained in the database
For additional information on requirements and configurations, see the Multi-module system guidelines. You should also review your product administration guides and release notes for the exact product requirements beyond these minimums.
Port requirements
The following ports might be needed for the SolarWinds Web Console, depending on how NCM is set up to download and upload configurations.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22 | SSH/SCP |
SCP server |
Bidirectional |
SSH/SCP default port for NCM to transfer configs |
| 23 | Telnet |
NCM Business Layer Plugin, NCM Jobs (collector) |
Outbound | Telnet default port for NCM to transfer configs |
| 25 | TCP | SolarWinds Alerting Service V2 | Outbound | SMTP email default that NCM uses for notification (If SSL/TLS encryption is set up on SMTP server, default port is 465) |
| 69 | UDP | TFTP Server | Inbound | TFTP server listens on this port |
| 80 | TCP | IIS | Inbound | HTTP default for the SolarWinds Web Console |
| 137 | UDP | File and Printer Sharing (NB-Name-In) | Bidirectional | Used to store firmware updates and configuration files remotely |
| 138 | UDP | File and Printer Sharing (NB-Datagram-In) | Bidirectional | Used to store firmware updates and configuration files remotely |
| 139 | TCP | File and Printer Sharing (NB-Session-In) | Bidirectional | Used to store firmware updates and configuration files remotely |
| 161 | UDP | SolarWinds Job Engine v2 | Outbound | SNMP statistics collection, the default for polling in NCM |
| 162 | UDP | SolarWinds Trap Service | Inbound | Trap messages listened for and received by the Trap Server |
| 443 | TCP | IIS | Inbound | Default port for HTTPS binding |
| 445 | TCP | File and Printer Sharing (SMB-In) | Bidirectional | Used to store firmware updates and configuration files remotely |
| 465 | TCP | SolarWinds Alerting Service V2 | Outbound | The port used for SSL-enabled email alert actions |
| 514 | UDP | SolarWinds Syslog Service | Inbound | Used to listen for incoming syslog messages |
| 587 | TCP | SolarWinds Alerting Service V2 | Outbound | The port used for TLS-enabled email alert actions |
| 5671 | TCP | RabbitMQ | Bidirectional | For encrypted RabbitMQ messaging (AMQP/TLS) into the main polling engine from all SolarWinds Platform servers |
| 17777 | TCP |
SolarWinds Platform Module Engine SolarWinds Information Service SolarWinds Information Service V3 |
Bidirectional | SolarWinds Platform module traffic. Open the port to enable communication from your poller to the SolarWinds Platform Web Console, and from the SolarWinds Platform Web Console to your poller. The port used for communication between the SolarWinds Platform Web Console and the poller. |
| 17778 | HTTPS | SolarWinds Agent | Inbound to the SolarWinds Platform server | Required for access to the SWIS API and agent communication |
| 17779 | HTTP | SolarWinds Toolset | Inbound to the SolarWinds Platform server | SolarWinds Toolset Integration over HTTP |
Ports 4369, 5672, and 25672 are opened by default. These ports can be blocked by the firewall.
Server, database, and browser requirements
NCM runs on the SolarWinds Platform and has the same server, database, and browser requirements as SolarWinds Platform 2023.4. See the SolarWinds Platform 2023.4 requirements for details.
Additional information
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The SolarWinds NCM Information Service requires that the Net.TCP Port Sharing service be enabled and port 17777 open for TCP traffic to the NCM server. By default, this service is disabled. The setup program sets the service to manual. Resetting the service setting to disabled is not recommended.
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To take advantage of the numerous integration points in NCM, install the SolarWinds Engineer's Toolset on the same server. You can also take advantage of integration points built into the Web Console by installing the Toolset on computers used to access the Web Console.
SQL Server Express considerations
The following factors determine whether you can successfully deploy NCM on a SQL Server Express database:
-
SQL Server Express should be used only for deployments with the following license tiers:
- NCM DL50
- NCM DL 100
-
Does your deployment include other SolarWinds Platform products? The performance of a SQL Server Express database decreases with each additional SolarWinds Platform product you deploy.
-
A SQL Server Express database has a maximum size of 10 GB. The following factors determine how much space NCM requires:
- The number of nodes managed by NCM
- The size of the configs on the managed nodes
- The number of configs per node
By default, NCM stores the last 30 configs for each node in the database. You can reduce the amount of space required by each node by modifying settings in the following NCM jobs:
- Modify the Default Purge Configs job to reduce the number of configs stored in the database.
- Modify the Default Database and Archive Maintenance job to reduce the config cache data, approval request data, and config transfer request data stored in the database.
Scalability
NCM 2020.2 was tested for scalability in a standalone deployment of three servers: one server hosts the main server and the other two servers each host an additional polling engine. The main server manages up to 10,000 nodes, as does each additional polling engine. Therefore, the deployment supports up to 30,000 nodes total.
The standard SolarWinds Platform deployment has the SolarWinds Platform on the main server, polling for node status at the default rate. This deployment supports two NCM operations, inventory update and configuration download, performed per day on all 30,000 nodes.
Though the main server and each additional polling engine can manage up to 10,000 nodes, the actual total depends on the system hardware of the server hosts, the types of devices being monitored, and the number of jobs being run concurrently. Should you need to manage more devices, and you decide to add servers, consider consolidating your views of multiple servers with the SolarWinds Enterprise Operations Console (EOC). For more information, see Scalability Engine Guidelines for SolarWinds Products.
Factors that affect scalability
The server requirements table above lists the minimum CPU and RAM requirements for the NCM server. CPU and RAM requirements depend on the number of nodes being managed in your NCM deployment.
If scalability issues arise, you can adjust the following:
- Increase the server CPU speed and the amount of RAM
- Decrease the number of simultaneous transfers
- Decrease the frequency of uploads, downloads, and inventory jobs
- Increase the node polling interval for up/down monitoring
Inventory jobs may run longer than expected in larger environments. To remedy this situation, break large inventory jobs into smaller jobs that do not include as many nodes, and space these jobs over a longer period of time. Adjusting server CPU and memory will enhance user interface performance and job execution speed.
If you are deploying multiple SolarWinds Platform modules, see the multi-module system guidelines.