NPM 2020.2.6 system requirements

Release date: July 15, 2021

SolarWinds strongly recommends that you install the Orion Platform on a server that is neither public, nor internet-facing. To learn about best practices for configuring your Orion Platform installation securely, see Secure Configuration for the SolarWinds Platform.

Requirements depend on various variables, such as:

• NPM deployment type - in the cloud vs on-premises.
• Size of the environment to be monitored. This topic provides requirements for small, medium, large and extra large deployments, based on NPM license levels.
• Orion Platform products to be deployed. This document provides minimum requirements for NPM. If you plan to deploy more SolarWinds products from the Orion Platform family, see Multi-module system guidelines.

What requirements are you looking for?

• Cloud Deployment
  • Amazon Web Service requirements
  • Microsoft Azure requirements
• On-premises requirements overview
  • More on hardware requirements for NPM server
  • More on software requirements for the NPM server
  • More on database requirements
• Port requirements

Cloud Deployment

NPM supports the following cloud solutions:

• Amazon Web Service
• Microsoft Azure

Amazon Web Service

 

Microsoft Azure

To deploy a single Orion Platform product on Microsoft Azure, consider using the following instance types, based on your deployment size.

Requirements	Small SL100, SL250, SL500	Medium SL2000	Large SLX	XL (up to 1,000,000 elements)
Orion server	A4_v2	DS12_v2	DS4_v2	DS4_v2
SolarWinds Orion database using Azure SQL DB	All installed products must run on Orion Platform 2019.2 or later. Time zone setting of the Orion server must be in the same time zone as Azure SQL DB time zone (UTC). When deploying Azure SQL and creating a new user in the Configuration wizard, SA account credentials are required in the Configuration wizard.
	DTU Standard Tier S3 or better vCore General Purpose Tier 2 or better	DTU Standard Tier S3 or better vCore General Purpose Tier 2 or better	DTU Standard Tier S4 or better vCore General Purpose Tier 2 or better	DTU P15 vCore Hyper-Scale 40 vCPU
SolarWinds Orion database using Azure SQL Database managed instance	Gen5 4 vCores	Gen5 8 vCores	Gen5 16 vCores	Gen5 40 vCores
SolarWinds Orion database deployed in an Azure VM	A4_v2	DS4_v2 Standard	E8s_v3	E64as_v4 IOPS 30,000+

On premises

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

Require- ments	Small SL100, SL250, SL500	Medium SL2000	Large SLX	XL (up to 1,000,000 elements)
	Minimum / Recommended
Orion server hardware         More details	Quad core processor or better 6 GB/8 GB RAM 10 GB/20 GB HD	Quad core processor or better 8 GB/16 GB RAM 15 GB/40 GB HD	Quad core processor or better 16 GB/32 GB RAM 30 GB /40 GB HD	CPUs with a total combined PassMark score of 7,000 or higher 32 GB RAM 60 GB HD Read/Write I/O: 1,000 IOPS
Orion server software More details	Windows Server 2019 Windows Server 2016 Windows Server 2012 R2 Desktop OS's only for evaluations; NOT recommended for production environments   STIG- compliant OS's FIPS-compliant OS's Device Guard-compliant OS's
SolarWinds Orion database server                     More details	In production environments, the Orion server and the SolarWinds Orion database must use separate servers. For details on SQL Express, see MS SQL Express limits. If you install on a virtual machine, you must maintain your SQL Server database on a separate, physical drive. Recommended: SQL Server 2016 SP1 and later For XL environments, use SQL Server Enterprise 2019 CU4 and later on Windows Server 2019 Supported: SQL Server Standard or Enterprise 2012 and later More details
	Quad core processor or better 8 GB/16 GB RAM 20 GB/40 GB HD	Dual quad core processor or better 16 GB/64 GB RAM 50 GB/100 GB HD	Dual quad core processor or better 64 GB/128 GB RAM 100/400 GB HD	CPUs with a total combined PassMark score of 32,000 or higher 256 GB/512 GB RAM 2 TB HD Read/Write I/O: 30,000 IOPs / 190,000 IOPS or better recommended, SSD strongly recommended
Additional Polling Engines	Only relevant for environments that monitor over 12,000 elements.		4-core processor or better 16 GB RAM 60 GB HD Windows Server 2019 Windows Server 2016 Windows Server 2012 R2
Additional Web Server	Relevant for environments where the number of concurrent users is close to 50.		8-core processor or better 32 GB RAM 60 GB HD Windows Server 2019 Windows Server 2016 Windows Server 2012 R2
Ports to open   More details	Outbound: 22, 25, 465, 587, 1433, 1434, Inbound: 80, 162, 443, 514, 17778 Bi-directional: 53, 135, 161, 1801, 5671, 1777
Account privileges	SolarWinds recommends that SolarWinds Orion administrators have local administrator privileges on the Orion server to ensure full functionality of local SolarWinds tools. SolarWinds Orion user accounts limited to the Orion Web Console do not require local administrator privileges. Users running the Configuration wizard must have DBO specified as the default database schema.

More information on hardware recommendations for the Orion 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.

RAID recommendations only apply to physical environments. If you have your Orion server installed on a virtual machine, these recommendations do not apply to your environment.

Processor speed

Use processors that work at 2.4 GHz or faster.

CPU

Do not enable Physical Address Extension (PAE).

HD

Two 146 GB 15K (RAID 1/Mirrored Settings) hard drives are recommended with a dedicated drive for the server operating system and SolarWinds installation.

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 temporary directories.

More information on software requirements for the Orion server

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

The following table lists software requirements and recommendations for a SolarWinds installation on both physical and virtual computers.

Software Requirements
Operating system	Windows Server 2019 Windows Server 2016 Windows Server 2012 R2 Desktop operating systems, such as Windows 10, 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. Support differences between Orion Agents and Orion Platform products You cannot install Orion Platform products on domain controllers. Exception: You can install Orion Agents on domain controllers. You cannot install Orion Platform products or any scalability engines on Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Exchange, or BlackBerry servers. Exception: You can install Orion Agents on the same server as a Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Exchange or Research in Motion (RIM) Blackberry server.
Operating system languages	English (UK or US) German Japanese Simplified Chinese
IP address version	IPv4 IPv6 Dual stack CIDR notation is not supported for IPv6 addresses.
Web server	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. IIS is installed by the SolarWinds installer. You can install this software manually to reduce your installation time.
.NET Framework	.NET 4.8 Run the same version of .NET on your primary server and any Additional Polling Engines or Additional Web Servers in the environment. Make sure that the operating system of your Orion Platform supports .NET 4.8. See .NET Framework system requirements (© 2019 Microsoft, available at https://dotnet.microsoft.com, obtained on October 3, 2019).
Services	If you are using the Syslog or SNMP Traps feature of the Orion Platform, make sure the following services are running after installation is complete to collect syslog messages and traps: SolarWinds Syslog Service SolarWinds Trap Service
Web console browser	Orion Platform products support two most recent versions of the following web browsers available at the release date: Firefox Chrome  Orion Platform products also support the following browsers: Microsoft Internet Explorer 11 with Active scripting Do not enable Enterprise Mode on Internet Explorer. This setting forces Internet Explorer to emulate version 7, which is not supported. Microsoft Edge Performance of the computer where you open the browser significantly influences the speed of the Orion Web Console.

More details on requirements for the Orion Database Server

SQL Server versions

Use Express, Standard, or Enterprise versions of the following SQL versions. Support for Microsoft SQL Server Service Packs and Cumulative Updates is assumed unless otherwise noted.

• SQL Server 2019
• SQL Server 2017 (including installations on Linux)
• SQL Server 2016
• SQL Server 2014
• SQL Server 2012 (SP4 recommended)

Recommendations

• To achieve optimal performance, use SQL 2016 SP1 or later. Earlier SQL versions do not support the columnstore index and are thus not recommended for larger deployments.
• Use the Simple database recovery mode to ensure best performance.
• Use 64-bit version of SQL Server.
• You can set the database recovery model to Full Recovery if your Orion Database is hosted on a SQL Cluster or if you use Always On Availability. However, you must back up your database regularly and ensure that volume you store your transaction log has free space that is at least equal to or greater than the size of your Orion database. Your transaction logs will continue to grow indefinitely until a database backup is performed and the transactions committed to the database. We recommend daily database backups when you use the Full Recovery model.

MS SQL Express Limits

When using MS SQL Express, make sure you are aware of the following limits:

MS SQL Express can be installed on the same server as the Orion server.

Feature	Limit
Maximum database size	10 GB
Maximum computing capacity used by a single instance - SQL Server Database Engine Maximum computing capacity used by a single instance - Analysis Services or Reporting Services	Limited to lesser of 1 socket or 4 cores
Maximum memory for buffer pool per instance of SQL Server Database Engine	1410 MB
Maximum memory for Columnstore segment cache per instance of SQL Server Database Engine	352 MB
Maximum memory-optimized data size per database in SQL Server Database Engine	352 MB
Orion Platform groups	up to 100 groups
Orion Platform concurrent users	up to 5 users logged in simultaneously
Orion Platform performance	Complex groups, limitations, or alerts can affect performance of your Orion Platform.
NPM polling frequency	keep default or longer polling periods
NPM wireless monitoring	Up to 5 wireless controllers Up to 50 wireless access points

SQL Server Collation

• English with collation setting SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS
• English with collation setting SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CS_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

Server roles and permissions

Required server roles:

• dbcreator
• public
• securityadmin

Permissions:

• You need read permissions to the master database.
• You don't need dbcreator permissions if you are installing an Orion Platform product with a pre-existing blank database.

Hard drive space

The following recommendations apply to physical environments only. If you have your SolarWinds Orion database installed on a virtual machine, these recommendations do not apply to your environment.

• 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.

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. For more information, see Working with Temporary Directories.

Database hardware recommendations for large environments

For large environments with a physical SQL Server, SolarWinds recommends the following hard drive configuration.

These recommendations are not relevant for SQL Servers running in a virtual environment.

• 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

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 Orion database server.

The Orion Installer 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

You cannot share the SolarWinds Orion database with Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Exchange, and Research in Motion (RIM) BlackBerry servers.

Server port requirements

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
user-defined, default: 22	SSH	SolarWinds Job Engine v2 IIS	Outbound from the Orion 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	Default additional web server port. If you specify any port other than 80, you must include that port in the URL used to access the 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 http://192.168.0.3:8080. Open the port to enable communication from your computers to the Orion Web Console. The port might also be used for Cisco UCS monitoring.	n/a
135	TCP	Microsoft EPMAP (DCE/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- directional	Send and receive SNMP information	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
1433	TCP	SolarWinds Alerting Service V2 SolarWinds Administration Service SolarWinds Information Service SolarWinds Information Service V3 SolarWinds Orion Module Engine	Outbound	Communication between the Orion 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 Orion servers (additional polling engines, HA servers, or additional web servers). Sending messages to RabbitMQ.	TLS 1.2
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 Orion 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 Orion server	Required for access to the SWIS API and agent communication	SSL

Links

See SolarWinds Port requirements for a comprehensive list of port requirements for SolarWinds products.

Optional, individual components, such as Orion Agents and High Availability, have additional port requirements.