Documentation forNetFlow Traffic Analyzer
Analyzing network traffic and bandwidth is a key capability of SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted (formerly Hybrid Cloud Observability) and is available in the Advanced edition. NetFlow Traffic Analyzer (NTA) is also available in a standalone module.

NTA 2022.4 system requirements

Release date: November 22, 2022

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.

What requirements are you looking for?

On-premise requirements for NTA

NetFlow Traffic Analyzer requires an appropriate SolarWinds NPM version hosted on the same server. To deploy NTA locally, on a server, review the Multi-module system guidelines.

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

NTA Flow Storage database requirements

NTA and SolarWinds Platform use two SQL databases - the SolarWinds Platform database and the NTA SQL Flow Storage database. The SolarWinds Platform database stores SolarWinds Platform configuration data and all collected performance and syslog data. The NTA Flow Storage database is where SolarWinds NTA stores your flow data.

Type Recommendation
SQL server

SolarWinds recommends using a single SQL server instance for both the NTA Flow Storage database and the SolarWinds Platform database.

  • SQL Server 2016 SP1 or 2016 SP2
  • SQL Server 2017
  • SQL Server 2019

SolarWinds supports Express, Standard, or Enterprise versions of the SQL server.

Sizing

Hardware recommendations for the NTA SQL Flow Storage database

For an example configuration, see User scenario: Recommended SQL server disk configuration.

SolarWinds Platform database requirements

For a complete overview of requirements for deploying the SolarWinds Platform database in an environment with SolarWinds NTA, see the Multi-module system guidelines.

Port requirements

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

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
53 UDP SolarWinds Job Engine V2 Outbound Port used to resolve DNS queries.
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 http://192.168.0.3:8080.

The port might also be used for Cisco UCS monitoring.

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 The default port used for sending and receiving SNMP information, including polling CBQoS-enabled devices.
443 TCP IIS Inbound Default port for HTTPS binding.
1433 TCP

SolarWinds NetFlow Service

Outbound Port used for communication between the NetFlow Service and the existing SQL server.

1434

UDP

SolarWinds NetFlow 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 The default port for receiving flows on any SolarWinds NTA collector.
5671 TCP RabbitMQ Bidirectional Port used for RabbitMQ messaging.
17777 TCP SolarWinds Information Service Bidirectional

Port for sending and receiving traffic between SolarWinds NPM and other SolarWinds Platform modules.

Port used for communication between remote Flow Storage Database and NTA Main Poller.

Cloud deployment

When deploying NTA in cloud, SolarWinds recommends using the native SQL service for the NTA SQL Flow Storage database. You can install the NTA SQL Flow Storage database onto the following:

Additional resources

You should also review the following resources for the exact product requirements beyond these minimums.