NTA 2026.4 system requirements
Release date: October 20, 2026
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.
Important: These system requirements define the minimum requirements for NetFlow Traffic Analyzer 2026.4 as a single product installed on SolarWinds Platform 2026.4. Requirements may increase for medium or large environments, or environments with multi-modules installed.
See the following sections:
Common SolarWinds Platform requirements
NTA 2026.4 runs on the SolarWinds Platform and has the same base requirements as SolarWinds Platform 2026.4. See the 2026.4 system requirements for details.
NetFlow Traffic Analyzer is not a standalone product. It is an add-on to Network Performance Monitor (NPM) and requires NPM to be installed on the same SolarWinds Platform server. For additional information about requirements and configurations, see the Multi-module system guidelines. You should also review your product guides and release notes for the exact product requirements beyond these minimums.
You cannot install SolarWinds Platform products on the same server as SolarWinds Access Rights Manager (ARM).
Additional SQL Server requirements
NTA and SolarWinds Platform each use a SQL database:
-
SolarWinds Platform database: Stores SolarWinds Platform configuration data and all collected performance and syslog data. For a complete overview of requirements for deploying the SolarWinds Platform database in an environment with NTA, see the Multi-module system guidelines.
-
NTA Flow Storage database: Stores 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.
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. |
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 SolarWinds NetFlow Service |
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 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 |
SolarWinds Job Engine v2 SolarWinds Job Engine v3 SolarWinds Cortex |
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 SolarWinds Platform 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. The port can be configured in NTA Settings. See NetFlow collector services. |
| 5671 | TCP | RabbitMQ | Bidirectional | Port used for RabbitMQ messaging. |
| 17777 | TCP | SolarWinds Information Service | Bidirectional |
Port used for communication between SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted services. |
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 Flow Storage database onto the following:
- Microsoft Azure SQL Database
If you choose to build a new Azure SQL database instead of using the native SQL service, review the section Azure instances required for additional databases.
- Amazon Web Service with RDS