Multi-module system guidelines for the Orion Platform
This topic applies to all Orion Platform products.
This topic provides recommendations for deploying multiple Orion Platform products. These are guidelines only. You can choose to use more or less hardware, but your performance may vary depending on your deployment scenario.
If you have only one SolarWinds Orion module, see the system requirements for that module in the Success Center.
Use the SolarWinds Orion Installer to run a System Check. You do not have to complete the installation to receive an install report. The installer runs a series of checks per product to verify that your server meets system requirements and recommendations. You will receive informational and warning messages that recommend actions and best practices to optimize performance.
Before you read on, answer the following questions:
- What is the size of the environment you want to monitor with the Orion Platform?
- How many and which Orion Platform products do you want do use to monitor your environment?
- Where do you want to deploy the Orion Platform, in the cloud or on premises?
Size of monitored environment and Orion Platform products installed
For the purposes of this article, "small environments" mean up to three modules from the following list:
- IPAM IP1000 - IP4000
- NCM DL50 - DL200
- NPM SL100 - SL500 (including up to 10 remote agents for DPI)
- SAM, based on license type
- Up to SAM100 (node-based licensing)
- AL150 or AL300 (component-based licensing)
- UDT UT2500 - 5000
- VMAN VMS8 - VMS64
If you use VMAN Recommendations, increase the total memory on the server by 4 GB. - VNQM IPSLA 5 - IPSLA 25 (up to 5,000 operations)
- WPM 5 - WPM 20
You can install Log Analyzer, NTA, or SCM as part of a small deployment, but it is not included in this configuration. Use the Medium Deployment guidelines for these Orion Platform products.
For the purposes of this article, "medium environments" include the following modules:
- NPM SL500 - SL2000,
- NTA for NPM SL2000
- 50,000 FPS received sustained on the main polling engine
and 2 - 4 additional modules:
- IPAM IP16,000
- Log Analyzer LA10 - LA250
- NCM DL500 - DL1000
- SAM, based on license type
- SAM100 to SAM300 (node-based licensing)
- AL700 or AL1100 (component-based licensing)
- SCM SCM50 - SCM1000
- UDT UT10,000 - 25,000
- VMAN VMS112 - VMS320
If you use VMAN Recommendations, increase the total memory on the server by 8 GB. - VNQM IPSLA 25 - IPSLA 50 (up to 10,000 operations)
- WPM 50 - WPM 200
For the purposes of this article, "large environments" include the following modules:
- NPM SLX (with multiple polling engines)
- NTA for NPM SLX
- 50,000 FPS received sustained on the main polling engine
- Up to 6 polling engines (5 in addition to the main polling engine) for 300,000 FPS received sustained
- Any combination of these modules:
- IPAM IPX
- 750,000 IP
- Log Analyzer LA250 - LA1000
- NCM DLX
- 1 Additional Polling Engine (APE) for every 10,000 devices, for NCM 7.1 and later
- Maximum of 30,000 devices per NCM instance (that is, NCM server + 2 NCM APEs)
- SAM, based on license type
- SAM400 (node-based licensing)
- AL1500 (component-based licensing)
- SCM SCM5000
- UDT UTX
- 150,000 ports per polling engine
- VMAN VMS480 and higher
- Per VMAN Recommendations, increase the total memory on the server by 16 GB.
- 1 APE for every 10,000 VMs. VMAN APEs do not require extra licenses.
- VNQM IPX
- ~5,000 IP SLA operations per polling engine
- IPAM IPX
For the purposes of this article, "xlarge environments" monitor up to 1,000,000 elements. Monitoring these environments requires deploying Additional Polling Engines to scale your deployment.
For SAM, monitoring capacity is measured in terms of component monitors instead of elements.
For example, a SAM1000 deployment of SAM 2020.2 that uses WinRM for application monitor polling, represents an "xlarge" environment that supports:
- 1 Main Polling Engine (up to 10K component monitors) and up to 100 APEs.
- 1 APE for every ~40K component monitors at no extra licensing cost. Stacking is not supported.
- Up to 550K component monitors.
Disk Performance is measured using IOPS.
CPU recommendations use the PassMark score (© 2018 PassMark® Software, obtained at https://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html on April 9, 2018).
How do I find out the PassMark score of my server?
- Download the Pass Mark Performance Test (© 2018 PassMark® Software, obtained at https://www.passmark.com/products/pt.htm on April 9, 2018).
- Run it on your server to find out a PassMark score of your server.
Orion Platform deployed in the cloud
Orion Platform products support the following cloud solutions:
Amazon Web Services
In Amazon Web Services (AWS), the Elastic Block Storage (EBS) volumes are not your dedicated hardware devices. For databases used by Orion Platform products, SolarWinds recommends using dedicated instance EBS volumes for medium and large deployments. For large deployments, SolarWinds recommends EBS with provisioned IOPS for high performance for intensive database workloads.
Requirements | xl | |||
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Orion server |
m4.large Recommended: m4.xlarge |
m4.xlarge |
m5d.2xlarge | m5.2xlarge |
Primary database server Amazon RDS service Deploying SQL in an Amazon VM |
db.r4.large |
db.r4.xlarge |
db.r4.2xlarge |
db.r4.8xlarge |
m4.large | r4.xlarge | r5d.2xlarge | r5d.4xlarge | |
NTA Flow Storage Database | see medium | r3.xlarge | r5d.4xlarge | r5d.4xlarge |
Log Analyzer Database | see medium | r3.xlarge | r5d.4xlarge | r5d.4xlarge |
Additional Polling engine server | Only relevant for environments that monitor over 12,000 elements at default polling intervals. | m5.xlarge | m5.xlarge |
Microsoft Azure
Requirements | xl | |||
---|---|---|---|---|
Orion server |
A4_v2 | DS12_v2 | DS4_v2 | DS4_v2 |
Primary database server
Azure SQL
Azure Managed Instance
Orion database deployed in an Azure VM |
Azure SQL recommended: Only products on Orion Platform 2019.2 and later. The Orion Server must be set to use the same time zone as Azure SQL (UTC by default). Starting with Orion Platform 2019.4, Orion Platform products do not support memory-optimized tables. |
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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 Standard Tier S9 (up to 100k elements), S12 (up to 400k elements) or better vCore General Purpose Tier 16 (up to 100k elements), 30 (up to 400k elements) or better |
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Azure Managed Instance: 4 vCores |
Azure Managed Instance: 8 vCores |
Azure Managed Instance: 16 vCores |
Azure Managed Instance: 64 vCores |
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Database server: A4_v2 |
Database server: DS4_v2 Standard |
Database server: E8s_v3 |
Database server: E32-8s_v3 |
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NTA Flow Storage Database | - | DS12_v2 | D15_v2 | D15_v2 |
Log Analyzer Database | - | DS12_v2 | D15_v2 | D15_v2 |
Additional polling engine server | Only relevant for environments that monitor over 12,000 elements at default polling intervals. | D4s_v3 | D4s_v3 |
Orion Platform deployed on premises
Require-ments | xl | |||
---|---|---|---|---|
Orion server |
Physical server or virtual machine (VM)
The SolarWinds Orion installer installs IIS and .NET 4.8 or later if they are not already on your server. |
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Primary database server |
Standard or Enterprise Edition of the following SQL versions:
SolarWinds recommends SQL Server 2016 SP1 or later. Support for Microsoft SQL Server Service Packs and Cumulative Updates is assumed unless otherwise noted. See details on RAID (physical servers) |
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Minimum:
Recommended:
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NTA Flow Storage Database | - |
Physical server or virtual machine
Storing flow data in NTA
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Log Analyzer Database | - |
Physical server or virtual machine
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Additional polling engine server |
Virtual machine recommended
The SolarWinds Orion installer installs .NET 4.8 if it is not already on your server. |
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If you use multiple modules on an APE, add 1 CPU core and 2 GB RAM for each additional module. See How do I calculate my hardware. |
RAID recommendations are only relevant if your primary database is deployed on a physical server. They are NOT relevant if your database is deployed on a virtual machine.
More or less space may be needed depending on your data retention policies, number of elements measured, and polling frequency.
RAID recommendations | ||
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RAID 1+0 configuration (RAID 5 not supported) |
RAID 1+0 configuration (RAID 5 not supported) Hardware RAID Controller (software RAID not supported) |
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How do I calculate hardware requirements for my deployment?
Your first Orion Platform product must meet the minimum system requirements for that product. Typically, you need a single quad-core processor and 8 GB of RAM. For each additional module on the same system, add one CPU core and 2 GB of RAM.
Modules | CPU | RAM |
---|---|---|
1 |
Required: 4 cores Recommended: 8 cores |
Required: 8 GB Recommended: 16 GB |
2 |
Required: 5 cores Recommended: 10 cores |
Required: 10 GB Recommended: 18 GB |
3 |
Required: 6 cores Recommended: 12 cores |
Required: 12 GB Recommended: 20 GB |
4 |
Required: 7 cores Recommended: 14 cores |
Required: 14 GB Recommended: 22 GB |
5 |
Required: 8 cores Recommended: 16 cores |
Required: 16 GB Recommended: 24 GB |
6 |
Required: 9 cores Recommended: 18 cores |
Required: 18 GB Recommended: 26 GB |
7 |
Required: 10 cores Recommended: 20 cores |
Required: 20 GB Recommended: 28 GB |
8 |
Required: 11 cores Recommended: 22 cores |
Required: 22 GB Recommended: 30 GB |
9 |
Required: 12 cores Recommended: 24 cores |
Required: 24 GB Recommended: 32 GB |
10 |
Required: 13 cores Recommended: 26 cores |
Required: 26 GB Recommended: 34 GB |