Minimum System Requirements

Transcription

1 Minimum System Requirements In order to install and work with Vunetrix Network Monitor Core Service, the following minimum requirements must be met: A PC server or virtual machine with roughly the CPU performance of an average PC built in the year 2009 or later and minimum 2048 MB of RAM memory. Vunetrix recommends a minimum of 2.0 GHz or higher with 3 MB of available L3 cache. All 32- and 64-bit versions of the following Microsoft Operating Systems: Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2* (recommended) Microsoft Windows Server 2012* Microsoft Windows 8.1 Microsoft Windows 8 Microsoft Windows 7 Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Microsoft Windows Server 2008 (not recommended, see note below) Microsoft Windows Vista (not recommended, see note below) NOTE: While the software will install on a Windows Vista or 2008 R1 machine, there are known performance issues related to these Operating Systems and are not supported. * Windows Server 2012 Core mode and the Minimal Server Interface are not supported for Vunetrix Network Monitor software installation. Web browser to access the web interface. The following browsers are supported: Google Chrome 36 or later (recommended) Mozilla Firefox 29 or later Microsoft Internet Explorer** 10 or later Apple Safari** 5 or later ** Internet Explores and Safari browsers both support basic AJAX page refresh requests however Vunetrix Technical Support has been made aware of some errors with some of the advanced code used within VNM that does not seem to work entirely with these browsers. We recommend using Chrome or Firefox when possible. Sufficient disk space to accommodate the size of your Vunetrix Network Monitor Database, the number of reports that will be generated and stored on the Core Server. With normal configuration, Vunetrix should be able to store monitoring data for 2,000 sensors for 365 days using 1 TB or less. Stored reports will increase this requirement. Vunetrix recommends a minimum 2 TB of available disk space for most typical monitoring situations. While these are minimum system requirements for installing Vunetrix Network Monitor, for larger implementations of Vunetrix, the goals of monitoring must be taken into account to properly design a monitoring system for peak efficiency and maximum performance. Many variables must be considered such as the number of devices being monitored, the technologies or protocols being used to monitor devices, the scanning interval and more. For further details, please see the Detail Systems Requirements section below.

2 Planning an Installation with Hundreds of Sensors or More? As a rule of thumb, an average PC/server built in the year 2009 or later should be able to monitor 1,000 sensors with ease. Some exceptions apply for version 3 of Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) and packet sniffer. The maximum number of sensors you can monitor with one installation of Vunetrix mainly depends on the monitoring technology and the monitoring intervals you use. In general, consider the following rules: SNMP V1 and V2, Ping, Port, and HTTP These sensor types are recommended for scenarios with thousands of sensors. With these technologies up to 20,000 sensors are possible. SNMP V3 You will be able to monitor about 5,000 SNMP V3 sensors with an interval of 60 seconds on a common two core computer, and about 10,000 sensors on a four core system (the main limiting factor is your CPU power). WMI Try to keep the number of WMI sensors per probe below 120 sensors (with 60s interval), or 600 sensors (with 300s interval). xflow (IPFIX, NetFlow, sflow, jflow) Monitoring the maximum number of sensors depends on the traffic pattern, the number of xflow packets per second received by the Vunetrix probe, as well as the performance of the probe system (see site planner tool linked in the More section below). Packet Sniffer These sensors create the highest CPU load on the probe system. This technology is only recommended for monitoring of low traffic connections (<50 Mbit/s steady stream). When traffic is often over 10 Mbit/s a dedicated remote probe should be used. VMware Monitoring Monitoring of VMware is limited to about 20 sensors at a 60 seconds monitoring interval, or 100 sensors at a 5 minutes interval. These limitations issue from the VMware platform. A registry alteration is available to boost this to 150 sensors at a 5 minutes interval (this will require a change in the ESX/vCenter configuration). For details please contact Vunetrix Technical Support. Other sensor types The impact of a specific sensor type on performance is indicated by a color range when adding a sensor to a device. It ranges from dark green (very low impact; 5,000 sensors per probe) to bold red (very high impact; 50 sensors per probe). To overcome any limitations mentioned above you should distribute the sensors over two remote probes or more. For detailed information please contact Vunetrix Technical Support or your Regional Sales Manager. We would be happy to assist in the detailed planning of large implementations. We recommend using a dedicated physical machine to run both the Vunetrix core server and Vunetrix remote probes. For more information please see the Detailed Systems Requirements section below.

3 Running Vunetrix on Virtual Machines Vunetrix core server as well as Vunetrix probe can be run on virtualized platforms. We recommend using a dedicated physical machine to run both the Vunetrix core service and Vunetrix remote probes. If you run Vunetrix on a virtual machine, we strongly recommend to stay below 2,000 sensors for performance reasons. Unfortunately, we cannot offer technical support regarding performance and stability problems for Vunetrix installations on virtual machines that run with more than 5,000 sensors. In this case, please migrate Vunetrix to one or more, preferably physical, machines. Note: When running Vunetrix on a virtual machine, do not use dynamic resource allocation, instead please make sure that dedicated resources are available to the virtual machine at all times. In our experience, dynamic resource allocation can cause stability and performance issues for monitoring services. The following Virtualization platforms have been tested for operation of both the Core Service and Remote Probe installation on Windows-based VMs: Virtualization Host Technology VMware ESX/ESXi version 3.5, 4.0, 5.0 VMware Server 2.0 Citrix XEN Server 5.0 Parallels Virtuozzo Containers Cloud Hosting Platforms (Amazon EC2, TheRackspaceCloud, and others) Client OS Windows Vista, Windows 7 (32/64 bit), Windows 8 (32/64 bit), Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows 7 (32/64 bit), Windows 8 (32/64 bit), Windows Server 2008 R2,

4 Detailed Systems Requirements The follow section details the recommended system attributes for the Vunetrix Core Service and Vunetrix Remote Probes to be installed upon for optimal monitoring conditions. While these are minimum system requirements for installing Vunetrix Network Monitor, many times, the goals of monitoring must be taken into account to properly design a monitoring system for peak efficiency and maximum performance. Many variables must be considered such as the number of devices being monitored, the technologies or protocols being used to monitor devices, the scanning interval and more. For detailed information please contact Vunetrix Technical Support or your Regional Sales Manager. We would be happy to assist in the detailed planning of large implementations. Core Service Dedicated server, workstation or virtual machine with the following characteristics: 2.6 GHz CPU, 3 MB L3 cache or better 4 GB of PC RAM (1333 MHz) or better 2 TB of available disk space for typical installations Supported Windows Operating System (See below for list of supported Operating Systems) Supported web browser (See below for list of supported web browsers) Remote Probe Service Dedicated server, workstation or virtual machine with the following characteristics: 2.0 GHz CPU, 3 MB L3 cache or better 2 GB of PC RAM (1333 MHz) or better 250 MB of available disk space for typical installations Supported Windows Operating System (See below for list of supported Operating Systems) Supported web browser (See below for list of supported web browsers) Supported Operating Systems: Microsoft Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Server 2012, Server 2012 R2, or Windows 2008 R2 (all 32-bit or 64-bit) are officially supported. Windows Server 2012 Core mode and the Minimal Server Interface are not supported for Vunetrix Network Monitor software installation. While the software will install on a Windows Vista or Server 2008 R1 machine, there are known performance issues related to these Operating Systems and are not recommended. Supported web browser to access the web interface are: Google Chrome 36 or later (recommended) Mozilla Firefox 29 or later Microsoft Internet Explorer* 10 or later Apple Safari* 5 or later * Internet Explores and Safari browsers both support basic AJAX page refresh requests however Vunetrix Technical Support has been made aware of some errors with some of the advanced code used within VNM that does not seem to work entirely with these browsers. We recommend using Chrome or Firefox when possible.

5 Requirements for Monitored Devices Many open protocols can be used to monitor IP-connected devices in a security network. The requirements for each differ. Some of the most popular protocols and the requirements to use them with monitored devices are: SNMP monitoring Monitored device(s) must be equipped with SNMP Version 1, 2c, or 3 (i.e., an SNMP-compatible software must be installed on the device). SNMP must be enabled on the device and the machine running Vunetrix must be granted access to the SNMP interface. Windows/WMI monitoring In order to use WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) monitoring, you will need a Windows network. For client PCs monitored with WMI, only the operating systems as given above are officially supported. Windows 2000 is not officially supported. Please do not use Windows Vista or Windows 2008 R1 for WMI monitoring (they both have WMI performance issues). Windows XP is not officially supported and might not work with sensors which use Remote Powershell. xflow (IPFIX, NetFlow, sflow) monitoring The device must be configured to send NetFlow data packets (NetFlow version 5 or 9; IPFIX is the successor protocol of NetFlow 9) or sflow packets (version 5) to the machine running the Vunetrix probe. Packet Sniffer monitoring Only data packets passing the local machine's network card can be analyzed. Switches with socalled 'monitoring ports' are necessary for network-wide monitoring in switched networks. Other sensor types Depending on the specific sensor type, you can find requirements (for example, modules, components, device configurations) which may have to be fulfilled in the corresponding manual section, as well as partly when adding the sensor to a device.