VM Sizing

Question

I currently have 2 VMs running my Orion installation. The website and pollers are on 1 VM and the SQL Database on the other. I currently have Orion NPM 9.5 SP2 SL2000 and NTA 3.5 with latest service pack and it is also an SL2000 license. I am looking at getting IPAM, and NCM SL500. the Question is what are the total system requirements for NCM 9.5 SP2 SL2000, NTA 3.5 SP4 SL2000, NCM SL500, and IPAM on one VM? Second Question, When did SW take away the ability to create a separate DB for NTA? I would like to have separate DBs for NPM, NTA, IPAM, and NCM if possible. Will 2 VMs be enouge to run that or should I create a 3rd VM and spit it as follows:

VM1: NPM, NTA and pollers

VM2: SQL DBs

VM3: Website, IPAM and NCM

Any suggestions and total system recommendations would be very helpful.

Yann · Answer

Hi,

Let's say you have a huge amount of Netflow packets to process from your devices and you find out the disks are the bottleneck, a solution would be to provide in the most efficient scenario one disk array in RAID1+0 for each database filegroup (.mdf, 4x.ndf, .ldf). Most of the time mdf+ndf files are on a drive and ldf on another.

To move database from one location to another, you have multiple ways to do it.

1- Backup/Restore. 2- Detach/Attach. 3- Copy Database wizard.

The quickest one is to detach the database, move the files manually on the new disk arrays and when you re-attach it you will have the option to specify where are located the files.

HTH,

Yann

freemen · Answer

Yann,

You said:

"Since NTA v3.1, developers created distinct SQL Server filegroups for the NTA tables which allow you to put these tables on different disk arrays to improve performances. It allows you to set up a different backup scenario for the NTA tables instead of having the same for NPM and NTA."

Can you provide a little more details on this please? How do you place the NTA filegroups on separate arrays?

Yann · Answer

Hi,

Second Question, When did SW take away the ability to create a separate DB for NTA?

From what I remember, the NTA tables have always been part of the NPM database.

Since NTA v3.1, developers created distinct SQL Server filegroups for the NTA tables which allow you to put these tables on different disk arrays to improve performances. It allows you to set up a different backup scenario for the NTA tables instead of having the same for NPM and NTA.

I would like to have separate DBs for NPM, NTA, IPAM, and NCM if possible

If the NTA filegroups do not provide you enough flexibility, you could setup a smaller instance of Orion NPM + NTA (e.g. SL100 or SL250) which will have its own database.

Concerning IPAM, its tables are in the same main filegroup of NPM. I do not see any efficient way of having a separate DB for it as it would require like NTA a new Orion NPM instance.

NCM has always had its own DB as historically, it was and is still a stand alone product which is getting more and more integrated with NPM since NCM v5.0.

Will 2 VMs be enough to run that or should I create a 3rd VM and split it as follows:

VM1: NPM, NTA and pollers

VM2: SQL DBs

VM3: Website, IPAM and NCM

I can't tell you if that will be enough or not but can share few hints.

IPAM must be installed on the NPM server/vm.

When the additional web server is installed on the same server as the DB, it provides better performances.

From what I have heard and read, SQL Server will provide better performances on a physical server, if this is not possible, the guest VM can probably be setup following the software vendor recommandations (VMware, XEN, VirtualBox, Microsoft) to improve the performances.

HTH,

Yann