NCM scale question

Question

We are looking to consolidate our config backups into one solution, and NCM is one of the potential candidates. Right now we have it integrated with NPM and only have a few thousand routers/switches we are managing. We'd be looking at separating it from NPM and using it for only config backups for 20,000+ devices which would obviously require additional polling engines. I'd like to hear from:

A) Anyone who is actually running NCM at this scale and how it performs

and

B)  anyone who is running NCM stand-alone and doing performance monitoring on a separate platform and what your experience has been

HerrDoktor · Answer

Hi Guys,

we are Running a NCM only deployment for one of our Clients with 35.000 - 40.000 Nodes depending on how eager the engineers are deploying or decommissioning machines.

The System is running on 3 Polling Engines (I belive this limitation should be removed from the guidelines, but I never could get my client to install a 4th Polling engine just for trying to prove the limitation wrong).

We will implement an additional Webserver in the near future.

There are approximately 70 Admins using the system, we run nightly config backup jobs. about 35 Compliance Reports with a medium to small amount of rules per Report

System has been installed in 2012 and has been updated ever since without creating a "fresh-Database". 7.7 seems to run smooth. Update has been performed in mid January. There have been issues when the system was running wild causing CPU loads 95-99% for days, yet the admins were still able to work with the system. The CPU spikes were Config-Backup-Jobs getting stuck in the process and never finishing. Haven't had that issue with 7.7 (yet)

We utilize the API to update / create / delete nodes from the Database.

If you need more insights, feel free to reach out.

Cheers,

Holger aka HerrDoktor​

networkbro · Answer

Agreed. I don't see how the 10,000 limit still stands at all if you're doing NCM only. I couldn't seem to get any answer other than "10,000 per poller if you want support" from sales though. It's definitely something I need to explore further before making any purchases.

sja · Answer

Hi

I will dry test that setup before buying any software...

I don’t believe it  always necessary  to separate NPM from NCM or get extra APE.

The load NPM generates is different than NCM.

Solarwinds NCM support up to 10000 nodes per poller and max 30000 per system.

I quite sure if you don’t backup all those nodes every day you can manage with much less...

Try HerrDoktor​ quite sure he has a big NCM deployment