System requirements of a multi-node deployment
View the system requirements of Self-Hosted Standard Edition on a multi-node cluster.
Required number of hosts
For multi-node environments, you need three hosts with the same operating system.
Supported platforms and operating systems
Make sure you have a host on which you can run the Self-Hosted Standard Edition installer.
- The host can be a virtual machine or a dedicated physical machine.
- The host must be new with a freshly installed operating system. If you want to use a host that was previously used for something else, you must reinstall the operating system.
- Self-Hosted Standard Edition must not co-exist with a Self-Hosted Classic Edition (Docker).
Instana supports the following platforms and operating systems for the host:
| Platform | Operating system |
|---|---|
| Linux® x86_64 | Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® (RHEL) 9 and 8 |
| Ubuntu 24.04, 22.04, 20.04, and 18.04 | |
| Debian 12, 11, and 10 | |
| CentOS Stream 9 | |
| Amazon Linux 2023 | |
| Oracle Linux 9 | |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 15 SP5 | |
| Linux® arm64 | Supported on AWS Graviton . Deployment on
other operating systems on arm64 is not tested. |
Hardware requirements
In multi-node clusters, only the production installation type is supported.
The three nodes in a multi-node cluster have specific uses:
-
The first node (instana-0), which is labeled as
node-role.instana.io: "backend"during installation, is used for running backend workloads that require persistent volumes. The node also runs the gateway, acceptors, and the UI backend. -
The second node (instana-1), which is labeled as
node-role.instana.io: "datastore"during installation, is used for running data stores. -
The third node (instana-2), which is labeled as
node-role.instana.io: "other"during installation, is used for running the rest of Instana workloads.
CPU and memory requirements
Each node requires CPU and memory as specified in the following table.
| Installation type | Number of CPU cores | Memory (GB) |
|---|---|---|
production |
12 | 48 |
For each optional feature that you want to use, you need additional resources. The following table outlines the CPU and memory requirements of the optional features for the production installation type:
| Installation type | Number of CPU cores | Memory (GB) |
|---|---|---|
| Automation framework | 1.5 | 6 |
| Analyze logs | 3 | 12 |
| Business monitoring | 1.5 | 6 |
| End-user monitoring | 2 | 4.5 |
| Self monitoring | 1 | 2 |
| Synthetic monitoring | 2 | 8 |
Provision the additional resources, such as CPU and memory capacity on node0 (instana0) and node2 (instana-2). Do not provision the resources on node1 (instana-1) as node1 is primarily used for the data
stores. In addition, if you enable the logging feature, then you need more disk space to store the log data on node1 (instana-1).
Storage requirements
The storage requirement of each node is based on the use of the node.
The disk storage speed requirements measured as input/output operations per second (IOPS) of production installation type are shown in the following table:
| Installation type | Required | Preferred |
|---|---|---|
production |
6000 | 9000 |
The four data storage directories are required on the following nodes. You must add additional disks on these nodes.
- Objects directory on node0 (
instana-0). - Data, metrics, and analytics directories on node1 (
instana-1).
No additional disk is needed on node2 (instana-2).
The following table provides the storage volume requirements of each node:
| Description | Default directory | Min size (GB) | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Object directory | /mnt/instana/stanctl/objects | 1000 | Override path with --volume-objects |
| Root directory | / | 100 | |
| $HOME directory (air-gapped) | /root or the home directory of users | 60 | Override with $HOME environment variable. 40 for $HOME directory (air-gapped) and 20 GB for separate disk space. |
| $HOME directory (non-air-gapped) | /root or the home directory of users | 10 | Override with $HOME environment variable |
| Cluster data directory | /var/lib | 100 | Override with --cluster-data-dir |
| Description | Default directory | Min size (GB) | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Data directory | /mnt/instana/stanctl/data | 500 | Override path with --volume-data |
| Metrics directory | /mnt/instana/stanctl/metrics | 1000 | |
| Analytics directory | /mnt/instana/stanctl/analytics | 1200 | |
| Root directory | / | 100 | |
| $HOME directory (air-gapped) | /root or the home directory of users | 60 | Override with $HOME environment variable. 40 for $HOME directory (air-gapped) and 20 GB for separate disk space. |
| $HOME directory (non-air-gapped) | /root or the home directory of users | 10 | Override with $HOME environment |
| Cluster data directory | /var/lib | 100 | Override with --cluster-data-dir |
| Description | Default directory | Min size (GB) | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Root directory | / | 100 | |
| $HOME directory (air-gapped) | /root or the home directory of users | 60 | Override with $HOME environment variable. 40 for $HOME directory (air-gapped) and 20 GB for separate disk space. |
| $HOME directory (non-air-gapped) | /root or the home directory of users | 10 | Override with $HOME environment |
| Cluster data directory | /var/lib | 100 | Override with -—cluster-data-dir |
In an air-gapped environment, you need 20 GB more disk space in the directory where you create the air-gapped package, both on the bastion host and the Instana host. For more information about the package, see Creating the air-gapped installation package.
For about a month, you must monitor the storage volume that you initially assigned. You can then increase the capacity if necessary. Also, if you use more agents or enable more optional features, you must monitor the memory usage.
Default directories
Instana uses the following directories for data storage.
- Data directory: Used for Elasticsearch, PostgreSQL, and Kafka data stores. The default location is
/mnt/instana/stanctl/data. - Metrics directory: Used for Cassandra and BeeInstana data stores. The default location is
/mnt/instana/stanctl/metrics. - Analytics directory: Used for ClickHouse data store. The default location is
/mnt/instana/stanctl/analytics. - Objects directory: Used for raw spans, Synthetic monitoring, and End-user monitoring (EUM). The default location is
/mnt/instana/stanctl/objects. - Cluster data directory: Used for cluster data. The default location is
/var. $HOMEdirectory: Home directory of the current root or non-root user.
Due to the high data throughput of various Instana features and to avoid performance issues, use fast, dedicated storage such as solid-state drives (SSDs). Use separate disks for each of the data, metrics, analytics, and objects directories.
If you are using separate disks, you must mount the following directories onto the disks:
- Cluster data directory: You can specify a custom directory if you don’t have enough disk space in
/var. For example,/xyz/data. Make sure to specify this directory by using the--cluster-data-dirduring installation. $HOMEdirectory:$HOMErefers to the home directory of the current user. For example, if the user is a root user,$HOMEwould be/root; for a non-root user,$HOMEwould be/home/<username>.
Networking requirements
Make sure that you meet the following ports and IP addresses requirements. For more information about opening these ports, see Firewall rules.
Make sure that you have a high-speed, low-latency, and stable connection on the backend server to pull the necessary packages.
Required ports
The following ports on all nodes must be open and accessible.
| Port number | Direction | Protocol | Source | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22 | Inbound | TCP | External | Port required for Secure Shell (SSH) connection (required only if you want to log in SSH) |
| 22 | Inbound | TCP | Internal | SSH port required for access between backend nodes |
| 80 | Inbound | TCP | External | HTTP protocol for Instana console UI |
| 443 | Inbound | TCP | External | HTTPS protocol for Instana console UI, Instana console API, Instana EUM, OpenTelemetry, and Instana agent acceptor port |
| 443 | Outbound | TCP | External | Required only in online environments. For more information, see Outbound network access requirements for self-hosted Instana deployments. |
| 53 | Inbound | TCP/UDP | Internal (all nodes) | DNS port required for resolving domain names |
| 6443 | Inbound | TCP | Internal (all nodes) | Internal service port |
| 8443 | Inbound | TCP | External | Instana agent acceptor port. This port is optional. |
| 10250 | Inbound | TCP | Internal (all nodes) | Internal service port |
| 2379 | Inbound | TCP | Internal (all nodes) | Internal service port |
| 2380 | Inbound | TCP | Internal (all nodes) | Internal service port |
| 5001 | Inbound | TCP | Internal (all nodes) | Internal service port |
| 8472 | Inbound | UDP | Internal (all nodes) | Internal service port |
| 9443 | Inbound | TCP | Internal (all nodes) | Internal service port |
| all | Inbound | TCP/UDP | 10.42.0.0/16 and 10.43.0.0/16 |
Subnets of the self-hosted Instana components |
| all | Inbound | TCP/UDP | Loopback | Open the ports to allow a VM to send and receive its own data packets. |
See the following notes:
- External source means that the port must be accessible from outside of the Instana self-hosted enterprise (private) network.
- Internal source means that the port on one node must be accessible by the other two nodes of the multi-node cluster.
- IP addresses
10.42.0.0/16and10.43.0.0/16must be able to access all ports (1 - 65535) internally. - The firewall must trust all traffic from the loopback address.
- Port 443 outbound is needed for accessing certain repositories. For more information, see Outbound network access requirements.
IP addresses
The three nodes of your multi-node cluster must meet the following IP address requirements:
- All the three nodes need a private IP address on the same private VLAN to be able to communicate with each other.
- node0 (
instana-0) must also have a IP address for external communication. The IP address is also used to reach the hosts from outside the cluster.
What's next
Proceed with preparing your environment.