SevOne Hardware & Resource Requirements and Instance Types Guide

About

This document describes the hardware requirements / instance / virtual machine types.

Important:

While there are no hardware vendor or model restrictions, IBM SevOne strongly recommends choosing the hardware certified in RedHat Ecosystem Catalog where,

Type = System
Architecture = x86_64
Certified for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8

For physical and virtual deployments, CPU must be compatible with x86-64-v2 instruction set for certain pods to start. To verify if you have the correct version for instruction set, run the following command.


/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 --help

If the output contains x86-64-v2 (supported, searched), you have the required version.

Note:

cFPS = Cloud Flows per Second
FPS = Flows per Second
GB = Gigabyte
GiB = Gibibyte
IPS = Indicators per Second

Hardware Requirements for Physical Appliances

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Important: In a cluster that contains mixed sized appliances, the largest hardware capacity appliance should be the Cluster Leader. There is RAM overhead exerted on the Cluster Leader based on its additional responsibilities. Due to this, SevOne strongly advises you to implement this recommendation.

Note: The average disk Input / Output Operations Per Second (IOPS) requirement for all appliance types is 19,000KBs.

The minimum NIC speed is 1Gbps or higher.

RAID controller requires legacy boot (non-UEFI) with 512 byte block size in RAID6 (recommended).

Important: SevOne Network Management System (NMS) version 6.8.0 and onwards offers users the flexibility to utilize their own hardware for physical installations. It is crucial to ensure that the hardware specifications align with the minimum requirements outlined in the table below, corresponding to the specific appliance model being deployed. Please note, it is perfectly acceptable for your hardware to surpass these specified requirements. However, it is essential that the hardware is fully compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8 for optimal performance and functionality. This approach not only allows for customization based on individual needs but also ensures a seamless integration with the SevOne NMS.

Note: Cloud Flow Support

Cloud Flow is supported on all appliance types, each with a defined maximum Cloud Flows Per Second (cFPS) capacity. For deployments requiring higher throughput, using a Dedicated Netflow Collector (DNC) for Cloud Flow processing is recommended.

Ingestion and collection of traditional flows, Cloud Flows, and metrics on a single appliance is supported. However, when these workloads are combined at maximum load, you may experience slower reports.

Table 1. Hardware Requirements for Physical Appliances
Appliance	CPU Type	CPU Count	Total Cores	RAM (GB)	Disk Type	Max Objects	Max Indicator Limit (IPS)	Max Flow Limit (FPS)	Interface Limit	Polling Threads	Cloud Flow Limit (cFPS)
PAS5K	8 Core @ 2.10Ghz	2	16	32	5x 480GB SSD 2.5"	5,000	333	4,500	15	60	— (*)
PAS10K	8 Core @ 2.10Ghz	2	16	32	5x 480GB SSD 2.5"	10,000	666	10,000	30	60	30,000
PAS20K	8 Core @ 2.10Ghz	2	16	32	5x 480GB SSD 2.5"	20,000	1,333	20,000	60	60	30,000
PAS40K	10 Core @2.20Ghz	2	20	96	5x 960GB SSD 2.5"	40,000	2,664	40,000	120	60	30,000
PAS60K	10 Core @2.20Ghz	2	20	96	5x 960GB SSD 2.5"	60,000	4,000	60,000	180	60	30,000
PAS300K	12 Core @2.6Ghz	2	24	288	8x 1.92TB SSD 2.5"	300,000	20,000	80,000	1,000	300	30,000
DNC400	10 Core @2.20Ghz	2	20	96	5x 960GB SSD 2.5"	—	—	80,000	400	—	30,000
DNC1000	12 Core @ 2.30Ghz	2	24	96	8x 480GB SSD 2.5"	—	—	80,000	1,000	—	30,000
DNC1500HF	12 Core @ 2.30Ghz	2	24	128	6x 1.92TB SSD 2.5"	—	—	160,000	1,500	—	30,000

(*) denotes that PAS5k supports Cloud Flow but only at low cFPS on the appliance.

Hardware Requirements for Virtual Appliances

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Important: Recommendation

In a cluster that contains mixed sized appliances, the largest hardware capacity appliance should be the Cluster Leader. There is RAM overhead exerted on the Cluster Leader based on its additional responsibilities. Due to this, SevOne strongly advises you to implement this recommendation.

Note: The average Input / Output Operations Per Second (IOPS) is 19,000KBs.

Note: Cloud Flow Support

Cloud Flow is supported on all appliance types, each with a defined maximum Cloud Flows Per Second (cFPS) capacity. For deployments requiring higher throughput, using a Dedicated Netflow Collector (DNC) for Cloud Flow processing is recommended.

Ingestion and collection of traditional flows, Cloud Flows, and metrics on a single appliance is supported. However, when these workloads are combined at maximum load, you may experience slower reports.

Table 2. Hardware Requirements for Virtual Appliances
Appliance	vCPU Cores	RAM (GB)	/ Disk (GB)	/data(secondary) Disk (GB)	Max Objects	Max Indicator Limit (IPS)	Max Flow Limit (FPS)	Interface Limit	Polling Threads	Cloud Flow Limit (cFPS)
vPAS5K	2	8	150	n/a	5,000	333	4,500	15	60	— (*)
vPAS20K	8	24	150	450	20,000	1,333	20,000	60	60	30,000
vPAS60K	8	44	150	1,300	60,000	4,000	60,000	180	60	30,000
vPAS100K	8	96 Higher demands (for example, xStats) may require more memory.	150	2,350	100,000	6,666	80,000	300	60	30,000
vPAS200K	16	192	150	4,450	200,000	13,333	80,000	600	300	30,000
vDNC100	8	16	150	400	—	—	30,000	100	—	30,000
vDNC300	16	48	150	800	—	—	80,000	300	—	30,000
vDNC1000	24	96	150	1,500	—	—	80,000	1,000	—	30,000
vDNC1500	24	128	150	3,000	—	—	80,000	1,500	—	30,000

(*) denotes that PAS5k supports Cloud Flow but only at low cFPS on the appliance.

Note: Modern SANs - Thin-provisioning recommended

Used hard drive space vs. provisioned capacity - virtual machines are thin-provisioned and used space is based on polling the maximum number of licensed objects for 1 year at 5 minute intervals.

Any SAN with SSDs and supporting thin-provisioned LUNs is considered modern.

SevOne PAS Scalability

Important: To properly size your SevOne PAS, the key aspects of SevOne PAS capacity are,

Devices
Objects
Indicators
Poll Frequency

Let's assume you want to monitor...

a device, San Jose Router, with 2 objects. Object Ethernet Port with indicators In Octets and Out Octets and Object Power Supply with indicator Voltage.
Note: A device can have one or more objects. And, each object can have one or more indicators.

Formula to calculate maximum Indicators per Second (IPS),

IPS = (#Objects * #Indicators per Object) / (Poll Frequency in seconds)

Example: Maximum Indicators per Second for vPAS60k,

where,
- Objects = 60,000
- Indicators = 20
- Poll Frequency = 300 seconds
IPS = (60,000 * 20) / 300 = 4,000

Example: Maximum Indicators per Second for vPAS200k,

where,
- Objects = 200,000
- Indicators = 20
- Poll Frequency = 300 seconds
IPS = (200,000 * 20) / 300 = 13,333

Important: To change the poll frequency for an existing device, please refer to Edit Device. For a new device, please refer to New Device to change the default poll frequency.

Hardware Requirements for IBM Cloud

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Table 3. Hardware Requirements for IBM Cloud
Appliance	Profile	Boot Volume (GB)	/ Data Disk (GB)
PAS5K	bx3d-2x10	150	600
PAS20K	bx3d-4x20	150	600
PAS60K	bx3d-8x40	150	1250
PAS100K	bx3d-8x40	150	2000
PAS200K	bx3d-32x160	150	4000
DNC100	bx3d-8x40	150	400
DNC300	bx3d-16x80	150	800
DNC1000	bx3d-32x160	150	1500
DNC1500	bx3d-32x160	150	3000

AWS Instance / Virtual Machine Types for SevOne Appliances

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Attention: To migrate from AWS instance type r4.<x> to r6i.<x>, you must first perform the steps below.

SSH to your virtual machine, i.e., AWS instance, as root.
Enter the NMS container.
```
nms
 
```

Prepare your AWS instance for r6i instance type change and shutdown.


echo 'add_drivers+=" nvme "' > /etc/dracut.conf.d/nvme.conf && dracut -f -v && SevOne-shutdown shutdown

Note: Amazon EC2 supports hypervisors Xen and Nitro. For the list of instances supported by these hypervisors, please refer to https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/instance-types.html#instance-hypervisor-type.
- If migrating the AWS instance type from Xen-based instance to Nitro-based instance, for example from r4 to r6i, follow the instructions below.
  - Login to your AWS server.
  - In https://repost.aws/knowledge-center/boot-error-linux-nitro-instance, execute nitro_check_script.sh script. The script will modify the /etc/fstab entries and will indicate whether Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) driver is enabled or not.
    If ENA driver is enabled and the script returns all OK, perform the instance upgrade steps as described in https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/ec2-instance-resize.html
    Note: If ENA driver is not enabled, stop the AWS server. Once the instance has stopped, log in to any other server which is in the same Availability Zone and execute the step below.
```
aws ec2 modify-instance-attribute --instance-id <enter your instance-id> --ena-support  --region <enter your region>
 
```
    Once the step has completed successfully, you are now ready to change the instance type. For details, please refer to https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/ec2-instance-resize.html for details.
- If migrating the AWS instance type within the same hypervisor type, i.e. from one Xen-based instance to another Xen-based instance or, from one Nitro-based instance to another Nitro-based instance, follow the steps as described in https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/ec2-instance-resize.html.
Start the AWS instance as described in https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/Stop_Start.html.
Run the following command to ensure that there are no errors and you may ignore any references to uuids-check. You must be in the NMS container to execute the following command.
```
SevOne-act check checkout
 
```

Note: Please refer to Amazon EC2 Instance Types - AWS for details on AWS Instance Types in the table below.

Appliance	License Count	AWS Instance Type	Data Disk (GIB)
vPAS5K	up to 5k objects	r6i.large	n/a
vPAS10K	up to 10k objects	r6i.xlarge	n/a
vPAS20K	up to 20k objects	r6i.xlarge	n/a
vPAS60K	up to 60k objects	r6i.2xlarge	1,250
vPAS100K	up to 100k objects	r6i.2xlarge r6i.4xlarge (recommended)	2,000
vPAS200K	up to 200k objects	r6i.8xlarge	4,000
vDNC100	up to 100 interfaces	r6i.2xlarge	n/a
vDNC300	up to 300 interfaces	r6i.4xlarge	800
vDNC1000	up to 1000 interfaces	r6i.8xlarge	1,500
vDNC1500	up to 1500 interfaces	r6i.8xlarge	3,000

Note: The average Input / Output Operations Per Second (IOPS) is 19,000KBs.

Azure Instance / Virtual Machine Types for SevOne Appliances

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Note: Please refer to Azure Instance Types - D-family v5 series for details on Azure Instance Types in the table below.

Appliance	License Count	VM Size	vCPU	Memory (GB)	OS Disk (GiB)	Data Disk (GiB)
vPAS5K	up to 5k objects	Standard_D4s_v5	4	16	600	n/a
vPAS10K	up to 10k objects	Standard_D8s_v5	8	32	600	n/a
vPAS20K	up to 20k objects	Standard_D8s_v5	8	32	600	n/a
vPAS60K	up to 60k objects	Standard_D16s_v5	16	64	600	1,250
vPAS100K	up to 100k objects	Standard_D32s_v5	32	128	600	2,000
vPAS200K	up to 200k objects	Standard_D48s_v5	48	192	600	4,000
vDNC100	up to 100 interfaces	Standard_D4s_v5	4	16	600	400
vDNC300	up to 300 interfaces	Standard_D8s_v5	8	32	600	800
vDNC1000	up to 1000 interfaces	Standard_D16s_v5	16	64	600	1,500
vDNC1500	up to 1500 interfaces	Standard_D16s_v5	16	64	600	3,000
Data Insight / Solutions	n/a	Standard_D8s_v5	8	32	600	n/a

Note: The average Input / Output Operations Per Second (IOPS) is 19,000KBs.

Important: It is very important that you follow the information in the table above. Any deviation will cause undesired results and lack of support.

GCP Instance / Virtual Machine Types for SevOne Appliances

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Note: Please refer to GCP Instance Types - N2 high memory machines types for details on GCP Instance Types in the table below.

Appliance	License Count	Google Cloud Instance Type	vCPU	Memory (GB)	Data Disk (GIB)
vPAS5K	up to 5k objects	n2-highmem-2	2	16	n/a
vPAS10K	up to 10k objects	n2-highmem-4	4	32	n/a
vPAS20K	up to 20k objects	n2-highmem-4	4	32	n/a
vPAS60K	up to 60k objects	n2-highmem-8	8	64	1,250
vPAS100K	up to 100k objects	n2-highmem-16	16	128	2,000
vPAS200K	up to 200k objects	n2-highmem-32	32	256	4,000
vDNC100	up to 100 interfaces	n2-highmem-8	8	64	n/a
vDNC300	up to 300 interfaces	n2-highmem-16	16	128	800
vDNC1000	up to 1000 interfaces	n2-highmem-32	32	256	1,500
vDNC1500	up to 1500 interfaces	n2-highmem-32	32	256	3,000
Data Insight / Solutions	n/a	n2-highmem-8	8	64	n/a

Note: The average Input / Output Operations Per Second (IOPS) is 19,000KBs.

Important: It is very important that you follow the information in the table above. Any deviation will cause undesired results and lack of support.