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Orion System Sizing guidelines

What is a Network Element?

A Network Element is any unique node, router, hub, switch, port, interface, or virtual interface that is IP addressable.  If you have a router with 6 interfaces and want to monitor the traffic on each interface as well as poll the loopback address  on the router you would configure the Orion Network Performance Monitor to monitor a total of 7 elements.

SolarWinds Orion NPM is capable of monitoring networks of any size — from small corporate LANs to large enterprise and service-provider networks. Most SolarWinds Orion NPM systems will perform well on Pentium-class 1GHz systems with 512MB of RAM running Windows 2000 and using the default polling engine settings. However, when monitoring large networks, you should give additional consideration to the hardware used and the configuration of the system.

There are three primary variables that affect scalability. The most important item to keep in mind is the number of elements that you’ll be managing. Systems monitoring more than 2,500 elements may need to be tuned to offer optimal performance. The second item to consider is polling frequency. For instance, if you are collecting statistics every five minutes instead of the default nine, the system will have to work harder and system requirements will increase. Finally, the number of simultaneous web users accessing the system will have a direct impact on the performance of the system.

For the purposes of this document, we will assume that you are using the default settings for status polling and statistics collection and that you have a moderate number of web users.

When planning your SolarWinds Orion installation, there are four main factors to keep in mind with respect to scalability. These four items are CPU, memory, number of polling engines, and polling engine settings. The following table displays SolarWinds’ recommendations for minimum configuration of CPU, memory, and numbers of polling engines. Polling engine settings are discussed in the next section, Polling Engine Tuning.

This matrix assumes default statistics collection intervals of nine minutes. Decreasing the polling interval will increase the system requirements.

1. An element is defined as the smallest managed component of a device for which statistics are stored. Examples of an element would be a serial interface on a router or a VLAN on a switch. For the purposes of counting elements, Orion NPM keeps track of the number of nodes, the number of interfaces, and the number of volumes you have selected for monitoring.

2. SQL Server Desktop Edition (included with Orion NPM distribution) is adequate, but you may use the Standard or Enterprise version.

3. SQL Server Standard or Enterprise Edition

4. If you have configured Orion for frequent polling and/or roll data up into statistics on a long schedule, or due to other performance reasons, you may need SE.

5. Increasing the number of polling engines will decrease the system requirements. The inverse is true as well. Additional Polling Engines are sold separately.

6. SQL may be installed on the same (local) machine as Orion if performance requirements are modest.

7. Remote SQL Server. For systems monitoring more than 8,000 elements, it is recommended that SQL Server be installed on a separate server.


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