Network Management

Netflow database maintenance

This article provides information on Netflow database maintenance.

First published date

10/20/2018 9:36 PM

Last published date

2/20/2025 11:55 PM

Overview

NTA Database maintenance is the tool used for maintaining the NTA Flow Data.

Product section

Netflow Traffic Analyzer

Resolution

Reasons for running this wizard:

  • Database Performance is slow.
  • Database File Group has unused space that needs to be reclaimed.
  • Stale resource data (IP Addresses that do not appear in current flows) needs to be removed from the Database.


Precautions:

  • Create a current SQL backup before running this wizard.
  • Stop Orion services on all polling engines.

 

  1. Log into the Orion Primary Server.
  2. Open the Orion NTA program folder (by default, C:\Program Files\SolarWinds\Orion).
  3. Launch NetflowDatabaseMaintenance.exe.


Explanation of NetFlow Database Maintenance options:

  • Shrink Database logs and Files (default: quick)

Each file within a database can be reduced to remove unused pages. Although the Database Engine will reuse space effectively, there are times when a file no longer needs to be as large as it once was; shrinking the file may then become necessary.

  • Delete expired flow data (default: 1000 IPs at a time, 15 min to process)

This option will remove any flow data for IPs not listed in current flows (30 days). The "note:" listed under this option will report how many expired IPs are currently present in the Database.
 

After completing the Database Maintenance Wizard a log file will be generated in the following directory named: C:\ProgramData\SolarWinds\Logs\NTA\NTADatabaseMaintenance_BusinessLayer

This file will list all actions committed by the wizard.