What are the hardware recommendations for the NTA SQL Flow Storage database?

10/9/2018 8:32 PM

2/10/2025 7:29 PM

This article provides hardware recommendations for the NTA SQL Flow Storage database based on the parameters and profile.

For deployment planning, see NTA system requirements.

For information on sizing, see the Orion Multi-module System Guidelines.

For an example configuration, see User scenario: Recommended SQL server disk configuration .

Netflow Traffic Analyzer

You can review the NTA profile of your environment here:

1. Click Settings > All Settings.
2. Click NTA Settings
3. Scroll to "Database Settings"

Review the following table to identify which profile best matches your environment.

PARAMETER	PROFILE 1	PROFILE 2
Flows per second per poller	10k	25k
Flows per second per system	10k	50k
Endpoints count	10k	10M
Flow sources count	6	100
Nodes	3	20
Interfaces per Node	2	5
Retention period length	30 days	30 days
Amount of data in the Flow Storage database	Full Retention	Full Retention
Top Talker optimization	95%	95%
Poller count	1	2
IP group segments	3	20
NPM/Core load and utilization	0	0
SQL server instances	1	1

Profile 1 

If the parameters in your environment match the Profile 1 parameters, review the following hardware recommendations:

• SQL server specifications:
  • 32 GB RAM
  • 6 core CPU 2.5 GHz
  • HDD Seagate ST600MM0006 (600 GB SAS 6 Gb/s 10k RPM) in RAID 0
• Summary loaded in 7 seconds:
  • Resource utilization in SQL server for the summary load:
    • CPU: 10-50%
    • RAM: 4 GB

Profile 2 

If the parameters in your environment match the Profile 2 parameters, review the following hardware recommendations:

• SQL server specifications:
  • 64 GB RAM
  • 12 core CPU 2.5 GHz
  • HDD Seagate ST600MM0006 (600 GB SAS 6 Gb/s 10k RPM) in RAID 0
• Summary loaded in 1 minute 35 seconds:
  • Resource utilization in SQL server for the summary load:
    • CPU: 10-30%
    • RAM: 7 GB