HP Network Node Manager iSPI Performance for Metrics Software
Support Matrix

for the Windows^® and Linux^® operating systems

Software Version: 10.00/ July 2014

Publication Date: March 2016

For the latest additions to the system requirements and support matrix, see http://support.openview.hp.com/selfsolve/document/KM00940851/binary/nnm_ispi_Metrics_SupportMatrix_10.00.html.

Introduction
Installation Guide
Hardware and Software Requirements
    Same Server Install
    Dedicated Server Install
    Virtualization
    Hardware
    Networking Configuration
    Disk and Storage Considerations
    Operating Systems
        NNMi and NPS OS Combinations
    Web Browsers
Integration and Coexistence With Other Products
Legal Notices

Introduction

This document describes system requirements for the HP Network Node Manager iSPI Performance for Metrics (iSPI Performance for Metrics) version 10.00 and Network Performance Server (NPS) version 10.00.

NPS stores, aggregates, and provides reports and analytics for collected performance data. It is the foundation for performance reports and dashboards on NNMi. Other iSPIs rely on NPS for data storage and report presentation functionality. The NNMi iSPI Performance for Metrics adds the performance management capability to NNMi by analyzing, processing, and aggregating a range of standard metrics collected by NNMi from different network elements.

This document provides information about supported deployment configurations that is not found in the Release Notes, the Installation Guide or the Deployment Guide. When you are ready to install the product, refer to the Installation Guide. The Installation Guide is provided on the installation media and online. The Deployment Reference is revised regularly and can only found online. Download the latest version from here: http://support.openview.hp.com/selfsolve/document/KM00940852/binary/nnm_ispi_Metrics_Deployment_10.00.pdf

To obtain an electronic copy of the most current version of any product documentation, go to http://h20230.www2.hp.com/selfsolve/manuals.

Installation Guide

Installation requirements, as well as instructions for installing, are documented in an interactive version of the Installation Guide. The Installation Guide is included on the product installation media as interactive_installation_guide_en.htm.

Hardware and Software Requirements

You can install NPS on a dedicated system, separate from NNMi, or you can install it on the same system as NNMi. In addition, you can now split apart the roles within NPS and install them on independent hardware - allowing for better scalability and more predictable performance for your reporting solution. Before installing NPS and your iSPIs, make sure that your system meets the minimum requirements. Be aware of the following:

If you are upgrading from a version 9.10 or 9.20 installation of iSPI Performance for Metrics, check the hardware tables below for the latest requirements as these change from release to release. See the Installation Guide and Deployment Reference for instructions and available upgrade paths.
The data directory (NPSDataDir) will contain the bulk of the collected and aggregated data and should be on the fastest and largest disk partition. On Linux, this will be /var/opt/OV. The Deployment Reference offers database sizing and tuning advice regarding file placement of the database files.
By default, NPS stores daily aggregated data for 800 days, hourly aggregated data for 70 days, and very fine grain, as collected, data for 14 days. The retention periods for hourly and fine grain data can be increased to a maximum of 400 days. Most of the required disk space for the iSPI is consumed by this fine grain data storage. To change retention periods from the default, use the Configuration utility (runConfigurationGUI.ovpl). You can modify the settings for each of the storage areas independently, but fine grain data cannot be stored for longer than hourly data, which in turn cannot be stored for longer than daily data. Care should be taken to monitor the disk space usage on the NPS database system after a change to these parameters. The tables below quote disk space requirements for an out-of-the-box system, as well as for two further settings of retention.
In version 10.00, NPS supports a distributed architecture. The distributed deployment of NPS enables you to distribute the computing load across multiple systems and designate each system to perform a specific operation determined by the role assigned to the system. The three roles within NPS are:

A single hardware system can support any combination of roles, or each role can be split onto separate hardware platforms.

There can be only one UiBi Server and only one Database Server. However, the ETL Server role can be split across multiple individual servers - each supporting one or more Extension Pack.

The decision to split NPS roles across multiple systems should ideally be made in advance of installation. Guidance on when it might be necessary and the options involved are provided in the Deployment Reference.

NPS 10.00 does not support the Application Failover feature. However, you can use NPS with an NNMi management server that has been configured for Application Failover. If the NNMi management server is configured for Application Failover, you must install NPS on a dedicated server (and not on the NNMi management server).

Hardware Sizing Assumptions

Each user environment is unique, as is the use of performance reporting at that environment. Some installations will have many operational users who frequently use the Performance Graphing feature and dashboards. Others will rarely use this functionality, but will have very high scheduled reporting loads. Some have high frequency collections against a small number of nodes, others have a wide range of custom collections running against a large number of nodes. In defining hardware levels, HP is providing a guideline only, with many assumptions in place.

Discovered vs. Performance Polled
NNMi has the ability to discover topology elements such as nodes and interfaces, but not all discovered elements will have performance data collected and stored for reporting. The figures quoted below relate only to performance-polled elements.

Polling Frequency

The figures in the tables below quote hardware requirements for an NPS running with a 5-minute polling frequency.
The number of polled interfaces and components is stated for each scale. Example: 130k/130k means 130,000 interfaces and 130,000 component sensors simultaneously.

Higher polling frequencies will result in more data being stored. So 400K interfaces at 5 minutes results in the same number of collected data points as 80K interfaces at 1-minute polling frequency.

Factors Affecting Performance

These hardware recommendations are based on the use of the iSPI Performance for Metrics package. They do not take account of additional factors that may affect the sizing of your application, such as the installation of other iSPI products.
Adding other iSPIs to your platform, such as NNM iSPI Performance for Quality Assurance, NNM iSPI for IP Telephony, or NNM iSPI for MPLS, will result in additional storage and processing requirements for NPS. Be sure to carefully examine the Support Matrix documents of each iSPI product to take account of additional NPS requirements from those installations.
Custom, user-defined collections will also result in additional storage and processing requirements for NPS. It is assumed that most customers will configure a small number of custom collections with report generation enabled. The load from these collections is typically too small to consider when sizing hardware for a full NNMi iSPI Performance installation. However, if the total number of managed elements being collected from is greater than approximately 10% of the total interface count managed by the system then the load should be considered when sizing the system. As a rule, consider that one custom collection running at a 5 minute interval which retrieves 10 OIDs is equivalent to one interface in the Interface Health package, or one Sensor in the Component Health package.

Post Installation and Maintenance

HP recommends that administrators monitor the disk usage, memory consumption and processing performance of the system on a daily basis after installation or when introducing a new custom collection or iSPI.
The installer should consult the NNM iSPI Performance for Metrics Deployment Reference for pre-install and post install tuning tips.

Storage Capacity

The size of the disk required to store collected data will vary dramatically depending upon the required retention periods for each type of data.
NPS records collected data in three granularities:

As polled
1 Hour grain
1 Day grain

The tables below provide data for three different levels of retention:

14 days of as polled, 70 days of hourly grain, 800 days of daily grain (R14/H70/D800)
70 days of as polled, 70 days of hourly grain, 800 days of daily grain (R70/H70/D800)
70 days of as polled, 400 days of hourly grain, 800 days of daily grain (R70/H400/D800)

While overall disk size guidance is provided in this document, specifics regarding disk speeds and file layouts are covered in the Deployment Reference. Critical to the performance of the NPS server is the need for fast IO in support of the database loading and queries.

Same Server Install (NNMi and NPS on the Same System)

The following table outlines the requirements for CPU, RAM and disk space when NNMi and NPS (all roles) are on the same system. The CPU, RAM, and Disk figures represent the total requirements for the system and include the combined capacity required for NNMi and NPS. You must make sure that this host also meets any additional criteria defined in the NNMi support matrix.

Be aware of the following:

When NPS is installed on a system that hosts NNMi, half of the system RAM will be consumed by NPS. The figures below for RAM resources take account of the combined needs of NNMi and NPS, and are especially important when running NPS with several iSPIs providing data.
These figures do not take account of additional requirements as a result of other iSPI products or custom, user-defined, collections.
Although it is a supported option to have NNMi and NPS on the same system for "Large" scale environments, HP recommends that NPS be installed on a separate, standalone system.
HP does not support NPS installed on the same server as NNMi for "Very Large" scale environments.

Management Environment Size					NNMi + iSPI Minimum System Requirements
Tier	Number of Interfaces/Components	Number of Concurrent Users	Number of CPUs (cores)^a	RAM		Disk space in NNMInstallDir	Disk hardware for NNMDataDir	Additional disk space Retention = R14/H70/D800	Additional disk space Retention = R70/H70/D800	Additional disk space Retention = R70/H400/D800
Entry	Up to 2500/2500	5	8 CPU	16 GB		15 GB	1 SCSI or SATA disk drive	200 GB	300 GB	300 GB
Small	Up to 10K/10K	10	8 CPU	24 GB		15 GB	1 SCSI or SATA disk drive	300 GB	400 GB	1 TB
Medium	Up to 50K/50K	25	12 CPU	48 GB		15 GB	RAID 1+0 or 5/6 with write cache recommended	800 GB	1.5 TB	4 TB
Large	Up to 130K/130K	40	24 CPU	96 GB		15 GB	High performance SAN storage	2 TB	3 TB	10 TB
Very Large	Same server install not supported for this scale	--	--	--		--	--	--

^aRecommended clock speed for each CPU: 2.5 GHz.

For optimal performance, follow the instructions to configure tuning parameters provided in the NNM iSPI Performance for Metrics Deployment Reference.

Dedicated Server Install

If you plan on installing NPS on a separate machine from NNMi, make sure that the following criteria are met. Note that NPS sizing requirements are driven by the amount of data generated by the custom collections and iSPIs that will supply it. The references provided in this document for sizing and scalability are a guideline only and are based on the iSPI Performance for Metrics using the number of interfaces and node components that NNMi is polling for performance data. The total number of interfaces or components discovered by NNMi is not relevant for this system.

These figures do not take account of additional requirements as a result of other iSPI products or custom, user-defined, collections
Once NPS is installed, you can use the Managed Inventory report to see the variety of collected elements for each iSPI. For example, looking at the count of distinct Qualified Interface Names in the Interface Health Managed Inventory report will tell you how many unique interfaces have had performance data collected within the selected time period.

iSPI Minimum System Requirements

Management Environment Size						iSPI Minimum System Requirements
Tier	Number of Interfaces/Components	Number of Concurrent Users	Number of CPUs (cores)^a	RAM	Disk space in NPSInstallDir		Disk hardware for NPSDataDir	Additional disk space Retention = R14/H70/D800	Additional disk space Retention = R70/H70/D800	Additional disk space Retention = R70/H400/D800
Small	Up to 5K/5K	10	8 CPU	16 GB	10 GB		1 SCSI or SATA disk drive	300 GB	400 GB	1 TB
Medium	Up to 60K/60K	25	8 CPU	32 GB	10 GB		RAID 1+0 or 5/6 with write cache recommended	800 GB	1.5 TB	4 TB
Large	Up to 130K/130K	40	16 CPU	64 GB	10 GB		RAID 1+0 or 5/6 with write cache recommended	2 TB	3 TB	10 TB
Very Large	Up to 400K/400K	40	32 CPU	160 GB	10 GB		High performance SAN storage	4 TB	8 TB	20 TB

^aRecommended clock speed for each CPU: 2.5 GHz.

For optimal performance, follow the instructions to configure tuning parameters provided in the NNM iSPI Performance for Metrics Deployment Reference.

Distributed Deployment of NPS

Overview

Consider creating a distributed deployment of NPS if any of the following statements are true:

Your system tier is large or above
You plan to install multiple iSPI products
You plan to create multiple custom collections
You have a high number of concurrent NNMi users
You plan on scheduling a large number of reports for automatic creation and delivery

A distributed installation has certain benefits as outlined below:

Isolates the functionality of each role onto separate hardware, making it easier to upgrade and expand in that one area if a bottleneck is reached.
Allows system capacity to easily be grown to match your business needs in the future.
On Linux only - allows for a higher management capacity than a standalone NPS system. Distributing the roles of an NPS system across multiple machines is supported in both Windows and Linux, but using this to scale beyond the 'Very Large' tier boundaries is only supported on Linux.

If this is applicable to your installation, we recommend you discuss the installation requirements with your HP representative and examine the Deployment Reference.

Virtualization

Note: The Virtual environment must meet the x86-64 or AMD64 hardware requirements listed below.

VMware ESX Server 4.0 or later minor version, ESXi 4.1 or later minor version, ESXi 5.0 or later minor version.

Supported only for the Windows or Linux operating systems.
Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization 3.5 or later minor version.
- Supported only for the entry, small, and medium tiers
- Guest operating system must be included in the list of supported operating systems in the Operating Systems section.

Hardware

Intel^® 64-bit (x86-64) or AMD 64-bit (AMD64)

For Intel 64-bit (x86-64), the following Xeon processor families are recommended:

Penryn, Nehalem, Westmere, Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, Haswell or later (recommended processor speed: 2.5 GHz) for up to Medium tier
Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, Haswell or later (recommended processor speed: 2.5 GHz) for Large or Very Large tier

Virtual Memory/Swap Space

Recommend 2 times physical memory and at least 32 GB
Windows: Verify virtual memory via System Properties
Linux: To verify, use the cat /proc/meminfo | grep Swap command. To adjust, use the parted and mkswap commands.

Networking Configuration of the NPS Server

Pure IPv6 is not supported, but dual stack IPv6 and IPv4 combined is supported.
NPS systems must be served by Gigabit Ethernet LAN interfaces.

Disk And Storage Considerations

NPS requires high speed disk access. This is particularly relevant in a large scale, very large scale and distributed environments. You can use a benchmarking tool such as bonnie++(only on Linux) to assess the performance of the proposed storage system. Read the Installation Guide and the Deployment Reference for disk and database file layout suggestions as well as post-install tuning guidelines.

NPS 10.00 is tested with the following file systems:

For Windows: NTFS
For Linux: ext4

Operating Systems

Windows

Supported Versions

Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 Datacenter Edition with Service Pack 1 (or later service pack)
Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 Enterprise Edition with Service Pack 1 (or later service pack)
Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 Standard Edition with Service Pack 1 (or later service pack)

Notes:

Windows 32-bit operating systems are not supported
Windows operating systems on Itanium Processor Family (IPF) are not supported
Anti-virus and backup software can interfere with the operation of NPS if the software locks files while NPS is running. Any application that locks files should be configured to exclude the NPS install and data directories (C:\ProgramData\HP\HP BTO Software\NNMPerformanceSPI).
Windows 2008 includes the concept of User Access Control (UAC). Users who are part of the Administrator group may not have full Administrator privileges. All scripts and commands associated with NPS will detect and warn if the user is not elevated. They should be run with full Administrator access. To achieve this, right-click on the Command Tool icon and choose ‘Run as Administrator.’

Linux

Supported Versions

Red Hat

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 6.4 (or later minor version)

Tip: Red Hat does not support direct upgrades from Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5.x to 6.0.

SUSE

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP3

NNMi and NPS OS Combinations

This table illustrates the combinations of operating systems that are supported with NPS in a distributed installation environment. Note that NPS version 10.00 should always be used at the same version level as NNMi.

		NPS
		Windows	Linux
NNMi	Windows	Supported	Not Supported
NNMi	Linux	Supported	Supported

High Availability

NNMi iSPI Performance can run on certain high availability (HA) systems with additional configuration. See the Installation Guide for information on how to install and configure the application with high availability systems.
NOTE: NPS supports only a 1+1 configuration model for high availability.

The following configurations are supported:

Microsoft Windows: Microsoft Failover Clustering for Windows Server 2008 R2
Red Hat Linux:
- Veritas Cluster Server (VCS) version 6.0
  
  Notes
  - Some disk types require the use of Veritas Storage Foundation (VSF) version 6.0.
  - VCS 6.0 and VSF 6.0 might require operating system patches. For specific information, see the appropriate Veritas product documentation.

NOTE:

The NNMi iSPI Performance for Metrics and the foundation NPS component are not supported on Red Hat Clustering Service (RHCS).
HA is not supported when running NPS in a distributed, flexible scale, model. It is only supported when NPS is installed with all roles on the same system.
HA is not supported when running NPS on SUSE Linux.

Web Browser

General Web Browser Requirements
- The resolution of the client display should be at least 1024x768.
- Caution: The following browsers are not supported:
  - Microsoft Internet Explorer version 9 or version 10 when running in Compatibility View mode
    Be sure to disable Compatibility View in Internet Explorer using Tools → Compatibility View Settings (clear all check boxes).
  - Microsoft Internet Explorer version 6, version 7, and version 8
  - Mozilla Firefox 3.6.x through 23.x
  - Mozilla Firefox 25.0 and other non-ESR versions of Firefox.
  - Apple Safari (all versions)
  - Opera (all versions)
  - Google™ Chrome (all versions)
Supported Web Browsers on a Remote Client System (for operational use)
- Microsoft Internet Explorer version 9 (not running in Compatibility View mode).
- Microsoft Internet Explorer version 10.
- Microsoft Internet Explorer version 11 (requires hotfix for enhancement request QCCR1B130802; to obtain the hotfix, contact HP Software Support).
- Mozilla Firefox version 24.x on a Windows or Linux client
- Mozilla Firefox version 31.2.0 ESR on a Windows or Linux client (requires hotfix for enhancement request QCCR1B130802; to obtain the hotfix, contact HP Software Support).

Integration and Coexistence with Other Products

The following products have been tested to coexist on the same system as NPS 10.0:

HP Network Node Manager i 10.00 Software
HP Network Node Manager iSPI Performance for Traffic 10.00 Software
HP Network Node Manager iSPI Performance for Quality Assurance 10.00 Software
HP Network Node Manager iSPI Performance for Metrics 10.00 Software
HP Network Node Manager iSPI for IP Multicast 10.00 Software
HP Network Node Manager iSPI for IP Telephony Software version 10.00
HP Network Node Manager iSPI for MPLS Software version 10.00
HP Operations agent version 11.13 (or higher)

Note: Do not install NPS 10.00 on a system where the HP Operations agent is already installed. You can, however, install the HP Operations agent on a system where NPS 10.00 is successfully installed.

Legal Notices

Confidential computer software. Valid license from HP required for possession, use or copying. Consistent with FAR 12.211 and 12.212, Commercial Computer Software, Computer Software Documentation, and Technical Data for Commercial Items are licensed to the U.S. Government under vendor's standard commercial license.

The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.

The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.

For information about third-party license agreements, see the license-agreements directory on the product installation DVD-ROM.

To view open source code, see the license-agreements/source and license-agreements/CygwinSources directories on the product installation media.

Trademark Notices

AMD is a trademark of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.

Intel^® is a trademark of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries.
Java is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Linux^® is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the U.S. and other countries.
Microsoft^® and Windows^® are U.S. registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.

Red Hat^® is a registered trademark of Red Hat, Inc. in the United States and other countries.

Acknowledgments

This product includes:

Apache, version 2.0, January 2004. The Apache Software Foundation.

HP Network Node Manager iSPI Performance for Metrics Software Support Matrix

for the Windows® and Linux® operating systems