Tenable Network Monitor Hardware Requirements

Enterprise networks can vary in performance, capacity, protocols, and overall activity. Resource requirements to consider for Tenable Network Monitor deployments include raw network speed, the size of the network being monitored, and the configuration of Tenable Network Monitor.

The following chart outlines some basic hardware requirements for operating Tenable Network Monitor:

Version	Installation scenario	RAM	Processor	Hard Disk
All Versions	Tenable Network Monitor managing up to 50,000 hosts * (**)	2 GB RAM (4 GB RAM recommended)	2 2GHz cores	20 GB HDD minimum
	Tenable Network Monitor managing more than 50,000 hosts **	4 GB RAM (8 GB RAM recommended)	4 2GHz cores	20 GB HDD minimum
	Tenable Network Monitor running in High Performance mode	16 GB RAM (HugePages memory: 2 GB)	10 2GHz cores with hyper-threading enabled	20 GB HDD minimum

*The ability to monitor a given number of hosts depends on the bandwidth, memory, and processing power available to the system running Tenable Network Monitor.

**For optimal data collection, Tenable Network Monitor must be connected to the network segment via a hub, spanned port, or network tap to have a full, continuous view of network traffic.

Note: Research your VM software vendor for comparative recommendations, as VMs typically see up to a 30% loss in efficiency compared to dedicated servers. Tenable Network Monitor supports VMware's vmxnet3 driver.

Note: The 20 GB minimum hard disk requirement does not account for disk space used by real-time event logging. When you enable real-time event logging, Tenable Network Monitor writes high-volume capture data to text files at /opt/nnm/var/nnm/logs/. At high SPAN capture rates, these files can consume significant disk space. Provision additional disk capacity for the partition containing /opt/nnm based on your expected capture rate, configured file size limit, and maximum number of log files. For more information, see the Realtime Events File Size and Maximum Realtime Log Files settings.

High Performance Mode

To run Tenable Network Monitor in High Performance mode, a minimum of two of the following types of Intel NICs are required; one as a management interface and at least one as a monitoring interface:

• e1000 (82540, 82545, 82546)

• e1000e (82571, 82574, 82583, ICH8.ICH10, PCH.PCH2)

• igb (82575, 82576, 82580, I210, I211, I350, I354, DH89xx)

• ixgbe (82598, 82599, X540, X550)

• i40e (X710, XL710)

• NT40A01-4x1

• Intel E810

  Note: Intel E810 devices require an ice.pkg file in the /lib/firmware/intel/ice/ddp directory. Intel 800-series adapters (including E810, E822, E823, E825, and E830) support speeds from 10 Gbps to 200 Gbps; however, Tenable Network Monitor supports only 10 Gbps throughput when you use High Performance Mode.

  Intel adapters or Linux systems provide the Dynamic Device Personalization (DDP) package as a compressed file (for example, ice.pkg.xz). You must uncompress the package and its associated version file (for example, ice-1.3.30.0.pkg.xz) using the unxz command:

  unxz ice.pkg.xz