System and License Requirements
To install and run Tenable Core + Tenable Security Center, your application and system must meet the following requirements established for Tenable Security Center. For more information about Tenable Security Center requirements, see Tenable Security Center in the General Requirements User Guide.
Note: Tenable Support does not assist with issues related to your host operating system, even if you encounter them during installation or deployment.
| Environment | Tenable Core File Format | More Information | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Virtual Machine | VMware | .ova file | |
| Microsoft Hyper-V | .zip file | ||
| Cloud | Microsoft Azure | n/a | |
| Cloud | Amazon Web Services (AWS) | n/a | |
|
Hardware |
.iso image | ||
Note: While you could use the packages to run Tenable Core in other environments, Tenable does not provide documentation for those procedures.
License Requirements
To deploy Tenable Core + Tenable Security Center, your Tenable Security Center application must meet the requirements described in Tenable Security Center Licensing Requirements in the General Requirements User Guide.
Tenable Security Center Hardware Requirements
Note: Tenable does not recommend deploying multiple applications on a single instance of Tenable Core. If you want to deploy several applications on Tenable Core, deploy a unique instance for each application.
Note:Tenable strongly discourages running Tenable Security Center or Tenable Core + Tenable Security Center in an environment shared with other Tenable applications.
Storage Requirements
Tenable recommends installing Tenable Security Center on direct-attached storage (DAS) devices (or storage area networks [SANs], if necessary) with a storage latency of 10 milliseconds or less.
Tenable does not support installing Tenable Security Center on network-attached storage (NAS).
Disk Space Requirements
Enterprise networks can vary in performance, capacity, protocols, and overall activity. Resource requirements to consider for deployments include raw network speed, the size of the network being monitored, and the configuration of the application. Processors, memory, and network cards are heavily based on the former. Disk space requirements may vary depending on usage based on the amount and length of time data is stored on the system.
An important consideration is that Tenable Security Center can be configured to save a snapshot of vulnerability archives each day. In addition, the size of the vulnerability data stored by Tenable Security Center depends on the number and types of vulnerabilities, not just the number of hosts. For example, 100 hosts with 100 vulnerabilities each could consume as much data as 1,000 hosts with 10 vulnerabilities each. In addition, the output for vulnerability check plugins that do directory listings, etc. is much larger than Open Port plugins from discovery scans.
For networks of 35,000 to 50,000 hosts, Tenable has encountered data sizes of up to 25 GB. That number is based on storage of 50,000 hosts and approximately 500 KB per host.
Additionally, during active scanning sessions, large scans and multiple smaller scans have been reported to consume as much as 150 GB of disk space as results are acquired. Once a scan has completed and its results are imported, that disk space is freed up.
Requirements When Running Basic Network Scans + Local Checks
|
# of Hosts Managed by Tenable Security Center |
CPU Cores |
Memory |
Disk Space used for Vulnerability Trending |
|---|---|---|---|
|
2,500 active IPs |
4 2GHz cores |
8 GB RAM |
90 days: 125 GB 180 days: 250 GB |
|
10,000 active IPs |
8 3GHz cores |
16 GB RAM |
90 days: 450 GB 180 days: 900 GB |
|
25,000 active IPs |
16 3GHz cores |
32 GB RAM |
90 days: 2.4 TB 180 days: 5 TB |
|
100,000 active IPs |
32 3GHz cores |
64 GB RAM |
90 days: 4.5 TB 180 days: 9 TB |
Requirements When Running Basic Network Scans + Local Checks + 1 Configuration Audit
|
# of Hosts Managed by Tenable Security Center |
CPU Cores |
Memory |
Disk Space used for Vulnerability Trending |
|---|---|---|---|
|
2,500 active IPs |
4 2GHz cores |
8 GB RAM |
90 days: 225 GB 180 days: 450 GB |
|
10,000 active IPs |
8 3GHz cores |
16 GB RAM |
90 days: 900 GB 180 days: 1.8 TB |
|
25,000 active IPs |
16 3GHz cores |
32 GB RAM |
90 days: 4.5 TB 180 days: 9 TB |
|
100,000 active IPs |
32 3GHz cores |
128 GB RAM |
90 days: 9 TB 180 days: 18 TB |
Disk Partition Requirements
The installer ISO handles partitioning automatically. In most cases, you boot Core from the ISO and wait. For more information on Tenable Core partitions, see Disk Management.
Network Interface Requirements
You can install Tenable Security Center in externally connected or air-gapped environments. For more information about special considerations for air-gapped environments, see Considerations for Air-Gapped Environments.
Gigabit or faster network cards are recommended for use on the Tenable Security Center server. This is to increase the overall performance of web sessions, emails, Tenable Log Correlation Engine queries, and other network activities.