The App Control Server should be deployed on a single computer that will house both the App Control Server and SQL Server. The following tables list the requirements for this computer.

Table 1. Bare Metal
Endpoints Logical Processors (Note 1) RAM GB Disk Space TB (Note 2)
Up to 40,000 (Note 4) 2 12 2
40,001 to 70,000 6 32 4
70,001 to 90,000 8 48 8
90,001 to 110,000 16 64 8
Table 2. VMware vSphere (Note 3)
Endpoints Logical Processors (Note 1) RAM GB Disk Space TB (Note 2)
Up to 40,000 2 16 2
40,001 to 60,000 6 32 4
60,001 to 70,000 8 48 4
Table 3. Microsoft Azure
Endpoints Platform Disk Space TB (Note 2)
Up to 50,000 Standard_L8s_v2 2
50,001 to 80,000 Standard_L16s_v2 4
80,001 to 120,000 Standard_L32s_v2 8
Table 4. Amazon Web Services
Endpoints Platform Disk Space TB (Note 2)
Up to 50,000 i4i.Large 2
50,001 to 80,000 i4i.xLarge 4
80,001 to 90,000 i4i.2xLarge 8
90,001 to 110,000 i4i.4xLarge 8
110,001 to 120,000 i4i.8xLarge 8
120,001 to 130,000 i4i.16xLarge 8
Table 5. Google Cloud
Endpoints Platform Disk Space TB (Note 2)
Up to 30,000 n2d-standard-2 2
30,001 to 60,000 n2d-standard-4 4
60,001 to 80,000 n2d-standard-8 4
80,001 to 100,000 c2d-highmem-16 8

Notes:

1 "Logical Processors" represents the product of the number of cores and the number of threads per core.

2 The baseline setup represented by these numbers is SQL Server Standard Edition 2019 using NVMe drives. (For bare metal deployments, this must be direct-attached storage.) If you use a version of SQL Server Standard Edition prior to 2016 SP1, you may not be able to support as many agents on the same platform, and you may need more disk space, or you may need to upgrade to SQL Server Enterprise Edition.

3 The baseline hypervisor for these numbers is VMware ESXi 7.0.2, 18426014.

4 For deployments of 100 agents or fewer, SQL Express may be used instead of SQL Standard. It will require two logical processors, 4 GB of RAM, 10 GB of disk space for the data file, and an additional 10 GB for the log file.

Important: You should test your architecture using the information in “Using the CBPTest Tool - Disk Performance Testing Tool” in the document VMware Carbon Black App Control SQL Server Configuration Guide.

Associated with the storage sizes listed above are the following caveats:

  • By default, the App Control Server saves no more than four weeks of events and no more than ten million events. Increasing these defaults will increase the size of the database. Under normal circum­stances, the largest portion of the database will be taken up with storage of instances of files on endpoints.
  • The App Control Server carries out two scheduled database tasks described in the document VMware Carbon Black App Control SQL Server Configuration Guide. Stopping these tasks can cause the database to grow beyond the sizes listed above.
  • The steps listed under “Database Growth” in the document VMware Carbon Black App Control SQL Server Configuration Guide are followed.

Notes on SQL Server Editions

Consider the following information about SQL Server editions:

  • Unlike SQL Server Enterprise, SQL Server Standard prior to SQL Server 2016 SP1 does not use data compression.
  • On SQL Server Standard, App Control achieves equivalent performance processing file inventory compared to SQL Server Enterprise. However, the App Control console can be 30% slower and some database maintenance tasks such as rebuilding indexes and statistics will be slower. This can be mitigated by placing the database on faster storage hardware.

Two-tier Deployment Architecture

Here are the requirements for a two-tier installation of App Control where the App Control Server and SQL Server reside on separate hardware:

  1. For the SQL Server hardware, use the single-tier table above.
  2. For the App Control Server hardware, use the following table:
    Endpoints Hardware
    RAM GB CPU Cores (Note 1)
    Up to 1,000 4 2
    1,001 - 80,000 8 4
    Above 80,000 16 8

    Note:

    1 CPU core requirements are based on physical, not hyper-threaded cores. Two CPUs might be necessary to reach the required number of cores.

  3. Make sure that the network latency between the App Control Server and SQL Server is 0.7 ms or lower. The freeware utility hrPing or similar can be used to validate the latency.
  4. The SQL server instance and underlying database storage must be dedicated to the App Control Server.