For optimum performance, you must match the minimum recommendations for the deployment.

Recommendations for the Platform Deployment

Table 1. Specifications for Platform Brick Size
Brick Size Cores required

for 2.1 GHz CPU

 Cores required

for 2.3 GHz CPU

Cores required

for 2.6 GHz CPU

 RAM Disk
Medium 10 9 8 32 GB 1 TB
Large 15 14 12 48 GB 1 TB
Extra Large 20 18 16 64 GB 2 TB
Note:
  • The reservation for the CPU speed and RAM for each node must be 100% of the value specified above.
  • If the disk in any of the platform nodes exceeds 95% of the capacity, vRealize Network Insight UI will not be accessible.
  • To match your setup to all the specifications, you might have to add the resources (RAM, Disk, CPU). See https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/53550 and Increase the Brick Size of Your Setup.
Table 2. Non-Cluster Deployment - Maximum Capacity
Brick Size *Number of VMs

(K = Thousand)

 Flows per Day

(M = Million)

 Total Flows

(M = Million)

 Flow Planning

(M = Million)

 Number of Rules

(K = Thousand)

 *Number of Edges for VMware SD-WAN

(K = Thousand)

 Number of VMs for Flow Based Application Discovery Number of UI Entities in the Network Map Topology
Medium 4K 1M 4M 2M Not Applicable 2K Not Supported Not Supported
Large 6K 2M 8M 4M Not Applicable 2K Not Supported Not Supported
Extra Large 10K 2M 8M 4M

170K

 4K 3K 5K
Note:
  • The Network Verification and Assurance (Network Map and Intents) and Flow Based Application Discovery (Flows) features are available only for Extra Large brick size only.

  • * The count of VMs and edges mentioned in the table is the maximum individual limit for a single deployment. So, if you have edges in your setup, you might have to reduce the VM count.

  • The count of VMs includes the templates on the VMware vCenter as well.
  • Total Flows is the maximum count of flows the system can store for the retention period.
  • Flow Planning is the total flows for which the system can perform security planning.
Table 3. Cluster Deployment - Maximum Capacity
Deployment Scenario Brick Size Cluster Size *Number of VMs

(K = Thousand)

 Flows per Day

(M = Million)

 Total Flows

(M = Million)

 Flow Planning

(M = Million)

 Number of Rules

(K = Thousand)

 *Number of Edges for VMware SD-WAN

(K = Thousand)

 Number of VMs for Flow Based Application Discovery Number of UI Entities in the Network Map Topology
Scenario 1 Large 3 10K 2M 8M 4M Not Applicable 4K Not Supported 5K
Extra Large 3 18K 6M 24M 6M 170K 6K 3K 5K
Extra Large 5 30K 10M 40M 10M 170K 10K 3K 5K
Extra Large 7 58K 12M 48M 10M 170K 10K 3K 5K
Extra Large 10 100K 15M 60M 10M 170K 10K 3K 5K
Extra Large 15 150K 20M 80M 10M 170K 10K 3K 5K
Scenario 2 Extra Large 3 12K 3M 12M 4M

2M

 6K 12K 20K
Extra Large 5 18K 6M 24M 6M 5M 10K 24K 20K
Extra Large 7 30K 10M 40M 10M 5M 10K 24K 20K
Extra Large 10 72K 13M 52M 10M 5M 10K 24K 20K
Extra Large 15 130K 18M 72M 10M 5M 10K 24K 20K
Note:
  • Scenario 1 focuses on VMs and flows while running automated Application Discovery and Network Assurance and Verification features with limited capacity. Scenario 2 is for an environment that needs to run automated Application Discovery and Network Assurance and Verification feature with full capacity.
  • The Network Verification and Assurance (Network Map and Intents) and Flow Based Application Discovery (Flows) features are available only for Extra Large brick size only.
  • The number of UI entities means the sum of nodes and edges supported in the Network Map topology.
  • The number of rules includes all forwarding entries, including layer 3, layer 2, access control, and NAT.
  • * The count of VMs and edges mentioned in the table is the maximum individual limit for a single deployment. So, if you have edges in your setup, you might have to reduce the VM count.
  • The number of VMs includes the templates on the VMware vCenter as well.
  • Cluster size is the total number of nodes in the cluster.
  • Total Flows is the count of flows in the system for the retention period.
  • The query to determine the Total Flows is count of flows in last 31 days, assuming the retention period as 31 days.
  • Flow Planning is the total flows for which the system can perform security planning.
  • vRealize Network Insight supports maximum 10,000 security groups and 10,000 IPSets for a cluster deployment of 10 XL.

Recommendation for the Collector Deployment

Table 4. Specifications for Collector Brick Size
Brick Size Cores required for 2.1 GHz CPU Cores required for 2.3 GHz CPU Cores required for 2.6 GHz CPU RAM Disk
Medium 5 5 4 12 GB 200 GB
Large 10 9 8 16 GB 200 GB
Extra Large 10 9 8 24 GB 200 GB
Note: The reservation for the CPU speed and RAM for each node must be 100% of the value specified above.
Table 5. Collector Deployment - Maximum Capacity
Collector Size Number of VMs

(K = Thousand)

 Flows per Day

(M = Million)

 Flow count in 4 days

(M = Million)

 Number of Edges for VMware SD-WAN

(K = Thousand)
Medium 4K 2.5M 3.25M 4K
Large 10K 5M 6.5M 6K
Extra Large 35K 10M 13M 10K
Note:
  • The count of VMs and edges mentioned in the table is the maximum individual limit for a single deployment. So, if you have edges in your setup, you might have to reduce the VM count.
  • The count of VMs includes the templates on the VMware vCenter as well.
  • For a single deployment with more than one collector, the limitation on the total flows across collectors is based on the capacity of the platform.

Other Requirements and Considerations

  • The maximum time skew between the platform nodes has to be lesser than 30 seconds.
  • The availability of the NTP service is critical to system operations. Ensure that you do not reboot the platform node or the collector node when the NTP service is not available.
  • When the existing compute resources are completely used by the other processes on the platform, vRealize Network Insight crashes and does not recover automatically. If the services fail to recover, reboot the platform node.
  • If the network latency between platform node and upgrade server is greater than 500ms, the vRealize Network Insight upgrade might encounter an error. So, the network latency must be less than 500ms.
  • The recommended network latency between platform VMs for optimal performance is up to 3ms. The system performance might degrade beyond the limit.
  • The recommended network latency between platform and collector VMs for optimal performance is up to 150ms. The system performance might degrade beyond this limit.
  • The recommended disk latency for optimal performance is up to 5ms. If the disk latency is greater than 5ms, the system performance degrades.
  • The recommended disk IOPS is 7500.
  • For optimum performance, the recommended bandwidth usage between the collector and the platform is 15 Megabytes per second (MBps) or 120 Megabits per second (Mbps).
    Note: These bandwidth recommendations are made considering the largest collector and the largest platform brick sizes mentioned in this topic.
  • For Network Map, the maximum supported firewall rules per VMware NSX-T Manager (including of DFW and edge rules) is 5000.
  • To use the Assurance and Verification feature in vRealize Network Insight, you must enable Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) and Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) (if supported) on the network devices.
  • As IPv6 addresses occupy more space in memory and disk, enabling IPv6 flow processing can reduce the platform and the collector capacity by up to 20%.

Supported Web Browser

  • Google Chrome: The latest two versions.
  • Mozilla Firefox: The latest two versions.

Recommendations to Support High Availability

You can customize vSphere HA options to enable vSphere high availability.
  • Host Failure - Restart VMs
  • Host Isolation- Deactivated
  • Guest not heartbeating- Deactivated