Sizing

Sizing guidelines for Deep Security deployments vary by the scale of your network, hardware, and software.

Deep Security Manager sizing

Sizing recommendations for Deep Security Manager vary by how many agents it will have.

Number of agents	Number of CPUs	RAM	JVM process memory	Number of manager nodes	Recommended disk space
<500	2	8 GB	4 GB	2	200 GB
500-1000	4	8 GB	4 GB	2	200 GB
1000-5000	4	12 GB	8 GB	2	200 GB
5000-10000	8	16 GB	12 GB	2	200 GB
10000-20000	8	24 GB	16 GB	2	200 GB

For best performance, it's important to allocate enough Java Virtual Machine (JVM) memory to the Deep Security Manager process. See Configure Deep Security Manager memory usage.

Recommendation scans are CPU-intensive for the Deep Security Manager. Consider the performance impact when determining how often to run recommendation scans. See Manage and run recommendation scans.

Resource spikes may occur if a large number of virtual machines are rebooted simultaneously and agents re-establish their connection with Deep Security Manager at the same time.

Multiple server nodes

For better availability and scalability, use a load balancer, and install the same version of Deep Security Manager on 2 servers ("nodes"). Connect them to the same database.

Each manager node is capable of all tasks. No node is more important than any of the others. You can log in to any node, and agents, appliances, and relays can connect with any node. If one node fails, other nodes can still provide service, and no data will be lost.

Database sizing

Database CPU, memory, and disk space required varies by:

• Number of protected computers
• Number of platforms where you install Deep Security Agent
• Number of events (logs) recorded per second (related to which security features are enabled)
• How long events are retained
• Size of the database transaction log

Minimum disk space = (2 x Deep Security data size) + transaction log

For example, if your database plus transaction log is 40 GB, you must have 80 GB (40 x 2) of free disk space during database schema upgrades.

To free disk space, delete any unnecessary agent packages for unused platforms (see Delete a software package from the Deep Security database), transaction logs, and unnecessary event records.

Event retention is configurable. For security events, retention is configured in the policy, individual computer settings, or both. See Policies, inheritance, and overrides and Log and event storage best practices.

To minimize disk usage due to events:

• Store events remotely, not locally. If you need to keep events longer (such as for compliance), forward them to a SIEM or Syslog server and then use pruning to delete the local copy. (See Forward Deep Security events to a Syslog or SIEM server.)

  Some Application Control and Integrity Monitoring operations (Rebuild Baseline, Scan for Integrity Changes, and Scan for Inventory Changes) retain all records locally, and are never pruned or forwarded.

• Patch the protected computer's software before you enable Intrusion Prevention. Recommendation scans assign more IPS rules to protect a vulnerable OS. More security events increase local or remote disk usage.
• Disable unnecessary security features that log frequently, such as stateful Firewall for TCP, UDP, and ICMP.

High-traffic computers that use Deep Security Firewall or Intrusion Prevention features might record more events per second, requiring a database with better performance. You might also need to adjust local event retention.

If you anticipate many Firewall events, consider disabling "Out of allowed policy" events. (See Firewall settings.)

See also Deep Security Manager performance features.

Database disk space estimates

The table below estimates database disk space with default event retention settings. If the total disk space for the protection modules you enable is more than the "2 or more modules" value, use the smaller estimate. For example, you could deploy 750 agents with Deep Security Anti-Malware, Intrusion Prevention System and Integrity Monitoring. The total of the individual recommendations is 320 GB (20 + 100 + 200) but the "2 or more modules" recommendation is less (300 GB). Therefore, you would estimate 300 GB.

Number of agents	Anti-Malware	Web Reputation Service	Log Inspection	Firewall	Intrusion Prevention System	Application Control	Integrity Monitoring	2 or more modules
1-99	10 GB	15 GB	20 GB	20 GB	40 GB	50 GB	50 GB	100 GB
100-499	10 GB	15 GB	20 GB	20 GB	40 GB	100 GB	100 GB	200 GB
500-999	20 GB	30 GB	50 GB	50 GB	100 GB	200 GB	200 GB	300 GB
1000-9999	50 GB	60 GB	100 GB	100 GB	200 GB	500 GB	400 GB	600 GB
10,000-20,000	100 GB	120 GB	200 GB	200 GB	500 GB	750 GB	750 GB	1 TB

Database disk space also increases with the number of separate Deep Security Agent platforms. For example, if you have 30 agents (maximum 5 versions per agent platform), this increases the database size by approximately 5 GB.

Deep Security Agent and Relay sizing

Platform	Features enabled	Minimum RAM	Recommended RAM	Minimum disk space
Windows	All protection	2 GB	4 GB	1 GB
Windows	Relay only	2 GB	4 GB	30 GB
Linux	All protection	1 GB	5 GB	1 GB
Linux	Relay only	2 GB	4 GB	30 GB
Solaris	All protection. Relay not supported	4 GB	4 GB	2 GB
AIX	All protection. Relay not supported	4 GB	4 GB	2 GB

Less RAM is required for some OS versions, or if you do not enable all Deep Security features.

If protected computers use VMware vMotion, add 10 GB of disk space.

Relays require more disk space if you install Deep Security Agent on many different platforms. (Relays store update packages for each platform.) For details, see Get Deep Security Agent software.

In smaller deployments, relays can be co-located with a Deep Security Manager. If your deployment has a large number of agents (more than 10,000), however, then relays should be installed on separate, dedicated servers. Overloaded relays slow down update redistribution. See also Plan the best number and location of relays.

Deep Security Virtual Appliance sizing

By default, the Deep Security Virtual Appliance is allocated only 4 GB of memory. Appliances protect virtual machines (VMs) that are on the same ESXi server. The minimum number of vCPUs and amount of memory you should allocate to the appliance varies by the number of protected virtual machines, and how many Intrusion Prevention (IPS) rules are assigned. Requirements in the table below assume 350-400 IPS rules per VM. See also Deep Security Virtual Appliance memory allocation.

Protected virtual machines	Minimum vCPUs	Minimum vRAM	Minimum disk space
1-25	2	6 GB	20 GB
26-50	2	8 GB	20 GB
51-100	2	10 GB	20 GB
101-150	4	12 GB	20 GB
151-200	4	16 GB	20 GB
201-250	6	20 GB	20 GB
251-300	6	24 GB	20 GB

If the appliance is protecting a large number of VMs, and recommendation scans fail due to timeout errors, see Manage and run recommendation scans to increase timeout values.