Application server system requirements

This topic describes the system requirements for the BMC Network Automation application server.

Note

If you would like BMC Network Automation to support any particular version of operating system or database, log an IDEA on BMC Communities .

The application server is bundled with a PostgreSQL database, TFTP server (for Microsoft Windows), syslogd server, and the following third-party software:

Product version

Java Runtime Environment (JRE) version

Apache Tomcat web server version

8.8.00

1.8.0 update 72

7.0.67

OS support

The application server is compatible with the operating systems listed in the following tables.

Supported Windows platforms

Platform

CPU architecture

Version

Windows Server 2008 R2

x64 (64-bit)

SP1

Windows Server 2008

x64 (64-bit)

SP2

Windows Server 2012 R2

x64 (64-bit)

Standard

Windows Server 2012

x64 (64-bit)

Standard

Supported Linux platforms

Platform

CPU architecture

Version

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server

x64 (64-bit)

11 SP3, SP2

Oracle Enterprise Linux

x64 (64-bit)

6.1

Red Hat Enterprise Linux

x64 (64-bit)

7, 7.2

Red Hat Enterprise Linux

x64 (64-bit)

6.x

Red Hat Enterprise Linux

x64 (64-bit)

5.5

Ubuntu Linux

x64 (64-bit)

11.10

Ubuntu Linux

x64 (64-bit)

10.04 - LTS

Note

  • BMC Network Automation version 8.8.x does not support 32-bit platform installation files for Windows and Linux.
  • BMC Network Automation 8.8.00 and earlier versions do not support installation on Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2 on the Resilient File System (ReFS).
  • BMC Network Automation 8.8.00 and earlier versions do not support installation on an IPv6 system where the local host name does not get resolved via Domain Name System (DNS). That is, the  nslookup command on the local host name must succeed if the product needs to use an IPv6 stack.

Back to top

Database support

The following databases are supported for use with the application server:

  • Oracle Database 12c RAC 
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2012 (support for encrypted connections)
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 SP 3 (support for encrypted connections)
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2008 (support for encrypted connections with SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 3 and later)

  • PostgreSQL 9.3.5

    Note

    When you choose the embedded database option, BMC Network Automation 8.8.00 uses version 9.3.5 of PostgreSQL.

Warning

BMC Network Automation does not support database compression. Therefore, you must disable database compression prior to installing or upgrading BMC Network Automation.

Back to top

Hardware requirements

The application server specifications in the following table are based on the number of managed devices. These specifications are for a live production environment.

Application server hardware specifications

Maximum number of managed devices

Processor speed (GHz)

Number of processors

Memory (GB) 

1,000

3

1

4

5,000

3

2

8

10,000

3

2

16

25,000

3

4

32

The application server and database can run on the same host computer or different host computers or virtual machines (VMs).

Note

When uploading OS images larger than 300 MB to BMC Network Automation, the system running PostgreSQL must have enough RAM when BMC Network Automation writes large OS image files to the database. BMC recommends that the system running PostrgeSQL have RAM greater than three times your maximum OS image file size.

If you are running the BMC Network Automation application server and PostgreSQL on the same computer, make sure you have sufficient cumulative RAM.

In addition, your Java heap must be configured to process large files. BMC recommends that you set your maximum java heap size (-Xmx <size>) to three times your maximum OS image file size. See Performance-tuning.

Back to top

Disk space requirements

Note

The application server installation procedure requires approximately 1.2 GB of free disk storage. For more information about the installation procedure, see Installing.

The following table lists the disk space requirements of these components. The requirements are separate and independent, whether the components run on the same host or different hosts.

Component

Data

Disk space requirements

Application server

Total requirement (configuration files, log files, and so on)

5 GB

Database server

General data
Configuration and image data

Note

45 KB per configuration * 90 days * 1 configuration per day = 4 MB for configurations
30 MB per image / 30 devices per image = 1 MB for images
25 KB per transcript * 1 job per day * 90 days = 2.25 MB for transcripts
25 KB per transcript * 20 span actions = 0.5 MB for device status
(where 90 days is the default job/configuration purge criteria)

Per-device sizing is greatly affected by the number of changes made per day (more changes result in more configurations and more transcripts), the type of image the device is running (many images can be over 100 MB in size), the use of tunneled mode for snapshots (where the configurations are also embedded in every transcript), and the purge settings for both configurations and jobs.

Back to top

User account privileges

The BMC Network Automation Oracle or Microsoft SQL Server user account must be granted the following privileges:

  • Create/alter/drop tables/indexes/constraints
  • Insert/update/delete rows

Back to top

 

Tip: For faster searching, add an asterisk to the end of your partial query. Example: cert*