<%NUMBERING1%>.<%NUMBERING2%>.<%NUMBERING3%> PRTG Manual: System Requirements

In order to install and work with PRTG Network Monitor, you need to meet the following requirements:

  • A PC server or virtual machine with roughly the CPU performance of an average PC built in the year 2007 or later and minimum 1024 RAM memory. For cluster installations, use systems with similar performance.
  • Operating systems Microsoft Windows 7, Windows 8, Server 2012, Server 2012 R2, or Windows 2008 R2 (all 32-bit or 64-bit) are officially supported. You can also use Windows Vista or 2008 R1, but we recommend not using these systems, because there are known performance issues related to them.
  • Web browser to access the web interface. The following browsers are supported:
      • Google Chrome 36 or later (recommended)
      • Mozilla Firefox 31 or later
      • Microsoft Internet Explorer 10 or 11

Planning an Installation With Hundreds of Sensors or More?

As a rule of thumb, an average PC/server built in the year 2007 or later should be able to monitor 1,000 sensors with ease. Some exceptions apply for version 3 of Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) and packet sniffer. The maximum number of sensors you can monitor with one installation of PRTG mainly depends on the monitoring technology and the monitoring intervals you use. In general, consider the following rules:

  • SNMP V1 and V2, Ping, Port, and HTTP
    These sensor types are recommended for scenarios with thousands of sensors. With these technologies up to 20,000 sensors are possible.
  • SNMP V3
    You will be able to monitor about 5,000 SNMP V3 sensors with an interval of 60 seconds on a common two core computer, and about 10,000 sensors on a four core system (the main limiting factor is your CPU power).
  • WMI
    Try to keep the number of WMI sensors per probe below 120 sensors (with 60s interval), or 600 sensors (with 300s interval).
  • xFlow (IPFIX, NetFlow, sFlow, jFlow)
    Monitoring the maximum number of sensors depends on the traffic pattern, the number of xFlow packets per second received by the PRTG probe, as well as the performance of the probe system (see site planner tool linked in the More section below).
  • Packet Sniffer
    These sensors create the highest CPU load on the probe system. This technology is only recommended for monitoring of low traffic connections (<50 Mbit/s steady stream). When traffic is often over 10 Mbit/s a dedicated remote probe should be used.
  • VMware Monitoring
    Monitoring of VMware is limited to about 20 sensors at a 60 seconds monitoring interval, or 100 sensors at a 5 minutes interval. These limitations issue from the VMware platform. A registry hack is available to boost this to 150 sensors at a 5 minutes interval (this will require a change in the ESX/vCenter configuration). For details please see More section below.
  • Other sensor types
    The impact of a specific sensor type on performance is indicated by a color range when adding a sensor to a device. It ranges from dark green (very low impact; 5,000 sensors per probe) to bold red (very high impact; 50 sensors per probe).

To overcome any limitations mentioned above you should distribute the sensors over two remote probes or more. For detailed information please use the site planner tool to plan large installations. See More section below.

We recommend using a dedicated physical machine to run both the PRTG core server and PRTG remote probes. For more information please see the Detailed System Requirements section.

More

Knowledge Base: Planning Large Installations of PRTG Network Monitor

Knowledge Base: Paessler PRTG Site Planner Tool

Knowledge Base: How can I speed up PRTG—especially for large installations?

Knowledge Base: Increasing Maximum Connections for VMware Sensors

Knowledge Base: Checklist for Running PRTG on VMware

 

Introduction Topics

 

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