System requirements

This topic describes minimal system requirements for ASMS hardware, software and networking. For more details, see also ASMS system architecture.

Note: ASMS performance on VMs depends on the other, non-AlgoSec machines residing on the same VMware platform. To ensure performance, we recommend working with dedicated resources.

Hardware minimum requirements

Notes: Support for Native Linux server is discontinued in A32.00 and above.

We recommend that ASMS deployments meet or exceed the following minimum hardware requirements.

Important: If the number of cores changes on Central Managers, Load Distribution nodes or Remote Agents, see the AlgoPedia article, Concurrent Analysis Limit Parameter .

Hardware Required on standalone systems, Central Managers, HA/DR or Load Distribution nodes Required on both primary and secondary Remote Agents and Application Discovery Remote Agents
CPU

8 cores *

 4 cores
Memory

32 GB *

16 GB
Storage 300 GB 300 GB
Disk write speed 80MB/s** 80MB/s**
Network For details, see on this page Bandwidth requirements for distributed environments

* These minimum requirements suffice for initial demo and testing environments, such as for up to 50 simple devices. For details about final sizing calculations for production environments, contact your AlgoSec partner or sales engineer.

** We recommend disk write speed of at least 300MB/s; system performance will improve as the speed increases.

ASMS does not keep all traffic logs, and only stores usage statistics that enable ASMS to create reports for unused rules, unused objects within rules, and the Intelligent Policy Tuner. Statistics stored in ASMS are calculated and stored specifically for these reports.

Storing statistics instead of actual reports enables ASMS to maintain a longer history than would otherwise be possible, and make statements such as Rule 1234 has not been used for 18 months.

Note: Storing statistics instead of actual logs also means that ASMS log storage is not a replacement for a full log repository sometimes needed by customers. For example, the ASMS will not provide full details in forensic investigations for cyber incidents, or for identifying attacks in real-time.

Differences per environment configuration

Hardware requirements will differ, depending on your environment configuration and type. Main differences and considerations include:

Configuration Description
NAS storage

If you configure AFA to store all reports on a remote NAS server, this will impact where the storage space is needed.

For details, see NAS (Network Attached Storage) support .
HA/DR clusters

Each node in an HA/DR cluster must be identical, including the same type of installation (AlgoSec hardware or VM appliance), and have the same amount of disk space.

For details, see Manage clusters
Distributed architecture

In distributed architecture environments, consider the requirements for the Central Manager and each Remote Agent (geographic distribution) or Load Unit (load distribution).

Remote Agents and Load Units do not store reports.

For details, see Configure a distributed architecture.
AWS deployments

If you are deploying on AWS, see Deploy ASMS on AWS.
Azure deployments

If you are deploying in Azure, see Deploy ASMS on Microsoft Azure.

Software requirements

ASMS requires the following software, depending on your deployment method:

AlgoSec hardware appliances

AlgoSec hardware appliances comes pre-installed with all require software.

No additional software is needed.
Virtual appliances

ASMS can be deployed on virtual machines that use VMware ESX versions 7 and higher, AWS, and Azure.

Networking requirements and recommendations

This section includes the following data:

For more details, see Manage clusters and Configure a distributed architecture.

Required port connections

Deploying ASMS requires the following port connectivity between nodes:

Type
 Port
 Function Central Manager
<> Load Unit		 Central Manager
<> Remote Agent		 Load Unit
<> Load Unit		 HA

DR

 Central Manager
(or Standalone Server) Migration
ICMP  

Heartbeat, Ping

✔

 ✔ ✖ ✔ ✔ ✔

SSH

 TCP/22

Data Transfer

 ✔ ✔ ✖ ✔ ✔ ✔
HTTPS TCP/443

Communication (REST API)
Between Nodes

 ✔ ✔ ✖ ✔ ✔ ✔
syslog UDP/514

Event Data

✖

 ✖ ✖

✔*

✖

✖
hazelcast TCP/5701

Synchronization of
Distribution Queue

✔ ✖ ✔ ✔ ✖ ✖
activemq TCP/61616

Messaging Bus/Event Data

 ✔ ✖ ✖ ✔ ✖ ✖
postgresql TCP/5432

Database Replication

✔ ✖ ✖ ✔ ✔ ✔
postgresql additional port TCP/5433

Database Replication

 ✖ ✖ ✖

✔

✖

✖
HA/DR TCP/9595

Dedicated HA/DR
Microservice Communication

 ✖ ✖ ✖ ✔ ✔ ✔
Application Discovery Log Sensor TCP/9645 Application Discovery Log Sensor ✖ ✔ ✖ ✖ ✖ ✔
Application Discovery network sensor TCP/9545 Application Discovery
Network Sensor		 ✖ ✔ ✖ ✖ ✖ ✔

*UDP/514 is required for traffic logs and/or connectivity to ART from the HA node.

For migration, ensure that the target machine has connectivity to external servers if they're defined in the source machine, as follows:

Type
 Port
Mail server TCP/25 (or customer-defined port)

NAS server

 TCP/2049

Bandwidth requirements for distributed environments

Distributed environments must work with the following minimum bandwidths between nodes:

Central Manager and load distribution agents 1 Gbit/s
Between High Availability nodes 1 Gbit/s
Central Manager and geographic distribution agents 100 Mbit/s
Between Disaster Recovery nodes 100 Mbit/s

Tip: The faster your network speed, the faster your clusters will be completely synched.

Email and device connectivity requirements

Enable the following connectivity for AFA and FireFlow:

Requirement Description
Email address

Define an e-mail address to be used by AFA and FireFlow, such as [email protected], on a mail server that supports SMTP and POP3/IMAP4.

Alternatively, emails can be forwarded to AFA and FireFlow as an MTA (message transfer agent).
Email access Enable access from AFA and FireFlow to the mail server via SMTP and POP3/IMAP4
Device access

Enable access from the Central Manager, any high availability secondary nodes, and Remote Agents to devices via SSH, OPSEC, REST, or SNMP (as needed)

This connectivity configuration includes configuring the necessary passwords for FireFlow.

AFA server DNS name / IP address recommendations

The AFA server must have a fixed DNS name or IP address that can be used to access the AFA user interface.

We recommend that you do not configure the server to obtain an IP address automatically or to use DHCP.

Security certificate recommendations

To prevent warnings from appearing about security certificates, install a certificate signed by a CA instead of a self-signed certificate.

For more details, see the KB article in AlgoPedia How to Install and Generate an SSL key and Certificate Signing Request (CSR).

Note: AlgoSec recommends using a 2048-bit certificate instead of the 1024-bit certificate recommended by the CentOS documentation.

Supported deployments per architecture structure

Notes: Native Linux server is not supported in A32.00 and above.

The following table lists the supported deployment models for each architecture structure. For more details, see ASMS system architecture.

Deployment Central Manager/ Standalone ASMS High Availability Disaster Recovery Load Distribution***

Geographic Distribution

 NAS
Standard Application Discovery Server

AlgoSec Physical Appliance (models 2203, 2403, 3240 and 3280 )*

✔

✔

✔

✔

 ✔ ✔

✔

Virtual Appliance (VMware)**

✔

✔

✔

✔

 ✔ ✔

✔

ASMS on AWS (AMI)

✔

✖

✔

✔

✔ ✔

✖

ASMS on Azure****

✔

✖

✖

✔

 ✔ ✖

✖

*

AlgoSec Hardware Appliances 2nd generation 2203 and 2403 are compatible with A32.00 and above.

AlgoSec Hardware Appliances 3rd generation 3240 and 3280 are compatible with A32.60 and above.

  • AlgoSec Hardware Appliance 2063 – Not supported. Contact your AlgoSec sales representative to discuss options.
  • 2XX2 Hardware Appliances – Not supported. Contact your AlgoSec sales representative to discuss options.
  • 2XX1 Hardware Appliances - Not supported. Contact your AlgoSec sales representative to discuss options.

** vMotion is not compatible with AlgoSec.

*** When deployed on a cloud environment, Load Units must also be located on the same subnet as the Central Manager.

**** When deployed in a complex Azure-based environment including LDUs and RAs, the Azure hostname length must not exceed 7-characters.