Hardware requirements for the server on Windows

Ensure that the computer on which you are installing the BigFix Inventory meets the minimal CPU, and memory requirements for the server and database elements.

Virtualized environment

The ETL (extract, transform, and load) import heavily uses the database resources. BigFix Inventory and SQL Server can be installed on a virtualized environment. However, for large deployments that consist of more than 50.000 computers, it is recommended that dedicated hardware is used.

In a virtual environment for medium size deployments that consist of 10.000 - 50.000 computers, it is recommended that dedicated resources are considered for processor, memory, and virtual disk allocation. The virtual disk that is allocated for the VM should be dedicated RAID storage, with dedicated IO bandwidth for that VM.

Use SQL Server that is dedicated for BigFix Inventory and is not shared with BigFix or other applications. Fine-tuning based on the above mentioned recommendations might be required.

Processor and RAM

The values provided for BigFix were calculated with the assumption that the BigFix server, its database and Web Reports server are installed on a single server and that the BigFix server is dedicated to BigFix Inventory. If you share the BigFix server between other applications, refer to the BigFix documentation for information about hardware requirements: BigFix requirements.

The values provided for BigFix Inventory were calculated for the maximum of five concurrent application users.

Table 1. Processor and RAM requirements for BigFix Inventory
This table consists of four columns, one header row, and four body rows. The second column is further divided into two sub-columns.
Environment size	Topology		Processor	Memory
Small environment Up to 5 000 endpoints	1 server	BigFix, its database, and Web Reports server BigFix Inventory, and SQL Server	2-3 GHz, 4 cores	8 GB
Medium environment 5 000 - 50 000 endpoints*	2/3 servers**	BigFix, its database, and Web Reports server	2-3 GHz, 4 cores	16 GB
Medium environment 5 000 - 50 000 endpoints*	2/3 servers**	BigFix Inventory and SQL Server	2-3 GHz, 4 cores	12 - 24 GB
Large environment 50 000 - 150 000 endpoints*	2/3 servers**	BigFix, its database, and Web Reports server	2-3 GHz, 4 - 16 cores	16 - 32 GB
Large environment 50 000 - 150 000 endpoints*	2/3 servers**	BigFix Inventory and SQL Server	2-3 GHz, 8 - 16 cores	32 - 64 GB
Very large environment More than 150 000 endpoints*	2/3 servers**	BigFix, its database, and Web Reports server	2-3 GHz, 16 cores	32 - 64 GB
Very large environment More than 150 000 endpoints*	2/3 servers**	BigFix Inventory and SQL Server	2-3 GHz, 8 - 16 cores	64 - 96 GB***

* For environments with more than 35 000 endpoints, scan groups are required. For more information, see Tuning performance.
** A distributed environment, where BigFix Inventory is separated from the database, is advisable.
*** SQL Server must be throttled to 3/4 RAM capacity.

Disk space

The following tables show disk space requirements for each component.

Important: The BigFix client is also installed on the computers where the components are installed. Ensure that the computers have enough space for the client. For more information, see: Hardware requirements for the client.

BigFix Inventory

Table 2. Disk space requirements for BigFix Inventory installed on Windows
This table consists of four columns, one header row, and three body rows. The second and third body rows are divided in to three rows from the second column.
Default Directory	Space required	Comments
C:\Program Files (x86)\BigFix Enterprise\BES Installers\BFI_installer	500 MB	Compressed installer that is downloaded to the selected endpoint from BigFix. It can be deleted after extracting.
	500 MB	Extracted installer.
C:\Program Files\IBM\BFI	3 GB	BigFix Inventory installation directory. The amount includes space required for future upgrades.
%TEMP%	350 MB	Temporary files used during the installation.
%USERPROFILE%	1 MB	The home directory of the user running the installation.

SQL Server for BigFix Inventory

Table 3. Disk space requirements for SQL Server for BigFix Inventory
This table consists of four columns, one header row, and three body rows. The second and third body rows are divided in to three rows from the second column.
Default Directory	Space required	Comments
C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server	1 GB	Database installation directory.
C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL11.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQL\DATA	See Comments	Database server instance. The amount of disk space that is required for the database server depends on the number of computers in your environment and the average size of scan files and analyses. It can be calculated according to the following formula: <The number of computers>* x 1 MB + 6 GB of initial disk space For example: 10 000 computers 10 000 x 1 MB + 6 GB = 16 GB 100 000 computers 100 000 x 1 MB + 6 GB = 106 GB
C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL11.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQL\DATA	See Comments	Database transaction logs. During the data import (ETL process), BigFix Inventory requires some additional free disk space for database server transaction logs. The amount of disk space that is required can be significant because transaction logs store two sets of data: Data that is used for recovery if the ETL fails Data that is used to create new ETL results The amount of disk space that is necessary for the transaction logs depends on the number of computers in your environment as well as the number of computers in a single scan group from which data is processed during the import. To lower the amount of disk space that is necessary for transactions logs, distribute the scans over time so they are processed during several data imports instead of one. The size of transaction logs can be calculated according to the following formula: <The number of computers>* x 1.2 MB + <the number of computers in the biggest scan group> x 1.2 MB + 17 GB of initial disk space For example: 10 000 computers and 10 000 scan results 10 000 x 1.2 MB + 10 000 x 1.2 MB + 17 GB = 41 GB 100 000 computers and 15 000 scan results 100 000 x 1.2 MB + 15 000 x 1.2 MB + 17 GB = 155 GB
C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL11.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQL\DATA	See Comments	tempdb database that is used to store and manage temporary objects. The size of tempdb can be calculated according to the following formula: <The number of computers>* x 0.5 MB For example: 15 000 computers 15 000 x 0.5 MB = 7.5 GB

*The disk space requirements are calculated based on the average number of files that are discovered in your environment. The values that are provided in the formula assume that the average number of the discovered files is 800 per computer, which is represented by 1 and 1.2 MB. If, according to your estimates, the number of files is higher, increase this value adequately. If you already installed BigFix Inventory, you can use the Scanned File Data and Computers reports for your calculations. Note, that the required initial disk space (15 or 17 GB) is constant. The number of discovered files not only affects the size of the database,but also the server runtime memory requirements. For more information, see: Tuning performance in medium and large environments. To see the list of extensions that are discovered by BigFix Inventory by default and learn how to decrease the number of detected files, see: Optimizing the volume of scanned file data.

* The formulas apply to typical environments that are configured to run weekly software scans, daily data imports, and whose endpoints have about 60 software installations each. The results also depend on the amount of data returned by the scans, which means that in some environments the required amount of disk space might be smaller or bigger. In case of irregular data imports or accumulated scans, the required disk space increases.

Note: The retention period in this typical environment is set to the last 7 days. For more information about tuning this parameter, see: Shortening the retention period gradually to avoid problems with growing database size.

BigFix

Table 4. Disk space requirements for BigFix installed on Windows
This table consists of four columns, one header row, and three body rows. The second and third body rows are divided in to three rows from the second column.
Default Directory	Space required	Comments
C:\Program Files\BigFix Enterprise\BES Server	1.8 GB	BigFix installation directory.
C:\Program Files (x86)\BigFix Enterprise\BES Server\wwwrootbes\bfmirror\downloads\sha1	Around 2 GB	BigFix cache. It stores files that are downloaded by some of the fixlets before they are distributed to the selected endpoints. For example, the BigFix Inventory installer. The required space might increase if you run some of the fixlets multiple times. For example, each time you run the Upgrade to the latest version of BigFix Inventory 9.x, a new installer is downloaded to the cache. Thus, the required space increases. To check whether a fixlet downloads any files and what their size is, log in to the BigFix console, and check the value in the Download Size column for the particular fixlet. Then, ensure that enough disk space is available in the BigFix cache.
C:\Program Files\BigFix Enterprise\BES Console	90 MB	BigFix console.

SQL Server for BigFix

For information about hardware requirements for the SQL Server that is used as the BigFix database, see the BigFix Version 9.x: Capacity Planning, Performance, and Management Guide.

Apart from the disk space that is described in the guide, ensure additional disk space for transaction logs on the computer where the BigFix database is installed. To calculate the required disk space, check how many objects exist in all fixlet sites that you have enabled in the BigFix console. An object is every computer group, analysis, fixlet, and task that exist in the console, including the ones that are not relevant. Every 1000 objects requires 1GB of free disk space. For example, if you have 500 fixlets and tasks, 300 analyses, and 20 computer groups, you have 820 objects in total. Thus, 1 GB of disk space is required.