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FortiSIEM Sizing Information

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FortiSIEM Sizing Information

This document provides information about the following topics:

Minimum Requirements

Browser Display

FortiSIEM, like most monitoring, SIEM and analytics tools, shows a lot of information on the screen at once. FortiSIEM HTML GUI has chosen a bigger font for legibility reasons. Hence, we recommend that users have a minimum 1680x1050 desktop display resolution.

Hardware

Minimum hardware requirements for FortiSIEM nodes are as follows.

Node vCPU RAM Local Disks
Supervisor (All in one) Minimum – 12
Recommended - 32

Minimum

  • without UEBA – 24GB
  • with UEBA - 32GB

Recommended

  • without UEBA – 32GB
  • with UEBA - 64GB

OS – 25GB

OPT – 100GB

CMDB – 60GB

SVN – 60GB

Local Event database – based on need

Supervisor (Cluster) Minimum – 12
Recommended - 32

Minimum

  • without UEBA – 24GB
  • with UEBA - 32GB

Recommended

  • without UEBA – 32GB
  • with UEBA - 64GB

OS – 25GB

OPT – 100GB

CMDB – 60GB

SVN – 60GB

Workers Minimum – 8
Recommended - 16

Minimum – 16GB

Recommended – 24GB

OS – 25GB

OPT – 100GB

Collector Minimum – 4
Recommended – 8 ( based on load)

Minimum – 4GB

Recommended – 8GB

OS – 25GB

OPT – 100GB

  • Supervisor VA needs more memory since it hosts many heavy-duty components such as Application Server (Java), PostGreSQL Database Server and Rule Master.
  • With Elasticsearch, Supervisor VA also hosts the Java Query Server component for communicating with Elasticsearch – hence the need for additional 8 GB memory.
  • For OPT - 100GB, the 100GB disk for /opt will consist of a single disk that will split into 2 partitions, /OPT and swap. The partitions will be created and managed by FortiSIEM when configFSM.sh runs.

Note that these are only the minimum requirements. The performance may improve by increasing vCPUs and RAM in certain situations. External storage depends on your EPS mix and the number of days of log storage needs. To provide more meaningful guidance, scalability tests were conducted as described below.

Internal Scalability Tests

FortiSIEM team performed several scalability tests described below.

Test Setup

  • A specific set of events were sent repeatedly to achieve the target EPS.
  • The target EPS was constant over time.
  • A set of Linux servers were monitored via SNMP and performance monitoring data was collected.
  • Events triggered many incidents.

Test Success Criteria

The following success criteria should be met on testing:

  • Incoming EPS must be sustained without any event loss.
  • Summary dashboards should be up to date and not fall behind.
  • Widget dashboards should show data indicating that inline reporting is keeping up.
  • Incidents should be up to date.
  • Real-time search should show current data and trend chart should reflect incoming EPS.
  • GUI navigation should be smooth.
  • CPU, memory and IOPS are not maxed out. Load average must be less than the number of cores.

The tests were run for three cases:

  • All-in-one FSM Hardware Appliance: FSM-2000F and FSM-3500F with collectors FSM-500F sending events.
  • FSM Virtual Appliance with FortiSIEM EventDB as the data store.
  • FSM Virtual Appliance with Elasticsearch as the data store.

Hardware Appliance EPS Test

The test beds were as follows:

The results are shown below:

Event Sender
FortiSIEM HW ApplianceCollector ModelCountEPS/CollectorSustained EPS without Loss
FSM-2000FFSM-500F35K15K
FSM-3500FFSM-500F48K30K

Virtual Appliance EPS Test with FortiSIEM Event Database

All tests were done in AWS. The following hardware was used.

Type AWS Instance Type Hardware Spec
Collector c4.xlarge 4vCPU, 7 GB RAM
Worker c4.2xlarge 8vCPU, 15 GB RAM
Super m4.4xlarge 16vCPU, 64 GB RAM, CMDB Disk 10K IOPS
NFS Server c4.2xlarge 8vCPU, 16 GB RAM, 10K IOPS

The test bed is as follows:

The following result shows 10K EPS sustained per Worker with over 20K CMDB Devices.

Event Sender Event Handler
Collector Count EPS/Collector Monitored Device/Collector Super Workers Orgs CMDB Device Sustained EPS without Loss
150 200 150 1 3 150 22,500 30K

Virtual Appliance EPS Test with Elasticsearch Database

All tests were done in AWS. The following hardware was used.

Type AWS Instance Type Hardware Spec
Collector c4.xlarge 4vCPU, 7 GB RAM
Worker c4.2xlarge 8vCPU, 15 GB RAM
Super m4.4xlarge 16vCPU, 64 GB RAM, CMDB Disk 10K IOPS
Elastic Search Master Node c3.2xlarge 8vCPU, 16 GB RAM with 8 GB JVM
Elastic Search Coordinating Node m5.4xlarge 16vCPU, 64 GB RAM with 30 GB JVM allocation
Elastic Search Data Node i3.4xlarge 16vCPU, 122 GB RAM, 1.9TBx2 NVMe SSD Instance-store Volumes, 30 GB JVM

The test bed was as follows:

The following result shows 5K EPS sustained per Data Node with over 20K CMDB Devices.

Event SenderEvent Handler
Collector CountEPS/ CollectorMonitored Device/ CollectorSuperWorkersElastic (M/CO/DN/ Shards)*OrgsCMDB DeviceSustained EPS without Loss
150200150131/1/5/1015022,50030K
* M = Elasticsearch Master, CO = Elasticsearch Co-ordinator, DN = Elasticsearch Data Node

Recommended Sizing for FortiSIEM Event DB Based Deployment

Processing Requirement

RequirementRecommendation
EPSDeploymentHW ModelSW Configuration
NodesHW Per Node (vCPU, RAM)NFS IOPS
Up to 5KHardwareFSM-2000F
Up to 5KSoftware All-in-one16,24GB
5K – 10KHardwareFSM-2000F
5K – 10KSoftware Supervisor16,24GB
1 Worker8,16GB2000
10K – 15KHardwareFSM-3500F
10K – 15KSoftware Supervisor16,24GB
2 Workers8,16GB3000
15K – 25KHardwareFSM-3500F
15K – 25KSoftware Supervisor16,24GB
3 Workers16,16GB5000
25K – 35KSoftware Supervisor16,24GB
4 Workers16,16GB7000
Add 10K EPSSoftware Add 1 Worker16,16GBAdd 2000 IOPS

Storage Requirement for FortiSIEM EventDB

FortiSIEM storage requirement depends on three factors:

  • EPS
  • Bytes/log mix in your environment
  • Compression ratio (8:1)

You are likely licensed for Peak EPS. Typically, EPS peaks during morning hours on weekdays and goes down dramatically after 2 pm on weekdays and also remains low on weekends. So the average EPS should be used to calculate storage needs.

For calculating Bytes/log, consider the following aspects:

  • Network devices and Linux servers tend to send shorter logs (150-200 bytes/log) while Windows Security logs tend to be much larger (500-1000 bytes/log).
  • Busy corporate firewalls and domain controllers tend to send much higher log volumes (higher EPS) than other systems, assuming they are sending all logs.
  • Database indices built on logs for efficient searching consumes significant storage as well.
  • ASCII text (syslog) compresses much better than binary (for example, Netflow)

Therefore, it is difficult to properly assume a specific Bytes/log mix in your environment without measurement. Our experience from sampling of 5 large customers has shown that Bytes/log is between 100-150 including all factors – device mix, log mix, indexing cost and compression. We calculated this by dividing the total FortiSIEM event file size (in \data) over one day by the total number of events on that day, and then averaging over a few days.

It is important to provision the NFS server with enough IOPS and network bandwidth for read and write of event data and where possible cater for peaks in EPS. It is recommended that NFS is provisioned with 10Gbit interfaces or higher and the FortiSIEM Super and Worker nodes to also be provisioned with 10Gbit interfaces to the NFS storage network.

The table below shows two scenarios – Worst case and Average case for NFS storage. In Worst case, Peak EPS and 150 Bytes/log is used. In the Average case, 0.5 Peak EPS and 100 Bytes/log is used.

Peak EPS

Storage (Months)

NFS Storage (TB)*

Worst caseAverage case

1000

12

5

1.66

1000

24

9

3

1000

36

14

4.66

2000

12

9

3

2000

24

19

6.33

2000

36

28

9.33

5000

12

23

7.66

5000

24

47

15.66

5000

36

70

23.33

10000

12

47

15.66

10000

24

93

31

10000

36

140

46.66

NFS Storage (TB):

  • Worst case = (Peak EPS*150*86400*30*Storage(Months))/10^12
  • Average case = (0.5*Peak EPS*100*86400*30*Storage(Months))/10^12

Recommended Sizing for Elasticsearch Based Deployment

note iconAdding or moving shards is easy but splitting is not possible. Plan ahead for shard sizing is very important.

Processing Requirement

Requirement

Recommendation

EPS

ES Configuration

Hardware per node (vCPU, RAM)

Elastic JVM RAM

Shards

Replica

Up to 1K - without Replica

All-in-one

(8,16GB)

8GB

5

0

Up to 1K - with Replica

3 node cluster

(8,16GB)

8GB

5

1

1K-5K - with Replica

3 node cluster

(8,64GB)

30GB

5

1

5K-10K - with Replica

Coordinating and Master Node

(8,32GB)

16GB

3 Data Nodes

(8,64GB)

30GB

5

1

10K-15K - with Replica

Coordinating Node

(16,32GB)

16GB

Master Node

(8,16GB)

8GB

3 Data Nodes

(16,64GB)

30GB

10

1

15K-25K - with Replica

Coordinating Node

(16,64GB)

30GB

Master Node

(8,16GB)

8GB

5 Data Nodes

(16,64GB)

30GB

15

1

25K-35K - with Replica

Coordinating Node

(16,64GB)

30GB

Master Node

(8,16GB)

8GB

7 Data Nodes

(16,64GB)

30GB

20

1

35K-45K - with Replica

Coordinating Node

(16,64GB)

30GB

Master Node

(8,16GB)

8GB

9 Data Nodes

(16,64GB)

30GB

25

1

Add 5K EPS - with Replica

Add 1 Data Node

(16,64GB)

30GB

Add 3 Shards

1

Storage Requirement for Elasticsearch

Elasticsearch consumes more storage than NFS because it indexes the data more heavily than FortiSIEM event database.

FortiSIEM Elasticsearch storage requirement depends on two factors:

  • EPS
  • Bytes/log mix in your environment

You are likely licensed for Peak EPS. Typically, EPS peaks during morning hours on weekdays and goes down dramatically after 2 pm on weekdays and also remains low on weekends. So the average EPS should be used to calculate storage needs.

For calculating Bytes/log, consider the following aspects:

  • Network devices and Linux servers tend to send shorter logs (150-200 bytes/log) while Windows Security logs tend to be much larger (500-1000 bytes/log).
  • Busy corporate firewalls and domain controllers tend to send much higher log volumes (higher EPS) than other systems, assuming they are sending all logs.
  • Database indices built on logs for efficient searching consumes significant storage as well.
  • ASCII text (syslog) compresses much better than binary (for example, Netflow)

Therefore, it is difficult to properly assume a specific Bytes/log mix in your environment without measurement. Our internal scalability test environment shows Bytes/log is around 1000 including all factors – device mix, log mix, indexing cost and compression. We calculated this by dividing the total Elasticsearch database file size (in \data) over one day by the total number of events on that day, and then averaging over a few days.

The table below shows two scenarios – Worst case and Average case for Storage/Cluster. In Worst case, Peak EPS and 1000 Bytes/log is used. In the average case, 0.5 Peak EPS is used. As we gather experience with more customers, we will publish average Bytes/log and update the Average storage requirements.

Peak EPSReplicaStorage (Months)Storage/Cluster (TB)
Worst caseAverage case
10000123115.5
10001126231
200011212462
5000112311155.5
1000016311155.5
1500016467233.5
2500013389194.5
5000013778389

Storage per Cluster (TB):

  • Worst case = (Peak EPS*1000*86400*Storage(Month)*30*(Replica+1))/10^12
  • Average case = (0.5*Peak EPS*1000*86400*Storage(Month)*30*(Replica+1))/10^12

FortiSIEM Sizing Information

This document provides information about the following topics:

Minimum Requirements

Browser Display

FortiSIEM, like most monitoring, SIEM and analytics tools, shows a lot of information on the screen at once. FortiSIEM HTML GUI has chosen a bigger font for legibility reasons. Hence, we recommend that users have a minimum 1680x1050 desktop display resolution.

Hardware

Minimum hardware requirements for FortiSIEM nodes are as follows.

Node vCPU RAM Local Disks
Supervisor (All in one) Minimum – 12
Recommended - 32

Minimum

  • without UEBA – 24GB
  • with UEBA - 32GB

Recommended

  • without UEBA – 32GB
  • with UEBA - 64GB

OS – 25GB

OPT – 100GB

CMDB – 60GB

SVN – 60GB

Local Event database – based on need

Supervisor (Cluster) Minimum – 12
Recommended - 32

Minimum

  • without UEBA – 24GB
  • with UEBA - 32GB

Recommended

  • without UEBA – 32GB
  • with UEBA - 64GB

OS – 25GB

OPT – 100GB

CMDB – 60GB

SVN – 60GB

Workers Minimum – 8
Recommended - 16

Minimum – 16GB

Recommended – 24GB

OS – 25GB

OPT – 100GB

Collector Minimum – 4
Recommended – 8 ( based on load)

Minimum – 4GB

Recommended – 8GB

OS – 25GB

OPT – 100GB

  • Supervisor VA needs more memory since it hosts many heavy-duty components such as Application Server (Java), PostGreSQL Database Server and Rule Master.
  • With Elasticsearch, Supervisor VA also hosts the Java Query Server component for communicating with Elasticsearch – hence the need for additional 8 GB memory.
  • For OPT - 100GB, the 100GB disk for /opt will consist of a single disk that will split into 2 partitions, /OPT and swap. The partitions will be created and managed by FortiSIEM when configFSM.sh runs.

Note that these are only the minimum requirements. The performance may improve by increasing vCPUs and RAM in certain situations. External storage depends on your EPS mix and the number of days of log storage needs. To provide more meaningful guidance, scalability tests were conducted as described below.

Internal Scalability Tests

FortiSIEM team performed several scalability tests described below.

Test Setup

  • A specific set of events were sent repeatedly to achieve the target EPS.
  • The target EPS was constant over time.
  • A set of Linux servers were monitored via SNMP and performance monitoring data was collected.
  • Events triggered many incidents.

Test Success Criteria

The following success criteria should be met on testing:

  • Incoming EPS must be sustained without any event loss.
  • Summary dashboards should be up to date and not fall behind.
  • Widget dashboards should show data indicating that inline reporting is keeping up.
  • Incidents should be up to date.
  • Real-time search should show current data and trend chart should reflect incoming EPS.
  • GUI navigation should be smooth.
  • CPU, memory and IOPS are not maxed out. Load average must be less than the number of cores.

The tests were run for three cases:

  • All-in-one FSM Hardware Appliance: FSM-2000F and FSM-3500F with collectors FSM-500F sending events.
  • FSM Virtual Appliance with FortiSIEM EventDB as the data store.
  • FSM Virtual Appliance with Elasticsearch as the data store.

Hardware Appliance EPS Test

The test beds were as follows:

The results are shown below:

Event Sender
FortiSIEM HW ApplianceCollector ModelCountEPS/CollectorSustained EPS without Loss
FSM-2000FFSM-500F35K15K
FSM-3500FFSM-500F48K30K

Virtual Appliance EPS Test with FortiSIEM Event Database

All tests were done in AWS. The following hardware was used.

Type AWS Instance Type Hardware Spec
Collector c4.xlarge 4vCPU, 7 GB RAM
Worker c4.2xlarge 8vCPU, 15 GB RAM
Super m4.4xlarge 16vCPU, 64 GB RAM, CMDB Disk 10K IOPS
NFS Server c4.2xlarge 8vCPU, 16 GB RAM, 10K IOPS

The test bed is as follows:

The following result shows 10K EPS sustained per Worker with over 20K CMDB Devices.

Event Sender Event Handler
Collector Count EPS/Collector Monitored Device/Collector Super Workers Orgs CMDB Device Sustained EPS without Loss
150 200 150 1 3 150 22,500 30K

Virtual Appliance EPS Test with Elasticsearch Database

All tests were done in AWS. The following hardware was used.

Type AWS Instance Type Hardware Spec
Collector c4.xlarge 4vCPU, 7 GB RAM
Worker c4.2xlarge 8vCPU, 15 GB RAM
Super m4.4xlarge 16vCPU, 64 GB RAM, CMDB Disk 10K IOPS
Elastic Search Master Node c3.2xlarge 8vCPU, 16 GB RAM with 8 GB JVM
Elastic Search Coordinating Node m5.4xlarge 16vCPU, 64 GB RAM with 30 GB JVM allocation
Elastic Search Data Node i3.4xlarge 16vCPU, 122 GB RAM, 1.9TBx2 NVMe SSD Instance-store Volumes, 30 GB JVM

The test bed was as follows:

The following result shows 5K EPS sustained per Data Node with over 20K CMDB Devices.

Event SenderEvent Handler
Collector CountEPS/ CollectorMonitored Device/ CollectorSuperWorkersElastic (M/CO/DN/ Shards)*OrgsCMDB DeviceSustained EPS without Loss
150200150131/1/5/1015022,50030K
* M = Elasticsearch Master, CO = Elasticsearch Co-ordinator, DN = Elasticsearch Data Node

Recommended Sizing for FortiSIEM Event DB Based Deployment

Processing Requirement

RequirementRecommendation
EPSDeploymentHW ModelSW Configuration
NodesHW Per Node (vCPU, RAM)NFS IOPS
Up to 5KHardwareFSM-2000F
Up to 5KSoftware All-in-one16,24GB
5K – 10KHardwareFSM-2000F
5K – 10KSoftware Supervisor16,24GB
1 Worker8,16GB2000
10K – 15KHardwareFSM-3500F
10K – 15KSoftware Supervisor16,24GB
2 Workers8,16GB3000
15K – 25KHardwareFSM-3500F
15K – 25KSoftware Supervisor16,24GB
3 Workers16,16GB5000
25K – 35KSoftware Supervisor16,24GB
4 Workers16,16GB7000
Add 10K EPSSoftware Add 1 Worker16,16GBAdd 2000 IOPS

Storage Requirement for FortiSIEM EventDB

FortiSIEM storage requirement depends on three factors:

  • EPS
  • Bytes/log mix in your environment
  • Compression ratio (8:1)

You are likely licensed for Peak EPS. Typically, EPS peaks during morning hours on weekdays and goes down dramatically after 2 pm on weekdays and also remains low on weekends. So the average EPS should be used to calculate storage needs.

For calculating Bytes/log, consider the following aspects:

  • Network devices and Linux servers tend to send shorter logs (150-200 bytes/log) while Windows Security logs tend to be much larger (500-1000 bytes/log).
  • Busy corporate firewalls and domain controllers tend to send much higher log volumes (higher EPS) than other systems, assuming they are sending all logs.
  • Database indices built on logs for efficient searching consumes significant storage as well.
  • ASCII text (syslog) compresses much better than binary (for example, Netflow)

Therefore, it is difficult to properly assume a specific Bytes/log mix in your environment without measurement. Our experience from sampling of 5 large customers has shown that Bytes/log is between 100-150 including all factors – device mix, log mix, indexing cost and compression. We calculated this by dividing the total FortiSIEM event file size (in \data) over one day by the total number of events on that day, and then averaging over a few days.

It is important to provision the NFS server with enough IOPS and network bandwidth for read and write of event data and where possible cater for peaks in EPS. It is recommended that NFS is provisioned with 10Gbit interfaces or higher and the FortiSIEM Super and Worker nodes to also be provisioned with 10Gbit interfaces to the NFS storage network.

The table below shows two scenarios – Worst case and Average case for NFS storage. In Worst case, Peak EPS and 150 Bytes/log is used. In the Average case, 0.5 Peak EPS and 100 Bytes/log is used.

Peak EPS

Storage (Months)

NFS Storage (TB)*

Worst caseAverage case

1000

12

5

1.66

1000

24

9

3

1000

36

14

4.66

2000

12

9

3

2000

24

19

6.33

2000

36

28

9.33

5000

12

23

7.66

5000

24

47

15.66

5000

36

70

23.33

10000

12

47

15.66

10000

24

93

31

10000

36

140

46.66

NFS Storage (TB):

  • Worst case = (Peak EPS*150*86400*30*Storage(Months))/10^12
  • Average case = (0.5*Peak EPS*100*86400*30*Storage(Months))/10^12

Recommended Sizing for Elasticsearch Based Deployment

note iconAdding or moving shards is easy but splitting is not possible. Plan ahead for shard sizing is very important.

Processing Requirement

Requirement

Recommendation

EPS

ES Configuration

Hardware per node (vCPU, RAM)

Elastic JVM RAM

Shards

Replica

Up to 1K - without Replica

All-in-one

(8,16GB)

8GB

5

0

Up to 1K - with Replica

3 node cluster

(8,16GB)

8GB

5

1

1K-5K - with Replica

3 node cluster

(8,64GB)

30GB

5

1

5K-10K - with Replica

Coordinating and Master Node

(8,32GB)

16GB

3 Data Nodes

(8,64GB)

30GB

5

1

10K-15K - with Replica

Coordinating Node

(16,32GB)

16GB

Master Node

(8,16GB)

8GB

3 Data Nodes

(16,64GB)

30GB

10

1

15K-25K - with Replica

Coordinating Node

(16,64GB)

30GB

Master Node

(8,16GB)

8GB

5 Data Nodes

(16,64GB)

30GB

15

1

25K-35K - with Replica

Coordinating Node

(16,64GB)

30GB

Master Node

(8,16GB)

8GB

7 Data Nodes

(16,64GB)

30GB

20

1

35K-45K - with Replica

Coordinating Node

(16,64GB)

30GB

Master Node

(8,16GB)

8GB

9 Data Nodes

(16,64GB)

30GB

25

1

Add 5K EPS - with Replica

Add 1 Data Node

(16,64GB)

30GB

Add 3 Shards

1

Storage Requirement for Elasticsearch

Elasticsearch consumes more storage than NFS because it indexes the data more heavily than FortiSIEM event database.

FortiSIEM Elasticsearch storage requirement depends on two factors:

  • EPS
  • Bytes/log mix in your environment

You are likely licensed for Peak EPS. Typically, EPS peaks during morning hours on weekdays and goes down dramatically after 2 pm on weekdays and also remains low on weekends. So the average EPS should be used to calculate storage needs.

For calculating Bytes/log, consider the following aspects:

  • Network devices and Linux servers tend to send shorter logs (150-200 bytes/log) while Windows Security logs tend to be much larger (500-1000 bytes/log).
  • Busy corporate firewalls and domain controllers tend to send much higher log volumes (higher EPS) than other systems, assuming they are sending all logs.
  • Database indices built on logs for efficient searching consumes significant storage as well.
  • ASCII text (syslog) compresses much better than binary (for example, Netflow)

Therefore, it is difficult to properly assume a specific Bytes/log mix in your environment without measurement. Our internal scalability test environment shows Bytes/log is around 1000 including all factors – device mix, log mix, indexing cost and compression. We calculated this by dividing the total Elasticsearch database file size (in \data) over one day by the total number of events on that day, and then averaging over a few days.

The table below shows two scenarios – Worst case and Average case for Storage/Cluster. In Worst case, Peak EPS and 1000 Bytes/log is used. In the average case, 0.5 Peak EPS is used. As we gather experience with more customers, we will publish average Bytes/log and update the Average storage requirements.

Peak EPSReplicaStorage (Months)Storage/Cluster (TB)
Worst caseAverage case
10000123115.5
10001126231
200011212462
5000112311155.5
1000016311155.5
1500016467233.5
2500013389194.5
5000013778389

Storage per Cluster (TB):

  • Worst case = (Peak EPS*1000*86400*Storage(Month)*30*(Replica+1))/10^12
  • Average case = (0.5*Peak EPS*1000*86400*Storage(Month)*30*(Replica+1))/10^12