The specifications below may change if your BigFix deployment uses an advanced configuration like a separate SQL Server, a separate Web Reports Server, a SAN (Storage Area Network) or DSA (Distributed Server Architecture). Please contact Bigfix Technical Support for assistance with an advanced configuration.
Click here for BigFix Server requirements for evaluation installations.
Click here for BigFix Console requirements.
SQL Standard edition is usually sufficient for smaller deployments with fewer than 50,000 computers. For more information please refer to the this Microsoft KB article:
http://www.microsoft.com/Sqlserver/2005/en/us/compare-features.aspx
Note: Always apply the latest service pack and hotfixes for SQL Server and Windows Operating Systems.
Click here for the Support Policy page with more details on supported Operating Systems and SQL Server configurations.
The values listed below are recommended hardware specifications that will provide good performance for similar sized deployments of BigFix. If your deployment will have over 100 BigFix Console Operators you should consider raising your hardware specifications to the next higher scale to support the large number of users or contact Bigfix Technical Support for more help in selecting hardware.
For best performance, use the following recommendations:
| Deployment Size | CPU | Memory | Hard Disks |
| < 250 | 2-3 GHz | 2 GB | Standard HD |
| 1,000 | 2-3 GHz - 2 Cores | 4 GB | 1 RAID Array (RAID 10, 5) |
| 10,000 | 2-3 GHz - 2-4 Cores | 8 GB | 1-2 RAID Arrays (RAID 10) |
| 50,000 | 2-3 GHz - 4 Cores | 16 GB | 2 RAID Arrays (RAID 10) |
| 100,000 | 2-3 GHz - 4-8 Cores | 16-32 GB | 2 RAID Arrays (RAID 10) |
| > 200,000 | 2-3+ GHz - 8-16 Cores | 32-64 GB | 3 RAID Arrays (RAID 10) |
Note: RAID arrays must support using the disk cache for both reading and writing. The disk cache should be set to 50/50 read write.
See Recommended RAID Configurations for more information.
The Hard Disk configurations listed above are focused on providing high performance disks for the database and BigFix Server. The physical capacity needed for BigFix is generally considered very small. A minimum of 5 GB free disk space is needed by the database, data files, and the file caches to run BigFix. It is recommended that an additional 20-50 GB of disk space be available for flexibility for administrative tasks like database backups and to allow for growth.
Multiple RAID arrays normally provide more than enough disk space for BigFix so capacity concerns aren't common.
The BigFix Server is the central communication hub of a BigFix deployment and should be positioned in a data center with a high-speed network connection.
BigFix Server network speed recommendations:
For deployments over 25,000 seats, please consider using teamed network cards or 1 GB connections to provide optimal network throughput for the BigFix Server.
In BigFix 7.1 and up, you can enable a feature to encrypt BigFix Client reports. The BigFix Server and BigFix Relay infrastructure will need to use additional CPU resources to decrypt these documents. If you anticipate use of the message level encryption feature, BigFix recommends the following additional CPU requirements on the BigFix Server.
| Deployment Size | CPU |
| < 250 | 2-3 GHz - 2 Cores |
| 1,000 | 2-3 GHz - 2-4 Cores |
| 10,000 | 2-3 GHz - 4 Cores |
| 50,000 | 2-3 GHz - 4-8 Cores |
| 100,000 | 2-3 GHz - 8-16 Cores |
| > 200,000 | 2-3+ GHz - 16 Cores |
Note: If your deployment is over 50,000 seats or you are using an encryption key strength of 2048 or 4096 you should also create decrypting top level BigFix Relays with 2-4 CPU cores each.