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Table Of Contents
VMware, Inc. 15
Chapter 2 Planning an ACE Management Server Deployment
Network Bandwidth and Policy Update Frequency
TheamountofnetworkbandwidththatACEManagementServ erandACEinstancesrequiredependsonthe
frequencyofpolicyupdatesthatyouconfigure.Table 23showstheamountofbandwidthneededwhenyou
useapolicyupdatefrequencyvalueof10 minutes.
VMwarerecommendsthatforlargedeployments(morethan5,000clients),
youincreasethetimebetween
policyupdatesbyclientsbecausethisreducestheamountofrequiredbandwidth.
Table 24showsthebandwidthneededwhenthepolicyupdatefrequencyvalueissetto30minutes.
Theamountofnetworkbandwidthrequiredcanalsobehigherifyourpolicysetisverycomplex.
VMware
recommendsthatyouhaveaseparatenetworklinkbetweenACEManagementServerandyour
databaseserver,sothattrafficcomingandgoingfromACEManagementServertoitsclientsdoesnotinterfere
withthetraffictoandfromyourdatabaseserver.
ACE Policy Configuration
TheconfigurationofACEpoliciescanaffectperformance.Youcanincreasetheamountofdatathatis
transferredbetweenACEManagementServerandACEPlayerbyusingoneofthefollowingmethods:
HostpoliciesEnablinghostpolicies(suchashostnetworkquarantine)requiresthatahostsidedaemon
retrievesthehostpoliciesfromtheACEManagementServer.
ComplexnetworkquarantinepoliciesIfthesetofrulesthatmakesupyournetworkquarantineisvery
large,thetransferoftheserulesfromtheACEManagementServertotheclientscanaffectthescalability.
ThenumbersshowninTable 23andTable 24areestimatesofrequiredbandwidthgiven
averagesize
rulesetsfornetworkquarantine.YoucanviewthesizeofyourpolicysetbyexaminingtheACEfile
directoryandcountingthesizeofthe.vmplfile.Anaveragepolicysetis15KBorless.
Load Balancers
TheACEManagementServerclientserverprotocolisbuiltontopoftheHTTPSprotocol.YoucanuseHTTP
loadbalancingsoftwareandhardwaresolutionstoscaleanACEManagementServerdeploymentbeyondthe
capacityofasingleserver(orforhighavailabilitydeployments).
ACEManagementServerscalesinalinear
fashionwhenanenterprisegradeHTTPSloadbalancerisused.See
Chapter 5,“LoadBalancingMultipleACEManagementServerInstances,”onpage 37.
Table 2-3. Network Bandwidth Required with a Policy Update Frequency of 10 Minutes
Number of Clients Bandwidth Required
100 0.125Mb/sec.
1,000 1.25Mb/sec.
10,000 12.5Mb/sec.
Table 2-4. Network Bandwidth Required with a Policy Update Frequency of 30 Minutes
Number of Clients Bandwidth Required
100 0.04Mb/sec.
1,000 0.4Mb/sec.
10,000 4Mb/sec.