MID Server system requirements
-
- UpdatedAug 1, 2024
- 9 minutes to read
- Xanadu
- MID Server
Use these minimum system requirements to allocate resources for computers hosting MID Servers.
 |
MID Server supported systems
- Windows server
- To discover Windows-based servers, run Service Mapping
patterns, or execute Orchestration commands on Windows devices, the MID Server must be
installed on a Windows server. The MID Server supports these Windows
operating systems, including virtual machines and 64-bit systems:
- Windows Server 2012
- Windows Server 2016
- Windows Server 2019
- Windows Server 2022
- Linux
- The MID Server is supported on these Linux versions
for virtual machines and 64-bit systems:
- Linux Red Hat 6 and above
- Ubuntu 1404 (Ubuntu 14) and above
- CentOS 7 and above
- CentOS 7
- Windows server 2008
- Windows server 2008 R2
- Windows 8
- Windows 10
Security requirements
To meet high security standards, the MID Server performs x.509 certificate validation on HTTPS traffic when connecting to ServiceNow®. If a network appliance or proxy exists between the MID Server and the instance, that appliance needs to present a digital certificate signed by a trusted CA. If you are using a self-signed certificate or a certificate signed by an internal CA, import the certificate to the MID Server trust store. For more information on adding SSL certificates, see Add SSL certificates for the MID Server.
OCSP connectivity requirements
The Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) is the protocol used to determine the revocation status of SSL/TLS certificates. When certificates are exchanged and validated, the MID Server needs to determine if the certificate has been revoked and shouldn't be trusted.
OCSP works by using a client, such as a MID Server, to receive a certificate from an HTTP website. The client sends a request to an OCSP responder: a server operated by the certificate authority (CA) that issued the certificate. The OCSP responder’s response to the client indicates whether the certificate is valid or has been revoked.
In order to connect, the MID Server requires access to:
- *.service-now.com or <instance_name>.service-now.com
- install.service-now.com
- http://ocsp.entrust.net
- http://ocsp.digicert.com (or other CA OCSP Responder)
While SSL/TLS certificates are always issued with an expiration date, there are certain circumstances in which a certificate must be revoked before it expires (for example, if its associated private key may have been compromised). Therefore, the current validity of a website’s certificate must always be checked by clients regardless of its expiry date.
Clients fail a connection when they can’t check the revocation status of a certificate. Firewalls and proxy configurations may block calls to the OCSP Entrust and DigiCert servers, which prevents the MID Server from working. You may need to change your firewall permissions so that the OCSP traffic goes through. For more information and resolutions, see the HI Knowledge Base article [KB1216223].
PowerShell requirements
The MID Server requires the minimum PowerShell version 3.0 and supports versions up to PowerShell 5.1. See Microsoft's documentation for more information about PowerShell requirements. To find your current PowerShell version using the instance, go to ecc_agent_list.do. Using the Update Personalize List gear icon, add Host PowerShell Version to the Selected column. Then sort the list of MID Servers by their PowerShell version to find outdated MID Servers. Alternatively, you can find the PowerShell version on the host machine by using the command $Host.Version in the host's PowerShell console. The PowerShell version is listed as PSVersion.
Java version support
Java 11.0.17 is bundled with the MID Server installer package and is installed on the host for all new MID Servers. The installer automatically configures Java 11.0.17 to run in your environment. No additional configuration is required. This version supports both 64-bit Windows MID Servers and 64-bit Linux MID Servers. The MID Server requires a minimum JRE version 11.0.8, and recommended version 11.0.17. If you are using a lower version than 11.0.8, you may see encryption related issues.
Testing showed that the MID Server works as expected with Oracle Java 11 version 11.0.5. If you need to upgrade the JRE to a different version, then coordinate with the appropriate account representative for support.
- MID Servers upgraded from earlier versions use the OpenJDK provided with the MID Server installer. This version of the OpenJDK was tested and certified for use with these MID Servers.
- MID Servers upgraded on any other operating system versions also automatically upgrade the JRE to the version provided with the installation package.
yum install
glibc.i686MID Server JRE downgrade support
If the ServiceNow® instance is downgraded from Quebec, then the MID Server is also downgraded. However, the JRE may not be downgraded unless the instance is downgraded to one of the following patches.
- New York Patch 12
- Orlando Patch 9
- Paris Patch 3
If the MID Server is downgraded from Quebec to a different patch than specified, follow the instructions in Install Java 11 on MID Servers [KB0752451].
Java Service Wrapper
The MID Server installer includes the Tanuki Software Java Service Wrapper, version 3.5.40.
Setting the JVM Memory size
The MID Server installs with 1 GB of JVM memory. If the suggested memory size for your product is greater than 1 GB, see Set the MID Server JVM memory size for the procedure to override the default setting.
Deployment types
System requirements for your instance are determined by the needs of the individual products you use that require a MID Server. Some applications, such as Health Log Analytics, have additional system requirements listed in their documentation.
- Standard deployments
- The following products are considered "standard" because their MID Servers share the same minimum disk space and memory requirements:
- Discovery
- Event Management
- Integrations
- Orchestration
- Service Mapping
The minimum standard requirements pertain to both a single product and a combined product deployment. You can deploy a single MID Server for multiple standard products without significantly increasing the disk or memory requirements.
- High resource deployments
Cloud Management Platform (CMP) and Operational Intelligence are processing intensive and require more resources for each MID Server than the standard products. Install MID Servers for these products on dedicated hosts that do not support MID Servers for other products.
Recommended MID Server minimum requirements
- The size of the customer infrastructure and specific function (Capability) MID Server is configured to perform.
- The number of MID Servers installed on the host.
- The number of threads per MID Server.
- The number and nature of other applications running on MID Server host.
- Architectural and design enhancements over ServiceNow releases. For example, using PowerShell for Windows Discovery in Orlando or changing default Java Garbage Collection policy in Quebec.
As a result, there is no one size requirement that fits for all MID Server deployments. The following documented sizing guidelines can be a starting point for deployments. However, customers need to monitor MID Server performance and resource utilization continuously, then tune and scale up their MID Servers as needed.
- MID Server minimum system requirements
The minimum CPU configuration required for a MID Server is a quad core processor with a speed of 2+ GHz for a Windows Server 2012 R2 host with a single MID Server deployed and with standard configuration of 25 concurrent threads.
- MID Server CPU utilization
Most of the MID Server applications, such as Discovery, are designed for maximizing their performance which results in maximizing the resource utilization for the MID Server. As a result, some customers might observe very high CPU utilization segments in the range of 90-100% while the MID Server is running Discovery schedules or similar applications.
The very high CPU utilization segments should not be a cause for concern because it aligns with architectural design of maximizing the throughput and does not have any negative impact on the Discovery performance. The MID Server host’s resource utilization automatically returns to normal after the Discovery execution successfully stops.
Customers who notice frequent and long very high CPU utilization segments should avoid:- Running more than one MID Server on same host when these MID Servers are expected to process active workloads at the same time, such as overlapping Discovery schedules.
- Sharing the MID Server host with other applications.
- Configuring performance alerts, which are purely based on CPU utilization, on MID Server host. If required, these alerts need to be used in conjunction with other performance monitors.
- Configuring additional performance monitoring on MID Server host
While CPU utilization on MID Server is a good indicator of load on the host, it gives only limited visibility. Additional monitoring with System Processor Queue Length on Windows Operating Systems and Load Averages on UNIX Operating Systems is crucial.
- Processor Queue Length (Windows OS): the number of threads that are ready but currently unable to run on the processor due to another active thread. A bottleneck on the processor may occur where the number of threads in the queue is more than twice the number of processor cores over a continuous period.
- Load Averages (Unix OS): the average system load on a Linux server for a defined period. It is the CPU demand on a server that includes sum of the running and the waiting threads. Typically, the top or the uptime command provides the load average of the server with output.
MID Server CPU Performance Case Studies
- The impact of modifying number of MAX threads on MID Server CPU utilization
Based on internal benchmarking, the following is sample data for MID Server CPU utilization while running Cloud Discovery for 10,000 servers.
In these tests, the maximum CPU utilization was observed to be 100% independent of number of threads and OS. The average CPU utilization was observed to be proportional to number of threads. Increasing number of threads did not necessarily result in immediate CPU pressure. Increasing the number of threads from the default 25 to 50 did not create additional CPU pressure, as shown by the max processor queue length. However, increasing the max threads value to 100 caused a significant increase in processor queue length, indicating CPU pressure.
- The impact of sharing MID Server with other applications or MID Servers on CPU utilization
Running Discovery is a CPU intensive operation for MID Server. Deploying other applications or MID Servers on same host creates additional CPU pressure on the host. This pressure results in a performance impact for running applications, including the MID Server. The following examples are sample CPU utilization data points for MID Server with different load patterns:
Dedicated host for a single MID Server: the average CPU usage is 48%.
Host shared between a MID Server and another application with moderate load: the average CPU usage is 77%.
Host shared between a MID Server and another application with heavy load: the average CPU usage is 97%.
- Scaling up MID Server and its impact on MID Server CPU resource utilization
When the MID Server is heavily constrained on CPU resources, scaling up the MID Server host, by adding more CPUs, helps ease resource pressure. However, this may not necessarily eliminate the very high CPU usage segments. MID Server applications like Discovery, which are designed for maximizing the performance, will continue to use additional available CPU resources. The following examples are sample CPU utilization data points for a 4 CPU MID Server host and an 8 CPU MID Server host running same Discovery schedules:
Parameter 4 CPU 8 CPU Average CPU% 48% 28% Max CPU % 98% 98% MID Server CPU utilization when deployed on a 4 CPU host:
MID Server CPU utilization when deployed on an 8 CPU host:
Monitoring performance
To ensure that the MID Server resource allocations are sufficient for your environment, monitor performance during peak periods of product execution from the MID Server dashboard.
On this page
- MID Server supported systems
- Security requirements
- OCSP connectivity requirements
- PowerShell requirements
- Java version support
- MID Server JRE downgrade support
- Java Service Wrapper
- Setting the JVM Memory size
- Deployment types
- Recommended MID Server minimum requirements
- MID Server CPU Performance Case Studies
- Monitoring performance
Related Content
- MID Server upgrades
Upgrade MID Servers manually, or automatically through the instance. MID Server automatic upgrade is triggered when the instance upgrades and the MID Server no longer has the same version. The new MID Server package is downloaded from install.service-now.com, replaces the old one, and the MID Server starts with the new version.
- Resolving MID Server issues
Troubleshoot problems with the MID Server to find solutions. Monitor the MID Server to receive alerts about issues as they occur. Troubleshooting procedures exist to resolve specific problems with the MID Server. The Knowledge Base on Hi contains several articles to help you troubleshoot MID Server issues.
- MID Server dashboard
The MID Server dashboard is a central place for MID Server users to monitor ongoing operations. The dashboard consists of reports and gauges that display information from the MID Server Status table.
- MID Server properties
Properties control the behavior of all MID Servers or a particular MID Server.
- MID Server parameters
Parameters control the behavior of a particular MID Server and have lower precedence than MID Server properties.
- MID Server Configuration Parameter settings and priority
The MID Server's settings reside in multiple tables and the MID Server prioritizes them in a set order. MIDConfigParameter must be defined with the correct type-style builders.
- MID Server File Cleaner
A monitor thread runs in the MID Server to clean up old files, to keep the size and quantity of files within the install folder manageable, and to prevent performance issues with the MID Servers.
- MID Server protected records and reserved characters
Some MID Server records cannot be altered. Certain special characters are pre-defined in XML and cannot be used in passwords.
- MID Server privileged commands
To discover certain information on a host server, the MID Server must run SSH commands with higher privileges. The platform provides default privileged commands for the MID Server to use and the ability to add additional commands to the system.
- MIDSystem methods
MIDSystem variables (referred to by the variable name ms.) provide a variety of methods to get information about the MID Server.
- Manually start, stop, and restart a MID Server
If you did not start the MID Server at the end of the installation procedure, you can manually start the MID Server.
- MID Server heartbeat
The instance checks the MID Server for a response every 5 minutes, using a synthetic transaction monitoring system.
- Set the MID Server JVM memory size
The MID Server starts with a default JVM memory allocation, but you can modify this setting in the configuration file.
- Pause the MID Server
Pause the MID Server to temporarily prevent it from polling the ECC Queue for work or sending Discovery results back to the instance.