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Barracuda RMM
formerly Managed Workplace
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Service Center Requirements - Hosting Provider

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Service Center is resource-intensive. This means production systems should be dedicated to Barracuda RMM. Sharing a server with other applications results in contention for resources, particularly memory and disk throughput, which can significantly impact the performance of all applications on the server.

Memory and disk space requirements listed in this section must be dedicated to Service Center, so additional resources are required for the server operating system and any other roles performed.

Best Practices
  • For easier scaling as you grow your usage of Barracuda RMM, it is recommended that you implement a two-server deployment.
  • To reduce the possibility of data loss, store database backups on another
  • system or device in addition to the SQL server.
  • It is not recommended to install Service Center on Exchange servers or Hyper-V hosts, as these systems are typically extremely busy, and an installation could result in resource contention.
  • Additionally, it is not recommended that you install Service Center on domain controllers, which can pose a security risk.

The storage space required for the database, database backups, and transaction logs will vary based on product usage, including the number of sites and devices monitored, monitoring configurations, and data retention settings.

Component
Hardware Minimums
CPU
  • 2.8 GHz dual core
System Memory 
Network Load Balancing
  • Hardware based network load balancer
Network Load Balancer

With the implementation of multiple Application Servers, load balancing is required to balance incoming requests across all Application Servers.

Load-balancing is driven by a unique virtual IP address that is typically associated with a specific URL. The hardware servers that will be hosting the content for the virtual IP address or URL will be configured in a server farm associated with the virtual IP address.

There are a number of predictor algorithms that handle the load-balancing. The following two methods can be easily deployed:

  • Round Robin is a static load-balancing predictor in which servers receive connections on a strictly rotating basis, ignoring server weight. After a server receives a connection, it moves to the bottom of the connection queue.
  • Least Connections is a dynamic load-balancing predictor in which network traffic patterns are considered. The load-balancer determines which server has the fewest connections and then forwards the incoming service request to it.

In order to function as expected the load balancer must be configured to use the persistence method source-address affinity (also known as sticky sessions). Using this method means the load balancer creates a record in memory noting to which server the requests were made for each originating IP address. All future requests from the same originating IP address will be forwarded to the same application server. A timeout may be specified so that these records are not kept forever.

Caution

If you have installed Service Center as new websites rather than virtual directories, you will need to either provision a NLB capable of having security certificates installed on it directly, or purchase the more expensive wild card certificates, which authenticate all sub-Domains for a Domain.

The Hosted Service Center database server require the following:

  • Minimum hardware requirements as listed in the table below:
Component
Hardware Minimums
CPU
  • 2 x 2.8 GHz quad core
System Memory
  • 8 GB
Storage
  • A SAN is required to avoid controller
    bottlenecks.
    • Logical Unit 1: System, Service Center application files, SQL Master database, SQL TempDB, SCMaster.MDF, ReportServer
    • Logical Unit 2 RAID-10: (6 disks): SCData_Default.MDF, MWSessionState
    • Logical Unit 3 RAID-0 (Simple Recovery) or RAID-10 (Full Recovery): (4 disks): SCData_Default.LDF, ReportServerTempDB
Software

All the software listed in this section has passed performance testing with Barracuda RMM. While it may be possible to install on other flavors of Windows or other required applications, it is not recommended because support may be limited for any products not explicitly listed.

Installation

The following installer is required:

  • Windows Installer 4.5
Operating System

Barracuda RMM will install natively for 64-bit versions of the server operating system only. All required software components must be installed in 64-bit mode. The following operating systems are supported:

  • Microsoft Windows Server 2022 (Standard, Datacenter, and Datacenter Azure edition)
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2019 (Standard and Enterprise)
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2016 (Standard and Datacenter)
Application Framework

The following application framework is required:

  • Microsoft .NET Framework 4.8 and Advanced Services or higher
Web Framework

The following web framework is required:

  • ASP.NET Core 3.1

Web Server
The following web servers are supported:

  • Microsoft Internet Information Services 7.5, 8, and 8.5
  • When using SSL with IIS 7.x, the web server must be configured to ignore client certificates. This is the default setting.
Database Server

Several versions of Microsoft SQL Server are supported, but the recommended version is Microsoft SQL Server 2019.

The following database servers are supported:

  • Microsoft SQL 2022
  • Microsoft SQL 2019 (Recommended)
  • Microsoft SQL 2016

 

Important
  • Virtualization of SQL Server with Barracuda RMM is not supported because of performance concerns for CPU and disk performance. Barracuda RMM heavily relies on SQL Server for data loading, reporting, and high speed transactions, therefore it is recommended that you do not virtualize the SQL Server to ensure that the system is responsive, performs well, and to reduce complexity in deployment and troubleshooting. Data Centers typically encourage real hardware except where databases serve light applications such as blogs.
  • For performance and management reasons, the Service Center databases should be housed in its own database instance on a dedicated system.

Microsoft SQL Server 2016 SP2 Feature pack is installed on application servers as part of installations/upgrade

Mail Server

Barracuda RMM will work with any SMTP server. Authentication and port options are configurable.

Web Browser
  • Microsoft Edge
  • Google Chrome current version
  • Mozilla Firefox current version
  • Safari (Mac OS and iOS - partial)
Network Requirements

The following lists the networking requirements for Service Center:

80 TCP inbound Access to the VARAdmin, SCMessaging and SC websites over HTTP.

80 TCP outbound Access to the license server and WSUS meta data server.

443 TCP inbound Access to the VARAdmin, SCMessaging and SC websites over HTTPS.

Firewall exceptions for the SCMonitor.exe and SCworker.exe applications must be made on each application server to allow for communications on all TCP ports where the source IP Addresses are those of the other application servers.

Required External Sites for Barracuda RMM

The following table outlines the external sites that must be allowed by security products for Barracuda RMM to function properly.

In addition to these sites, the URL where Service Center is installed must be accessible for communication between Onsite Manager, Device Managers, and managed devices.

Site
Service Center
Onsite Manager
Device Manager
Technician's computer

https://support.barracudamsp.com/Knowledge_Base/Managed_Workplace_(RMM)

Links to Knowledge Base articles

X   

https://wl.msp1services.com/lookup.php

Warranty lookup service

X   

https://www.update.microsoft.com

Patch metadata, wuident.cab

XX  

http://ds.download.windowsupdate.com

Windows self update URL

 X  

http://download.mw-rmm.barracudamsp.com/

Update Center components, initial patch metadata, Service Center online help

XXX 

https://whatsmyip.mw-rmm.barracudamsp.com/

Whats My IP service

 X  

ls-service.mw-rmm.barracudamsp.com
(RMM 2022.1 and higher)
lplic.levelplatforms.com  

License service, telemetry service, Service Center locator

XXX 

https://updatecenter.mw-rmm.barracudamsp.com/UpdateCenterService/
(RMM 2023.1 and higher)
www.levelplatforms.com

Update center metadata

X   

https://www.islonline.net/ download

PRC Viewer and Server

XXXX

https://download.microsoft.com

Used by setup to download required components (prerequisites)

XXX 

https://sws.update.microsoft.com

Used to connect to Microsoft patch management

XX  

wsus.ds.download.windowsupdate.com

Used in the bits-client log

 XX 
Required for Advanced Software Management
https://content.ivanti.com
Provides patch bulletin metadata.		XXX 
Required External Sites for Avast Business Antivirus Pro Plus

If you’re using Avast Business Antivirus Pro Plus, the following external sites must be allowed by security products:

  • *.avast.com
  • *.avcdn.net
Required External Sites for Service Modules

If you’re using a service module, consult the documentation for the integrated program for any external sites that are required for communication.