Choosing Instance Type and Sizing

There are a range of specifications to choose from and this page will help guide through those choices.

Supported EC2 Instance Types

An instance type will depend on the expected network throughput as well as the types of services the Netgate® appliance will provide.

The available instance types are those that support ENA network adapters. These include all C5 and M5 instance types. The type of C5 or M5 instance depends on the needs of a given network. For networks with a large number of subnets in the VPC or for networks that expect high throughput, one of the larger instance types is likely to be more appropriate.

Warning

Avoid using TNSR with spot instances as they are not persistent and can lead to instability.

For information on bandwidth limits and limits on the number of Network Interfaces and IP addresses for different instance types, see the following links:

• https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/

• https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/using-eni.html#AvailableIpPerENI

In environments where the requirements are unclear, start with c5.xlarge and migrate to a different instance type later as necessary.

Sizing the Storage

For general purpose routers, storage requirements will typically be small and the default 10GB volume should be sufficient.

In situations where the appliance may be customized with additional local software, or other advanced features outside of TNSR, consider increasing the volume size to something more appropriate, for example 64GB.