Deploy the ExtraHop Explore Appliance in AWS
In this guide, you will learn how to launch the ExtraHop Explore appliance AMI in your Amazon Web Services (AWS) environment, and join multiple Explore appliances to create an Explore cluster.
System requirements
Your environment must meet the following requirements to deploy a virtual Explore appliance in AWS:
- An AWS account
- Access to the Amazon Machine Image of the ExtraHop Explore appliance
- An Explore appliance product key
- A m4.2xlarge instance type in AWS
- A datastore size between 186 GiB (200 GB) and 2328 GiB (2.5 TB)
Important: | If you want to deploy more than one ExtraHop virtual appliance, create the new instance with the original deployment package or clone an existing instance that has never been started. |
Create the Explore instance in AWS
Before you begin
The Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) of ExtraHop appliances are not publicly shared. Before you can start the deployment procedure, you must send your AWS account ID to support@extrahop.com. Your account ID will be linked to the ExtraHop AMIs.Configure the Explore appliance
After you obtain the IP address for the Explore appliance, log into the Explore Admin UI through the following URL: https://<explore_ip_address>/admin and complete the following recommended procedures.
Register an ExtraHop system in AWS
Complete the following steps to apply a product key supplied by ExtraHop Support in an AWS environment.
If you do not have a product key, contact your ExtraHop account team.
Tip: | To verify that your environment can resolve DNS entries for the
ExtraHop licensing server, open a terminal application on your Windows, Linux, or
Mac OS client and run the following
command:nslookup -type=NS d.extrahop.com If the name
resolution is successful, output similar to the following
appears:
Non-authoritative answer: d.extrahop.com nameserver = ns0.use.d.extrahop.com. d.extrahop.com nameserver = ns0.usw.d.extrahop.com. |
Configure the system time
The NTP Status table displays a list of NTP servers that keep the system clock in sync. To sync the current system time a remote server, click the Sync Now button.
Configure email notifications
You must configure an email server and sender before the ExtraHop appliance can send notifications about system alerts by email.
You can receive the following alerts from the system:
- A virtual disk is in a degraded state.
- A physical disk is in a degraded state.
- A physical disk has an increasing error count.
- A registered Explore node is missing from the cluster. The node might have failed, or is powered off.
Create an Explore cluster
If you are deploying more than one Explore appliance, join the appliances together to create a cluster. For optimal performance, we recommend that you set up three or more Explore appliances in a cluster to take advantage of data redundancy.
In the following example, the Explore appliances have the following IP addresses:
- Node 1: 10.20.227.177
- Node 2: 10.20.227.178
- Node 3: 10.20.227.179
You will join nodes 2 and 3 to node 1 to create the Explore cluster.
Important: | Each node that you join must have the same configuration (physical or virtual) and ExtraHop firmware version. |
Connect the Explore appliance to Discover and Command appliances
After you deploy the Explore appliance, you must establish a connection from all ExtraHop Discover and Command appliances to the Explore appliance before you can query records.
Important: | If you have an Explore cluster of three or more Explore nodes, connect the Discover appliance to each Explore node so that the Discover appliance can distribute the workload across the entire Explore cluster. |
Note: | If you manage all of your Discover appliances from a Command appliance, you only need to perform this procedure from the Command appliance. |
Next steps
Important: | If you only deployed a single Explore appliance, after you connect to your Discover or Command appliance, you must log into the Admin UI on the Explore appliance and set the 0. | to
Send record data to the Explore appliance
After your Explore appliance is connected to all of your Discover and Command appliances, you must configure the type of records you want to store. See the following documentation for more information about Explore configuration settings, how to generate and store records, and how to create record queries.
- ExtraHop Explore Admin UI Guide
- ExtraHop Explore Settings section in the ExtraHop Admin UI Guide.
- Records section in the ExtraHop Web UI Guide.
- ExtraHop Trigger API Reference
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