# Improving capacity to handle high netflow rates

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/improving-capacity-to-handle-high-netflow-rates/104151>\
**Category:** Logstash\
**Created:** [October 16, 2017, 11:09pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/improving-capacity-to-handle-high-netflow-rates/104151 "2017-10-16T23:09:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![djluko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@djluko](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/djluko)\
**Post date:** [October 16, 2017, 11:09pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/improving-capacity-to-handle-high-netflow-rates/104151/1 "2017-10-16T23:09:32Z")

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I'm trying to improve the performance of Logstash when ingesting about 22,500 Netflow records/sec.

I have read the general performance tuning tips [here](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/logstash/current/performance-troubleshooting.html)

Is there any way to turn off the geoip plugin? Of the 22,500 flows/sec hitting Logstash, I only see about 7,000-8,000 hit Elastic. I assume the rest are being dropped as the CPU (as reported by dstat) runs at about 95%. Java is the top CPU consumer.

I also thought about scaling Logstash horizontally, so reviewed the information [here](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/logstash/current/deploying-and-scaling.html), but this doesn't mention how that might be achieved - HAProxy seems to be out of the question as it doesn't support UDP. Seems like iptables could do it. Is there a best-practice from the Elastic community anyone could point me to?

Also some general guidance on CPU/memory requirements for logstash to process 25,000 flows/sec - seems my current VM runs out of puff at 8,000 flows with 6x vCPUs and 16GB memory. On that basis, do I really need 3.1x the current CPUs, or 50x vCPUs to handle this load?!

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**Author:** ![magnusbaeck](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/magnusbaeck/32/44943_2.png) [@magnusbaeck](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/magnusbaeck)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2017, 6:06am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/improving-capacity-to-handle-high-netflow-rates/104151/2 "2017-10-18T06:06:12Z")

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> Is there any way to turn off the geoip plugin?

Are you using the netflow module?

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**Author:** ![djluko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@djluko](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/djluko)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2017, 6:58am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/improving-capacity-to-handle-high-netflow-rates/104151/3 "2017-10-18T06:58:59Z")

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Yes - from logstash.yml:

```
modules:
  - name: netflow
    var.input.udp.port: "2055"
    var.elasticsearch.hosts: "http://10.10.22.52:9200"
    var.kibana.host: "10.10.22.52:5601"
```

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [November 15, 2017, 6:59am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/improving-capacity-to-handle-high-netflow-rates/104151/4 "2017-11-15T06:59:16Z")

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