Choosing Your Installation Method

You can install ArcSight products using one of the two methods below.

Using the ArcSight Platform Installer (for on-premises only)
Deploying Manually (for on-premises, AWS, and Azure)

Using the ArcSight Platform Installer

Applies only to an on-premises installation

The ArcSight Platform Installer significantly simplifies the installation and deployment experience for an on-premises deployment and is the recommended method. The Installer has a prerequisites checker that verifies the OS, storage, network, and other settings are appropriate for the desired deployment. You can have the Installer adjust the prerequisite settings to ensure a successful deployment.

The Installer is also capable of deploying containerized and database infrastructures in a simple, all-in-one node or in a highly-available multi-node configuration. The Installer requires a minimum set of deployment configuration settings to describe the capabilities to deploy; master, worker, and database node host names; and login IDs and passwords. You can run the Installer with this deployment configuration on a single node and it will automatically connect to all the nodes specified in the configuration in order to run the capabilities.

The download package includes a set of example deployment configurations, such as a highly-available deployment configuration of Recon.

Consider the following when deciding whether the ArcSight Platform Installer is a good fit to use in your environment. The ArcSight Platform Installer:

Is the recommended installation method for an on-premises deployment.
Is only capable of installing to an on-premises environment. The Installer is not supported for Azure or AWS environments.
Must be run as root, not in sudo mode.

Isn't tested on a dual-homed network (dual or redundant connections to a single Internet Service Provider), so be careful before using it in this scenario.
Disables the option to authorize the collection suite usage data.
Automatically configures passwordless SSH access between the master node, where the Installer is used, and all other OMT and Database nodes, so the Installer can automatically perform tasks on the nodes securely without requiring passwords to be retained.
Requires that yum is already installed and configured on every node. The pre-check fails if it is not.
Automatically creates a dbadmin account on ArcSight DB hosts, which will have a conflict if those hosts have NIS/LDAP account management enabled on them. In such cases, disable NIS/LDAP on the ArcSight DB hosts if you wish to use the Installer. If you cannot disable NIS/LDAP on the ArcSight DB hosts, instead of using the Installer, perform the manual installation procedure.

If you have any customizations on the operating system, you might want to prepare your machines with the prerequisites for OMT and Database and perform deployment and post deployment configuration using the Installer because, when the Installer automatically configures the prerequisites, it might overwrite your customizations. For more information about preparing your systems manually, see the following topics:
- Installing the Database
- Preparing Your Environment

Deploying Manually

For an on-premises deployment, if the ArcSight Platform Installer does not meet your needs, or if you wish to deploy as a non-root user, then use the manual installation method.

On-premises deployment

Azure and AWS deployments must be installed using the manual installation method. The ArcSight Platform Installer is not supported for cloud deployments.