Multiple node sizes in a ISE cluster

[Deepti Nayak]

One of my customers is determined to have a large deployment for their TACACS cluster ( even if their load is nowhere close) due to some issues they experienced. Is it possible to have a large VM for PSN but medium VM for admin and monitoring within a single TACACS ISE cluster?  

[Mike.Cifelli]

Pretty confident in saying that you can have a large VM and a medium VM running in the same cluster. As of 2.4 the licenses are based on VM resources. So if your one node does not need as much resources as another node just ensure that the customer has the proper licenses to support each individual node based on the VM resources in use. See:
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/security/identity-services-engine-24/213171-ise-2-4-upgrade-alarms-fewer-vm-license.html

Good luck & HTH!

[Surendra]

As long as it is the same version and patch level, it does not matter what mix of VMs or for that matter physical devices and VMs that you have in a deployment. However, make sure to adhere to https://communities.cisco.com/docs/DOC-68347#jive_content_id_ISE_20_RADIUS_Performance to run into any performance issues. Also, what @Mike.Cifelli said.

[Damien Miller · Accepted solution]

Keep in mind that the scaling is dependent on the Admin and MNT nodes, and how they are deployed, dedicated or hybrid.

Since we are talking 2.6 if you want a large 3695 PSN VM, then you will need to stay within the overall scaling of a medium hybrid/dedicated deployment as run on medium 3655 nodes.