# Deploying File Inspection Engine: Requirements & Architecture

> File Inspection Engine deployment: hardware requirements, Spectra Core instance sizing, and guides for Docker, Kubernetes, and air-gapped setups.

## Hardware Requirements

To handle files of up to 2 GB, we recommend the following:

- **Memory (RAM)**:
  - Provision **at least 32 GB of RAM**. File processing may require up to 8 times the file size in RAM, especially to accommodate large file handling and concurrent requests.
- **Disk Size**:
  - Allocate **at least 100 GB of disk space** to support scanning of larger files and threat intelligence database storage requirements.

### Production Deployment

A single deployment can handle files of all sizes using multiple Spectra Core instances.

- The total number of instances is configured with `--number-of-regular-cores` and `--number-of-large-cores`.
- All instances are identical. The "large" group is simply a reserved subset of instances that only process files above the configured threshold (`--large-file-threshold`).
- If no large instances are configured (set to 0), all files are processed by the regular pool.

Each Spectra Core instance consumes memory even when idle (approximately 1.4 GB per instance), so factor this into your capacity planning.

This approach improves CPU utilization and throughput while keeping the deployment architecture simple.


