System Hardware Requirements¶

StarlingX has been tested to work with specific hardware configurations. For more information, see Self Validated and Certified Hosts.

In this section:

All-in-One Simplex
All-in-One Duplex
Standard
Stardard with dedicated storage
Interface configuration scenarios

If the minimum hardware requirements are not met, system performance cannot be guaranteed.

All-in-One Simplex ¶

The recommended minimum hardware requirements for bare metal servers for various host types are:

Minimum Requirements	All-in-one Controller Node
Number of servers	1
Minimum processor class	Dual-CPU Intel® Xeon® E5 26xx family (SandyBridge) 8 cores/socket or Single-CPU Intel® Xeon® D-15xx family, 8 cores (low-power/low-cost option) Note Platform: 1 physical core with HT enabled or 2 physical cores with HT disabled, (by default, configurable) The use of single physical core for platform function is only suitable for Intel® 4th Generation Xeon® Scalable Processors or above and should not be configured for previous Intel® Xeon® CPU families. For All-In-One systems with older generation processors, two physical cores (or more) must be configured. Application: Remaining cores
Minimum memory	64 GB Platform: Socket 0: 10GB (by default, configurable) Socket 1: 1GB (by default, configurable) Application: Socket 0: Remaining memory Socket 1: Remaining memory
Primary disk	500 GB SSD or NVMe (see Configure NVMe Drive as Primary Disk)
Additional disks	1 or more 500 GB (min. 10K RPM) for Ceph OSD Recommended, but not required: 1 or more SSDs or NVMe drives for Ceph journals (min. 1024 MiB per OSD journal) Recommended, but not required: 1 or more 500G HDs (min. 10K RPM), SSDs or NVMe drives for Container ephemeral disk storage. For StarlingX OpenStack, we recommend 1 or more 500 GB (min. 10K RPM) for VM local ephemeral storage
Minimum network ports	MGMT: 1x1GE ( Recommended: MGMT 2x10GE LAG ) Only required if subcloud is in Distributed Cloud. OAM: 1x1GE (Recommended: OAM: 2x1GE LAG) Data: 1 or more x 10GE (Recommended: Data: 2x10GE LAG)
USB	1 (Only required if used for initial installation of controller-0).
Power profile	C-states (up to C6) may be configured for some use cases where application workloads can tolerate additional scheduling/timer latency. Note C-states may be enabled depending on application requirements.
Boot order	HD, PXE, USB
BIOS mode	BIOS or UEFI Note UEFI Secure Boot and UEFI PXE boot over IPv6 are not supported. On systems with an IPv6 management network, you can use a separate IPv4 network for PXE boot. For more information, see PXE Boot Controller-0.
BIOS settings	Hyper-Threading technology enabled Virtualization technology enabled VT for directed I/O enabled CPU power and performance policy set to performance Minimum Processor Idle Power; CPU C state control disabled Plug & play BMC detection disabled Note The system will not override the recommended BIOS settings.

All-in-One Duplex ¶

This section describes the hardware requirements and server preparation for a StarlingX r9.0 bare metal Duplex deployment configuration.

The recommended minimum hardware requirements for bare metal servers for various host types are:

Minimum Requirements	All-in-one Controller Node	Worker Node
Number of servers	2	2-99
Minimum processor class	Dual-CPU Intel® Xeon® E5 26xx family (SandyBridge) 8 cores/socket or Single-CPU Intel® Xeon® D-15xx family, 8 cores (low-power/low-cost option) Note Platform: 1 physical core with HT enabled or 2 physical cores with HT disabled, (by default, configurable) The use of single physical core for platform function is only suitable for Intel® 4th Generation Xeon® Scalable Processors or above and should not be configured for previous Intel® Xeon® CPU families. For All-In-One systems with older generation processors, two physical cores (or more) must be configured. Application: Remaining cores	(Same as controller node)
Minimum memory	64 GB Platform: Socket 0: 10GB (by default, configurable) Socket 1: 1GB (by default, configurable) Application: Socket 0: Remaining memory Socket 1: Remaining memory	32 GB
Primary disk	500 GB SSD or NVMe (see Configure NVMe Drive as Primary Disk)	120 GB (Minimum 10k RPM)
Additional disks	1 or more 500 GB (min. 10K RPM) for Ceph OSD Recommended, but not required: 1 or more SSDs or NVMe drives for Ceph journals (min. 1024 MiB per OSD journal) Recommended, but not required: 1 or more 500G HDs (min. 10K RPM), SSDs or NVMe drives for Container ephemeral disk storage. For StarlingX OpenStack, we recommend 1 or more 500 GB (min. 10K RPM) for VM local ephemeral storage	For StarlingX OpenStack, we recommend 1 or more 500 GB (min. 10K RPM) for VM local ephemeral storage
Minimum network ports	MGMT: 1x1GE ( Recommended: MGMT 2x10GE LAG ). OAM: 1x1GE (Recommended: OAM: 2x1GE LAG) Data: 1 or more x 10GE (Recommended: Data: 2x10GE LAG)	Mgmt/Cluster: 1x10GE (Recommended: MGMT 2x10GE LAG) Data: 1 or more x 10GE (Recommended: Data 2x10GE LAG)
USB	1 (Only required if used for initial installation of controller-0).
Board Management		1 BMC
Power profile		C-states (up to C6) may be configured for some use cases where application workloads can tolerate additional scheduling/timer latency. Note C-states may be enabled depending on application requirements.
Boot order	HD, PXE, USB	HD, PXE
BIOS mode	BIOS or UEFI Note UEFI Secure Boot and UEFI PXE boot over IPv6 are not supported. On systems with an IPv6 management network, you can use a separate IPv4 network for PXE boot. For more information, see PXE Boot Controller-0.	BIOS or UEFI
Bios settings	Hyper-Threading technology enabled Virtualization technology enabled VT for directed I/O enabled CPU power and performance policy set to performance CPU C state control disabled Plug & play BMC detection disabled Note The system will not override the recommended BIOS settings.	(Same as controller node)

Standard ¶

This section describes the hardware requirements and server preparation for a StarlingX r9.0 bare metal Standard with Controller Storage deployment configuration.

The recommended minimum hardware requirements for bare metal servers for various host types are:

Minimum Requirements	Controller Node	Worker Node
Number of servers	2	2-99
Minimum processor class	Dual-CPU Intel® Xeon® E5 26xx family (SandyBridge) 8 cores/socket Note All cores are used by the platform.	Dual-CPU Intel® Xeon® E5 26xx family (SandyBridge) 8 cores/socket Note Platform: 1x physical cores (2x logical cores if hyper-threading), (by default, configurable) Application: Remaining cores
Minimum memory	64 GB	32 GB
Primary disk	500 GB SSD or NVMe (see Configure NVMe Drive as Primary Disk)	120 GB (Minimum 10k RPM)
Additional disks	1 or more 500 GB (min. 10K RPM) for Ceph OSD Recommended, but not required: 1 or more SSDs or NVMe drives for Ceph journals (min. 1024 MiB per OSD journal)	For StarlingX OpenStack, we recommend 1 or more 500 GB (min. 10K RPM) for VM local ephemeral storage Recommended but not required: 1 or more 500G HDs (min. 10K RPM), SSDs or NVMe drives for Container ephemeral disk storage.
Minimum network ports	MGMT: 1x1GE (Recommended: MGMT 2x10GE LAG) OAM: 1x1GE (Recommended: OAM: 2x1GE LAG) Data: 1 or more x 10GE (Recommended: Data: 2x10GE LAG)	Mgmt/Cluster: 1x10GE (Recommended: MGMT 2x10GE LAG) Data: 1 or more x 10GE (Recommended: Data: 2x10GE LAG)
USB	1 (Only required if used for initial installation of controller-0).
Board Management		1 BMC
Boot order	HD, PXE, USB	HD, PXE
BIOS mode	BIOS or UEFI Note UEFI Secure Boot and UEFI PXE boot over IPv6 are not supported. On systems with an IPv6 management network, you can use a separate IPv4 network for PXE boot. For more information, see PXE Boot Controller-0.	BIOS or UEFI
Bios settings	Hyper-Threading technology enabled Virtualization technology (VTD, VTX) enabled VT for directed I/O enabled CPU power and performance policy set to performance CPU C state control disabled Plug & play BMC detection disabled	(Same as controller node)

Stardard with dedicated storage ¶

This section describes the hardware requirements and server preparation for a StarlingX r9.0 bare metal Standard with Dedicated Storage deployment configuration.

The recommended minimum hardware requirements for bare metal servers for various host types are:

Minimum Requirements	Controller Node	Storage Node	Worker Node
Number of servers	2	2-9	2-99
Minimum processor class	Dual-CPU Intel® Xeon® E5 26xx family (SandyBridge) 8 cores/socket Note All cores are used by the platform.	Dual-CPU Intel® Xeon® E5 26xx family (SandyBridge) 8 cores/socket Note All cores are used for Ceph Storage Cluster.	Dual-CPU Intel® Xeon® E5 26xx family (SandyBridge) 8 cores/socket Note Platform: 1x physical cores (2x logical cores if hyper-threading), (by default, configurable) Application: Remaining cores
Minimum memory	64 GB	64 GB	32 GB
Primary disk	500 GB SSD or NVMe (see Configure NVMe Drive as Primary Disk)	120 GB (min. 10k RPM)	120 GB (min. 10k RPM)
Additional disks	None	1 or more 500 GB (min. 10K RPM) for Ceph OSD Recommended, but not required: 1 or more SSDs or NVMe drives for Ceph journals (min. 1024 MiB per OSD journal)	For StarlingX OpenStack, we recommend 1 or more 500 GB (min. 10K RPM) for VM ephemeral storage Recommended, but not required: 1 or more 500G HDs (min. 10K RPM), SSDs or NVMe drives for Container ephemeral disk storage.
Minimum network ports	MGMT: 1x1GE ( Recommended: MGMT 2x10GE LAG ). OAM: 1x1GE (Recommended: OAM: 2x1GE LAG) Data: 1 or more x 10GE (Recommended: Data: 2x10GE LAG)	Mgmt: 1x10GE	Mgmt/Cluster: 1x10GE 1x10GE (Recommended: MGMT 2x10GE LAG) Data: 1 or more x 10GE (Recommended: Data 2x10GE LAG)
USB	1 (Only required if used for initial installation of controller-0).
Board Management			1 BMC
Boot order	HD, PXE, USB		HD, PXE
BIOS mode	BIOS or UEFI Note UEFI Secure Boot and UEFI PXE boot over IPv6 are not supported. On systems with an IPv6 management network, you can use a separate IPv4 network for PXE boot. For more information, see PXE Boot Controller-0.	BIOS or UEFI	BIOS or UEFI
Bios settings	Hyper-Threading technology enabled Virtualization technology (VTD, VTX) enabled VT for directed I/O enabled CPU power and performance policy set to performance CPU C state control disabled Plug & play BMC detection disabled	(Same as controller node)	(Same as controller node)

Interface configuration scenarios ¶

StarlingX supports the use of consolidated interfaces for the management, cluster host, and OAM networks. Some typical configurations are shown in the following table. For best performance, StarlingX recommends dedicated interfaces.

LAG is optional in all instances.

Scenario	Controller	Storage	Worker
Physical interfaces on servers limited to two pairs Estimated aggregate average Container storage traffic less than 5G	2x 10GE LAG: Mgmt (untagged) Cluster Host (untagged) 2x 1GE LAG: OAM (untagged)	2x 10GE LAG: Mgmt (untagged) Cluster Host (untagged)	2x 10GE LAG: Cluster Host (untagged) Optionally 2x 10GE LAG external network ports
No specific limit on number of physical interfaces Estimated aggregate average Container storage traffic greater than 5G	2x 1GE LAG: Mgmt (untagged) 2x 10GE LAG: Cluster Host 2x 1GE LAG: OAM (untagged) Optionally 2x 10GE LAG external network ports	2x 1GE LAG Mgmt (untagged) 2x 10GE LAG Cluster Host	2x 1GE LAG Mgmt (untagged) 2x 10GE LAG: Cluster Host Optionally 2x 10GE LAG external network ports

Scenario

Controller

Storage

Worker

Physical interfaces on servers limited to two pairs
Estimated aggregate average Container storage traffic less than 5G

2x 10GE LAG:

Mgmt (untagged)
Cluster Host (untagged)

2x 1GE LAG:

OAM (untagged)

2x 10GE LAG:

Mgmt (untagged)
Cluster Host (untagged)

2x 10GE LAG:

Cluster Host (untagged)

Optionally

2x 10GE LAG

external network ports

No specific limit on number of physical interfaces
Estimated aggregate average Container storage traffic greater than 5G

2x 1GE LAG:

Mgmt (untagged)

2x 10GE LAG:

Cluster Host

2x 1GE LAG:

OAM (untagged)

Optionally

2x 10GE LAG

external network ports

2x 1GE LAG

Mgmt (untagged)

2x 10GE LAG

Cluster Host

2x 1GE LAG

Mgmt (untagged)

2x 10GE LAG:

Cluster Host

Optionally

2x 10GE LAG

external network ports