System Hardware Requirements

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

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

Controller, worker, and storage hosts

Table 1. Hardware Requirements — StarlingX Standard Configuration

Minimum Requirement

Controller

Storage

Worker

Minimum Qty of Servers

2 (required)

(if Ceph storage used)

2 ‒ 8 (for replication factor 2)

3 ‒ 9 (for replication factor 3)

2 ‒ 100

Minimum Processor Class

Dual-CPU Intel® Xeon® E5 26xx Family (SandyBridge) 8 cores/socket

Minimum Memory

64 GB

64 GB

32 GB

Minimum Primary Disk (two-disk hardware RAID suggested)

500 GB - SSD or NVMe

120 GB (min. 10K RPM)

Note

Installation on software RAID is not supported.

Additional Disks

1 X 500 GB (min 10K RPM)

(not required for systems with dedicated storage nodes)

500 GB (min. 10K RPM) for OSD storage

one or more SSDs or NVMe drives (recommended for Ceph journals); min. 1024 MiB per journal

500 GB (min. 10K RPM) — 1 or more

Note

Single-disk hosts are supported, but must not be used for local ephemeral storage

Network Ports

(Typical deployment)

  • Mgmt and Cluster Host: 2 x 10GE LAG (shared interface)

  • OAM: 2 x 1GE LAG

  • Optionally external network ports 2 x 10GE LAG

  • Mgmt and Cluster Host: 2 x 10GE LAG (shared interface)

  • Mgmt and Cluster Host: 2 x 10GE LAG (shared interface)

  • Optionally external network ports 2 x 10GE LAG

Board Management Controller (BMC)

1 (required)

1 (required)

1 (required)

USB Interface

1

not required

Power Profile

Max Performance

Note

It is recommended to disable C States.

Max Performance, Min Proc Idle Power:No C States

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. [1]

Intel Hyperthreading

Disabled or Enabled

Intel Virtualization (VTD, VTX)

Disabled

Enabled

Combined controller-worker hosts

Hardware requirements for a StarlingX Simplex or Duplex configuration are listed in the following table.

Table 2. Hardware Requirements — StarlingX Simplex or Duplex Configuration

Minimum Requirement

Controller + Worker (Combined Server)

Minimum Qty of Servers

Simplex―1 Duplex―2

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 for Simplex deployments)

Platform: 2x physical cores (4x logical cores if hyper-threading), (by default, configurable) Application: Remaining cores

Minimum Memory

  • 64 GB

  • Platform:

    • Socket 0: 7GB (by default, configurable)

    • Socket 1: 1GB (by default, configurable)

  • Application:

    • Socket 0: Remaining memory

    • Socket 1: Remaining memory

Minimum Primary Disk

500 GB - SSD or NVMe

Additional Disks

  • Single-disk system: N/A

  • Two-disk system:

    • 1 x 500 GB SSD or NVMe for Persistent Volume Claim storage

  • Three-disk system:

    • 1 x 500 GB (min 10K RPM) for Persistent Volume Claim storage

    • 1 or more x 500 GB (min. 10K RPM) for Container ephemeral disk storage

Network Ports
(Typical deployment.)

  • Mgmt and Cluster Host: 2 x 10GE LAG (shared interface)

    Note

    Mgmt / Cluster Host ports are required for Duplex systems only.

  • OAM: 2 x 1GE LAG

  • Optionally external network ports 2 x 10GE LAG

USB Interface

1

Power Profile

Max Performance

Min Proc Idle Power:No C States

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 Network.

Intel Hyperthreading

Disabled or Enabled

Intel Virtualization (VTD, VTX)

Enabled

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