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.

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