Supported operating systems and platforms

IBM® Cloud Private supports the following 64-bit operating systems: Linux®; and Linux® on Power® (ppc64le).

Note: Ensure you review and verify that you meet the increased memory requirements. For more information, see Hardware requirements.

Table 1. Supported operating systems
Platform Operating system
Linux® x86_64 Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.4, 7.5, 7.6, 7.7, and 7.8
Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and 16.04 LTS
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 12 SP4 and SP5
Linux® on Power® (ppc64le)
POWER8® or later		 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4, 7.5*, 7.5-Alt, 7.6, 7.6-Alt, 7.7, and 7.8
Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (KVM and Bare Metal only) and Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP4 and SP5
Linux® on IBM® Z and LinuxONE Red Hat Enterprise Linux# 7.3, 7.4, 7.5, 7.6, 7.7, and 7.8
Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and 16.04 LTS
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP4 and SP5

Note: Check the documentation for your operating system to ensure that you are using a supported kernel level.

IBM Cloud Private components are distributed as a set of Docker images that incorporate their own operating system dependencies. It is recommended that you use one of the certified operating systems that are listed in the preceding table. However, IBM Cloud Private can run on any Linux operating system that supports Docker 1.12 and later. The latest supported Docker version is 19.03.11, which is available when you apply the 3.2.1.2008 fix pack or the 3.2.2.2008 fix pack or a newer 3.2.1.x or 3.2.2.x fix pack.

Supported node types by platform

Table 2. Supported node type by platforms
Node type Linux x86_64 (x86_64) Linux on Power (ppc64le) Linux on IBM Z and LinuxONE (s390x)
Boot Y Y Y
Master Y Y Y
Management Y Y Y
Proxy Y Y Y
Worker Y Y Y
VA Y Y Y

Supported features by platform

Table 3. Supported features by platform
Feature Linux x86_64 (x86_64) Linux on Power (ppc64le) Linux on IBM Z and LinuxONE (s390x) Notes
IBM Multicloud Manager Y Y Y
Cloud Foundry Y N N This feature is not available in the Community Edition.
Cloud Automation Manager Y Y Y IBM Cloud Automation Manager (see note 1) can manage IBM z/VM 6.4 and z/VM v7.1 (see notes 2, 3, 4, 5) virtual machines by using the z/VM Cloud Manager Appliance (CMA).
Installation Y Y Y Installation supported on master nodes or dedicated boot nodes only.
Management console Y Y Y Management console runs on master nodes only.
Logging Y Y Y
Monitoring
  • Prometheus
  • Grafana
 Y Y Y* *While Prometheus and Grafana run on only master or management nodes, data from worker nodes is collected by using the node exporter.
Security and RBAC Y Y Y
Vulnerability advisor Y Y Y This feature is not available in the Community Edition.
IPsec Y Y Y
Networking: Calico Y Y Y
Networking: NSX-T Y N N
Storage: GlusterFS Y Y Y
Storage: VMware Y N N
Storage: Minio Y Y N
Metering Y Y Y
Helm repo or API Y Y Y
Nvidia GPU support Y Y N
System health service Y Y N

Notes:

  1. IBM Cloud Private supports new versions of supported operating systems, Kubernetes, Docker, and other dependent infrastructure after new releases happen and when they are fully tested by the IBM Cloud Private team.
  2. Support for the Cloud Manager Appliance (CMA) on z/VM v7.1 is a transitional offer until a strategic long-term solution to replace the CMA becomes available.
  3. For the Cloud Manager Appliance on z/VM v7.1, support is limited to an earlier version of OpenStack and earlier versions of Linux Distributions for deployment, without plans to upgrade. The supported OpenStack version is "Newton". The supported Linux® distributions for deployment are:
    • RHEL 6.2, 6.3, 6.4, 6.5, 6.6, and 6.7
    • RHEL 7.0, 7.1 and 7.2
    • SLES 11.2, 11.3, and 11.4
    • SLES 12 and SLES 12.1
    • Ubuntu 16.04
  4. The Cloud Manager Appliance is available for z/VM v7.1 for the specific use case with IBM Cloud Private only.
  5. IBM account teams can request the Cloud Manager Appliance for z/VM v7.1 by contacting the responsible IBM Offering Manager.