Server requirements and recommendations
IBM® Storage Defender Sentinel gives you the flexibility to choose your own server platform. You can deploy the IBM Storage Defender Sentinel anomaly scan software on a virtual machine (VM) or on a physical server that meets the minimum hardware and software requirements, which are shown in the following tables.
Initiators for Fibre Channel and iSCSI must be established between physical anomaly scan software server deployments and IBM storage such as IBM FlashSystem® 9100 and IBM FlashSystem 5200. Fibre Channel is the preferred initiator option for physical anomaly scan software server deployments.
- IBM Storage Defender Sentinel anomaly
scan software 8.1.0 Build 1.x and later patches
Note: Check on Fix Central for the latest IBM Storage Defender Sentinel 1.1.10 interim fixes, refer to Download Information.
- IBM Storage Defender Copy Data Management 2.2.26.0 and later interim fixes
- IBM Spectrum® Virtualize Software for Flash Systems level 8.5.1 and later interim fixes
For IBM Storage Defender Copy Data Management requirements, refer to system requirements and for IBM Storage® Virtualize requirements, refer to requirements.
- InterSystems Caché and InterSystems IRIS (collectively referred to as InterSystems Database), refer to InterSystems Database requirements.
- SAP HANA, refer to SAP HANA requirements.
- Oracle, refer to Oracle requirements.
- VMware virtual machine workloads, refer to VMware requirements.
The requirements apply to the anomaly scan software server component of the IBM Storage Defender Sentinel offering only. Generally, you want to successfully install IBM Storage Defender Copy Data Management before you deploy the anomaly scan software server. For information on installing IBM Storage Defender Copy Data Management, refer to IBM Spectrum Copy Data Management Installation and setup.
| IBM Storage Defender Sentinel anomaly scan software server requirements | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Components | Use Cases | |||
| Medium: Amount of front-end backup data to be indexed ≤ 15 TB | Large: Amount of front-end backup data to be indexed ≥ 15 TB | |||
| CPU (cores) | 20 | 32 | ||
| Memory | 192 GB | 384 GB | ||
| OS | SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 15.4, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 15.6 | |||
| Red Hat (RHEL) 9.2, Red Hat (RHEL) 9.4 | ||||
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Note: Repository bundles are not provided for the supported operating systems.
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| SELinux | REQUIRED:
Note: On servers that are using SUSE operating system, if SELinux is enabled and enforcing, you must switch it to permissive mode before you install or upgrade of the anomaly scan software. After the installation/upgrade has finished, switch SELinux back to enforcing / enabled mode.
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| Architecture | x86_64 REQUIRED | |||
| File system | XFS is preferred. EXT4 is also acceptable. | |||
| Host OS Partitioning Schema MINIMUM Requirements and Storage (Direct attached, local, or SAN) | / partition | 120 GB | ||
| /boot partition | 500 MB | |||
| /opt/ie partition | Your anomaly scan software support personnel can provide guidance on the size of this partition based on the details of your data. | |||
| *Swap | Memory | Swap | ||
| 192 GB | 384 GB Medium | |||
| 448 GB | 832 GB Large | |||
| Connectivity to Storage | To be determined at the time of sizing. | |||
| Supported applications and operating systems | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scan type | Application host / server type | Platform type | Supported Sentinel host / server type | Supported Sentinel operating systems | Supported storage arrays (*SGC - Safeguarded copies) | Description |
| Database applications (Oracle, IRIS, SAP HANA) | Physical | x86, LoP | Physical | RHEL 9.2, SLES 15.6 | IBM Storage FlashSystem (SGC1.0 and SGC2.0) | Scanning for a physical application is supported on a physical Sentinel host only. |
| Virtual | x86 | Virtual | RHEL 9.2, SLES 15.6 | IBM Storage FlashSystem (SGC1.0 and SGC2.0) | Scanning for a virtual application is supported on a virtual Sentinel host only. | |
| VMware | Virtual | x86 |
Physical/Virtual machine (pRDM)* |
RHEL 9.2, SLES 15.6 | IBM Storage FlashSystem (SGC1.0 and SGC2.0) |
The scanning capability requires iSCSI/FC connectivity between IBM Storage FlashSystem and the IBM Storage Defender Sentinel host. When you use FC, verify that the Sentinel host is zoned and defined in the SVC array as FC host. When you use iSCSI, verify that the iSCSI is enabled in the Sentinel host, and has network reachability over iSCSI port (3260/TCP) with IBM Storage FlashSystem. Also verify that the Sentinel host is defined as iSCSI host. |
| AIX based database applications | Physical | Power | Physical/Virtual | RHEL 9.2, SLES 15.6 | IBM Storage FlashSystem (SGC1.0 and SGC2.0) | Sentinel scanning is supported on physical and virtual Sentinel hosts both. |
*Virtual machine (pRDM): Virtual machine where a physical device is directly mapped to it by using the FC passthrough or iSCSI connectivity. Refer to the following links for additional information on FC passthrough configuration:
- VMware KB article 309986
- IBM community blog: Using IBM Storage Defender CDM for VMware - FC based Sentinel scanning
| Anomaly scanning server operating systems support | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Server OS | Sentinel 1.1.2 | Sentinel 1.1.3 | Sentinel 1.1.4 | Sentinel 1.1.7 | Sentinel 1.1.8 | Sentinel 1.1.9 | Sentinel 1.1.10 | |
| RHEL 9.2 | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | |
| SLES 15.4 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| SLES 15.6 | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | |
- RHEL 8 is an unsupported operating system on the anomaly scanning server.
- IBM Storage Defender Sentinel requires Storage Virtualize for Flash Systems versions 8.5.1 and later interim fixes.
- For supported versions of SAP HANA, EPIC, Oracle, and VMware, refer to the IBM Storage Defender Copy Data Management support pages.