Compatibility and minimum requirements

The IBM Storage Ceph Plugin for vSphere is based on the VMware remote plug-in architecture and is distributed and deployed by using an Open Virtualization Appliance (OVA) bundle.

Appliance requirements

The virtual machine appliance requires the following resources:
  • 2 vCPUs and 4 GB of memory
  • Following are the networking (Ethernet, TCPIP) requirements:
    • One IP address (IPv4), Static or DHCP
    • Gateway
    • DNS
    • Netmask

Hardware requirements

  • Ready Nodes specifications
    • 2 Intel Xeon Gold 6438N processors (32C/64T 2.0 GHz)
    • 512 GB DDR4
    • 1 BOSS controller with 2x 460 GB M.2 SSD RAID1
    • 1 Dual port 10 GbE or 25 GbE network adapter
    • NVMe SSDs per node: 8x, 16x, 24x
    • NVMe SSD capacities: 3.84 TB, 7.68 TB, or 15.36 TB
    • Dual-port Intel 810-C 100 GbE network adapters: 1, 2
    • SR optical transceivers are included
  • Rack: 2RU per IBM Storage Ready Node
  • Networking
    • Management switch: 2 × 1 GbE Base-T ports per IBM Storage Ready Node
    • High-speed switches
      • 2 × 100 GbE QSFP28 ports per IBM Storage Ready Node to High Speed Switch 1
      • 2 × 100 GbE QSFP28 ports per IBM Storage Ready Node to High Speed Switch
      • 2 SR optical transceivers

VMware environment requirements

  • VMware 7 update 3 and higher or vSphere 8.0 to support NVMe over TCP.
  • All browsers and platforms are supported by vCenter.
  • NVMe over TCP connectivity between vCenter, the appliance, and the storage system.
  • Fully qualified domain name (FQDN) or IP address of vCenters.
  • Credentials for a vCenter user account with administrative permissions.

Storage cluster requirements

  • IBM Storage Ceph or later cluster with at least four nodes.
  • Replication factor: 3
  • Estimated data durability: 9-nines
  • IBM Storage Ceph Dashboard installed with the credentials.
  • An rbd pool.
  • NVMe-oF configuration, with minimum of:
    • One gateway deployed.
    • One subsystem created.
    • One listener added.
    • Optional. Gateway groups. For more information, see Restrictions and limitations.
    For more information about NVMe-oF configuration, see Ceph NVMe-oF gateway within the IBM Storage Ceph documentation for your IBM Storage Ceph version.
The following are a couple of example cluster configurations:
  • 4 nodes with 8 ⁢⁢⁢× 3.84 TB NVMe SSDs = 120 TB raw, 40 TB usable
  • 4 nodes with 24 × 15.36 TB NVMe SSDs = 1474 TB raw, 490 TB usable

IBM Storage Ceph Plugin for vSphere requirements

IBM Storage Ceph IBM Storage Ceph or later cluster with at least four nodes.
Note: While IBM Storage Ceph or later cluster can be used, the recommended version level is the latest IBM Storage Ceph version. For more information about IBM Storage Ceph versions and documentation, see IBM Storage Ceph documentation.

Access and system information requirements

The following are access and system information that is needed for registering the plug-in:
  • IP address or FQDN of the storage system with port number 8443.
  • Credentials for a user account on the storage system with administrative permissions.
    Note: Create a dedicated user ID with an Administrator role for the plug-in. Do not use either superuser or any user account with the Security Administrator role.

Network requirements

Table 1 lists the network requirements for IBM Storage Ceph Plugin for vSphere and what they are used for.

Table 1. IBM Storage Ceph Plugin for vSphere network requirements
Network type Description Requirements
BMC The BMC network is used to interact with server management interfaces such as Redfish, IPMI, or the KVM console.
  • 1 × 1 GbE link to server BMC port
  • 1 × 27 CIDR range per rack
  • Used for BMC / server management
Node The Node network is used by cephadm to configure and manage the IBM Storage Ceph cluster.
  • 1 × 1 GbE link
  • 1 × 27 CIDR range per rack
  • Used for cephadm cluster management
NVMe over TCP (NVMe/TCP) The NVMe/TCP network us used to carry traffic between NVMe/TCP clients (hosts) and IBM Storage Ceph NVMe/TCP gateways.
  • 2 × 100 GbE links
  • Distinct IP address and upstream switch
  • 2 × 27 CIDR ranges per rack
  • Used for IBM Storage Ceph NVMe/TCP gateways
Cluster The Cluster network is used to carry traffic between IBM Storage Ceph components.
  • 2 × 100 GbE MLAG / cLAG
  • 1 × 27 CIDR range per rack
  • Bonded that use LACP
  • Layer 3 + 4 xmit_hash_policy
  • Switch transmits hashing set to src-ip, src-port, proto, dst-ip, dst-port
  • Used for Ceph client_network and cluster_network

Operating system requirements

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) version 9.2 or later must be installed to the BOSS RAID1 volume on IBM Storage Ready Nodes.

vSphere user permission requirements

Use the vSphere user permission requirements table to ensure the vSphere user has the correct permissions for IBM Storage Ceph Plugin for vSphere operations.

Table 2. vSphere user permission requirements
vSphere user privileges Permissions to use IBM Storage Ceph Plugin for vSphere workflow
  • Tasks
    • Create task
    • Update task
  • Create, Expand, or Delete Datastore
  • Take or Delete Snapshot
  • Copy to New Datastore
  • Add Host
  • Plug-in
    • Manage plug-ins
  • Add, Edit, or Delete Storage System
  • Host
    • Configuration
      • Storage Partition Configuration
    • Inventory
      • Add Host to Cluster
      • Modify Cluster
    • Local Operations
      • Add Host to vCenter
  • Add Host
  • Create, Expand, Attach, Detach, or Delete Datastore
  • Copy to New Datastore
  • Datastore
    • Rename Datastore
  • Copy to New Datastore