Storage requirements

Learn about the storage requirements for IBM Cloud Pak® for AIOps.

Persistent storage requirements

IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps requires persistent storage that supports the RWO (read-write-once) access mode. Use of the Red Hat OpenShift APIs for Data Protection (OADP) backup and restore method requires persistent storage that supports the RWX (read-write-many) access mode. For more information about the backup and restore methods available for IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps, see Back up and restore (IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps on OpenShift).

Important: The file system used by MinIO must be XFS, not ext4. The ext4 file system has a limit on the number of inodes that can be created for each file system. If inode usage reaches 100%, the file system becomes read-only even if enough PVC space is available and MinIO is prevented from creating new files or directories. Refer to your storage provider's documentation for information about setting XFS as the file system.

Storage class requirements

For production environments, storage classes must have allowVolumeExpansion enabled. This allows persistent volumes to be expanded if necessary, to avoid storage from filling up and causing unrecoverable failures. This is also highly recommended for starter deployments, since without it you are limited to the default capacity that might not be sufficient for your specific needs. To enable allowVolumeExpansion, edit the storage class to enable expansion. Follow the instructions in the Red Hat documentation Enabling volume expansion support Opens in a new tab.

Storage performance requirements

A minimum configuration of three nodes for the storage cluster is needed. Each node of the storage solution requires a minimum of one disk (SSD or high-performance storage array). The performance of your storage can vary depending on your exact usage, datasets, hardware, storage solution, and more.

The following table identifies the storage performance metrics that must be achieved to support a deployment of IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps. Ensure that your hardware can support the expected IOPS per disk at the application layer. If your deployment is custom-sized to support higher rates than the default production rates listed in Processing abilities, then your storage performance must exceed these metrics.

Table 1. Storage performance requirements
Metric Read Write
Minimum sequential IOPS (higher is better, lower is worse) 5000 5000
Minimum sequential bandwidth (higher is better, lower is worse) 20 Mi/sec 20 Mi/sec
Maximum average sequential latency (lower is better, higher is worse) 500 usec 1000 usec

Note: These metrics are not applicable if you are using native storage in a public cloud provider such as Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) or IBM Cloud Block Storage. Performance will be adequate if you selected the native storage classes documented for your cloud platform.

Using a network storage system typically entails higher performance requirements on the disks due to factors such as replication and network latency. Performance at the application layer can be tested after the cluster is provisioned. A benchmarking tool is supplied that can be used to compare your storage's performance with these metrics before you install IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps. For more information, see Evaluate storage performance.

Persistent storage sizing

Red Hat OpenShift uses the Kubernetes persistent volume (PV) framework. PVs are storage resources in the cluster, and persistent volume claims (PVCs) are storage requests that are made on those PVs by IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps. For more information about persistent storage in Red Hat OpenShift clusters, see Persistent storage overview.

A starter deployment requires 463 Gi of persistent storage, and a production deployment requires 1928 Gi of persistent storage.

Table 2. Persistent storage sizing
Component Starter deployment PVC size (Gi)

Total (number of PVCs x PVC size)
Production deployment PVC size (Gi)

Total (number of PVCs x PVC size)
Access mode Volume mode
Cassandra (data and backup) 100 (2x50) 300 (6x50) RW0 Filesystem
Common service db 20 (2x10) 40 (4x10) RWO Filesystem
Topology file observer 5 (1x5) 5 (1x5) RWO Filesystem
CouchDB 20 (1x20) 60 (3x20) RWO Filesystem
Elasticsearch 100 (1x100) 300 (3 x 100) RWO Filesystem
Kafka 60 (1x60) 300 (3x100) RWO Filesystem
Zookeeper 10 (1x10) 30 (3x10) RWO Filesystem
Redis 3 (3x1) 3 (3x1) RWO Filesystem
AIOps MinIO 50 (1x50) 500 (5X100) RWO Filesystem
Zen MinIO 30 (3x10) 30 (3x10) RWO Filesystem
EDB Postgres 15 (1x15) 300 (3x100) RWO Filesystem
CS Postgres backup 10 (1x20) 20 (1x20) RWO Filesystem
Zen Objectstore backup 20 (1x20) 20 (1x20) RWO Filesystem
Zen Metastore EDB 20 (2x10) 20 (2x10) RWO Filesystem
Total 463 1928

The preceding table provides PVC sizings that provide adequate space to begin working with IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps, but you may need to increase these values later. For more information, see Scaling up storage.

Notes:

  • The access mode is ReadWriteOnce (RWO) for each PV. Usage of OADP backup and restore requires ReadWriteMany (RWX) access mode. For more information about access modes, see Access modes.
  • Depending on the size of the training sets, usage, and data retention needs, your deployment can require additional storage.
  • The storage type is shown for each of the PVs, and is either Filesystem or Block. For more information about persistent storage, see the Red Hat documentation about Persistent storage overview.

Additional storage requirements for offline (airgap) deployments

If you are installing in an air-gapped environment (offline), you must ensure that the target registry and any intermediary portable devices have adequate space to download the IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps images. The IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps images total 183 GB.

Additional storage requirements for backup and restore

The backup and restore of IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps is based on the storage and database backup of critical data stores, cluster resources, and component data and settings, such as issue resolution policy settings, Runbooks, automated actions, metric data, log anomaly models, related secrets and configmaps, and more. With the backup and restore feature, you can recover your services to a previous point in time backup to recover from data corruption, system failures, or user errors.

To support backing up your IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps environment, you need to provision storage specifically for storing and retrieving backups. This storage also needs to be accessible by any environment where a backup might need to be restored. The backup process for IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps requires S3 compliant object stores for storing and retrieving backups. For instance, you can use the following public or private cloud options for provisioning this storage:

  • MinIO
  • Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation object store
  • IBM Cloud Object Storage
  • AWS Cloud

Tip: As your data grows, the size of your backup storage might need to grow. Ensure that sufficient storage is provisioned to accommodate any expected growth in data size. For more information about the backup and restore process, see Backing up and restoring IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps.

Recommended storage providers

The recommended storage providers are:

The following table shows the tested and supported storage providers for the platforms that IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps can be deployed on.

Table 3. Supported storage providers by platform
Platform IBM Cloud Storage Red Hat® OpenShift® Data Foundation IBM Fusion Data Foundation IBM Fusion Global Data Platform IBM Storage Scale Container Native Portworx AWS native storage
Azure Red Hat OpenShift (ARO) Yes Yes
Google Cloud Platform (GCP) Yes Yes
Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform HCP Yes
Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud (ROKS) Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
AWS GovCloud Yes
Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS (ROSA) Yes Yes

Notes:

  • IBM Storage Scale Container Native and Red Hat® OpenShift® Data Foundation are part of IBM Storage Suite for IBM Cloud Paks.
  • IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps requires persistent RWX (read-write-many) storage for OADP backup and restore. Red Hat® does not currently support Red Hat® OpenShift® Data Foundation (ODF) on ROSA. Portworx is the only recommended storage provider that provides a RWX storage solution for a deployment of IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps on ROSA. Portworx is available for a free 30 day trial, but will require a license for a longer timespan and production usage.

The preceding storage providers are the only providers that are tested and validated for a deployment of IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps. You can choose to use an alternate storage provider if they meet the requirements for deploying IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps. Your chosen storage provider must meet the same storage and hardware requirements as the recommended storage providers. For instance, for deploying IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps, your chosen provider must support the required access modes and storage modes. If you choose to use an alternate storage provider, your overall performance can differ from any listed sizings, throughput rates or other performance metrics that are listed in the IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps documentation. Work with your IBM Sales representative (or Business Partner) to ensure that your chosen storage provider is sufficient for your deployment plan.

IBM Cloud

IBM Cloud® VPC Infrastructure Storage and IBM Cloud® Classic Infrastructure Storage are storage options provided by IBM Cloud which IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps can use for storage.

IBM Cloud Classic Infrastructure Storage is a shared storage option. IBM Cloud VPC Infrastructure Storage is a dedicated storage option that is available to users who have a virtual private cloud (VPC) in IBM Cloud. For performance reasons, IBM Cloud VPC Infrastructure Storage is preferred as the storage solution for IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps.

The following storage classes are required by IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps, and are created when Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud (ROKS) is installed:

Storage provider Storage class name Large block storage class name
IBM Cloud Classic Infrastructure Storage (without OADP backup and restore) ibmc-block-gold ibmc-block-gold
IBM Cloud Classic Infrastructure Storage (with OADP backup and restore) ibmc-file-gold-gid ibmc-block-gold
IBM Cloud® VPC Infrastructure Storage ibmc-vpc-block-10iops-tier ibmc-vpc-block-10iops-tier

Installing IBM Cloud storage

For more information about IBM Cloud storage, see the following topics in the IBM Cloud documentation:

Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation (ODF)

The following storage classes are required by IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps, and are created when Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation is installed:

Storage provider Storage class name Large block storage class name
Red Hat® OpenShift® Data Foundation (without OADP backup and restore) ocs-storagecluster-ceph-rbd ocs-storagecluster-ceph-rbd
Red Hat® OpenShift® Data Foundation (with OADP backup and restore) ocs-storagecluster-cephfs ocs-storagecluster-ceph-rbd

Installing Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation

Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation is available for purchase through the IBM Storage Suite for IBM Cloud Paks. Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation is an implementation of the open source Ceph storage software, which is engineered to provide data and storage services on Red Hat OpenShift. Use version 4.12 or higher.

For more information about deploying Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation, see Deploying OpenShift Data Foundation Opens in a new tab in the Red Hat documentation. Choose the appropriate deployment instructions for your deployment platform.

Important: Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation provide additional configuration steps, which can alleviate potential problems with delayed space reclamation. For more information, see Reclaiming space on target volumes in the Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation documentation.

These additional configuration steps are not specific to IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps, and are required for any application that experiences a high volume of writes that are then deleted. For IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps, this might be an event storm where large numbers of events are ingested and resolved, or when a large quantity of short-term metric data is ingested and then deleted. Failure to properly configure storage can cause out of disk space errors that might not be readily apparent. In some scenarios, you might need to contact your storage provider to ensure proper storage configuration for your needs.

IBM Fusion Data Foundation

The following storage classes are required by IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps:

Storage provider Storage class name Large block storage class name
IBM Fusion Data Foundation (without OADP backup and restore) ocs-storagecluster-ceph-rbd ocs-storagecluster-ceph-rbd
IBM Fusion Data Foundation (with OADP backup and restore) ocs-storagecluster-cephfs ocs-storagecluster-ceph-rbd

Installing IBM Fusion Data Foundation

IBM Fusion Software version 2.9.0 and IBM Fusion HCI Systems version 2.9.x are compatible with IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps.

To learn more about IBM Fusion and how to install IBM Fusion Data Foundation service, see the following two methods:

IBM Fusion Software

IBM Fusion Data Foundation is a highly integrated collection of cloud storage and data services for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform. It is available as part of the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform service catalog, packaged as an operator to facilitate simple deployment and management.

The IBM Fusion Software provides the following features:

  • IBM Fusion software is a software-only solution that can be deployed on a variety of hardware platforms.
  • IBM Fusion software is designed to scale up to meet the needs of larger environments.
  • IBM Fusion software can be integrated with a variety of third-party solutions.

Before you install IBM Fusion, ensure that you meet all of the prerequisites. For more information, see Prerequisites Opens in a new tab.

For more information about Deploying IBM Fusion, see Deploying IBM Fusion Opens in a new tab.

For more information about how to install Data Foundation service using IBM Fusion, see Data Foundation Opens in a new tab.

For more information about IBM Fusion Software storage class, see Data Foundation.

IBM Fusion HCI Systems

The IBM Fusion Data Foundation service provides a foundational data layer for applications to function and interact with data in a simplified, consistent, and scalable manner.

The IBM Fusion HCI Systems provides the following features:

  • IBM Fusion HCI system is a pre-integrated, pre-tested, and pre-configured appliance that combines hardware and software.
  • IBM Fusion HCI system is designed to scale out to meet growing storage needs.
  • IBM Fusion HCI system is tightly integrated with IBM's other hybrid cloud solutions, such as IBM Cloud and IBM Power Systems.

For more information about Prerequisites of IBM Fusion HCI system, see Planning and prerequisites Opens in a new tab.

For more information about Deploying IBM Fusion HCI System, see Deploying IBM Fusion HCI System Opens in a new tab.

For more information about how to install Data Foundation service using IBM Fusion HCI Systems, see Data Foundation Opens in a new tab.

For more information about IBM Fusion HCI Systems storage class, see Data Foundation.

IBM Fusion Global Data Platform

The following storage classes are required by IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps:

Storage provider Storage class name Large block storage class name
IBM Fusion Global Data Platform: IBM Fusion ibm-spectrum-scale-sc ibm-spectrum-scale-sc
IBM Fusion Global Data Platform: IBM Fusion HCI System ibm-storage-fusion-cp-sc ibm-storage-fusion-cp-sc

Installing IBM Fusion Global Data Platform

The Global Data Platform storage type provides the following features:

  • File storage
  • High availability via capacity-efficient erasure coding
  • Metro and regional disaster recovery
  • CSI snapshot support with built-in application consistency
  • Encryption at rest
  • Ability to mount file systems hosted by remote IBM Storage Scale clusters.

Important: IBM Fusion Global Data Platform provide additional configuration steps, which can alleviate potential problems with delayed space reclamation. For more information, see Enabling reclaim space operation using Annotating PersistentVolumeClaims in the IBM Fusion documentation.

These additional configuration steps are not specific to IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps, and are required for any application that experiences a high volume of writes that are then deleted. For IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps, this might be an event storm where large numbers of events are ingested and resolved, or when a large quantity of short-term metric data is ingested and then deleted. Failure to properly configure storage can cause out of disk space errors that might not be readily apparent. In some scenarios, you might need to contact your storage provider to ensure proper storage configuration for your needs.

You can deploy Global Data Platform service by using the following two methods:

IBM Fusion Software

Before you install IBM Fusion, ensure that you meet all of the prerequisites. For more information, see Prerequisites Opens in a new tab.

For more information about Deploying IBM Fusion, see Deploying IBM Fusion Opens in a new tab.

For more information about how to install Global Data Platform using IBM Fusion Software, see Global Data Platform Opens in a new tab.

For more information about IBM Fusion Software storage class, see IBM Storage Scale.

IBM Fusion HCI Systems

For more information about Prerequisites of IBM Fusion HCI system, see Planning and prerequisites Opens in a new tab.

For more information about Deploying IBM Fusion HCI System, see Deploying IBM Fusion HCI System Opens in a new tab.

For more information about how to deploy Global Data Platform service using IBM Fusion HCI Systems, see Global Data Platform Opens in a new tab.

For more information about IBM Fusion HCI Systems storage class, see IBM Storage Scale.

IBM Storage Scale Container Native

The following storage class is required by IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps, and is created when IBM Storage Scale Container Native is installed.

Storage provider Storage class name Large block storage class name
IBM Storage Scale Container Native ibm-spectrum-scale-sc ibm-spectrum-scale-sc

This class is used as both the ReadWriteMany storage class and large block storage class when you are installing IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps. This StorageClass includes a parameter to set permissions of data within the StorageClass to shared: true, which is required to support the Kubernetes SubPath feature. For more information about the permissions field for the class, see the IBM Spectrum Scale CSI Driver documentation Opens in a new tab.

Installing IBM Storage Scale Container Native

IBM Storage Scale Container Native is available for purchase through the IBM Storage Suite for IBM Cloud Paks. IBM Spectrum Scale is a cluster file system that provides concurrent access to a single file system or set of file systems from multiple nodes. The nodes can be SAN-attached, network attached, a mixture of SAN-attached and network attached, or in a shared nothing cluster configuration. This enables high-performance access to this common set of data to support a scale-out solution or to provide a high availability platform. IBM Storage Scale Container Native Storage Access must be at version 5.1.1.3 or higher, with IBM Spectrum Scale Container Storage Interface version 2.3.0 or higher.

For more information, see the IBM Storage Scale Container Native documentation Opens in a new tab.

To use IBM Storage Scale Container Native with IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps, you do not require a separate license. You can use up to 12 TB of IBM Storage Scale Container Native storage for up to 36 months, fully supported by IBM, within your production environments (Level 1 and Level 2). If you exceed these terms, a separate license is required.

To install and use IBM Storage Scale Container Native, your cluster must meet the requirements in the IBM Storage Scale Container Native documentation Opens in a new tab.

To install IBM Storage Scale Container Native and the IBM Spectrum Scale Container Storage Interface, follow the IBM Storage Scale Container Native installation documentation Opens in a new tab.

If you encounter any errors or issues with installing or using IBM Storage Scale Container Native or the IBM Spectrum Scale Container Storage Interface, refer to the following documentation:

Portworx

The following storage classes are required by IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps, and must be created using the instructions in the following section:

Storage provider Storage class name Large block storage class name
Portworx px-csi-aiops px-csi-aiops
Portworx (multi-zone HA) px-csi-aiops-mz px-csi-aiops-mz

Installing Portworx

Important: sharedv4 volumes require NFS ports to be open. For more information, see the Portworx documentation Open NFS Ports Opens in a new tab.

  1. Install the Portworx operator and configure a Portworx StorageCluster.

    Two editions of Portworx are available: Portworx Enterprise and Portworx Essentials. Portworx Enterprise is suitable for production deployments. Portworx Essentials is suitable only for demonstration deployments, as it can be used only on clusters of five nodes or less, and includes storage size limits. For more information, see the Portworx documentation Installing Portworx on Openshift Opens in a new tab.

    Note: You must be a cluster administrator to install Portworx on the cluster.

  2. Define a custom Portworx storage class.

    The custom Portworx storage class will be used for file and block storage. The storage class is scoped to the cluster, so setting the project (namespace) is not required.

    If you are not using the Multi-zone HA technical preview, then use Option 1 to define px-csi-aiops. If you are using the Multi-zone HA technical preview, then use Option 2 to define px-csi-aiops-mz.

    Option 1: Define px-csi-aiops

    Log in to your OpenShift cluster's console. Click the plus icon on the upper right to open the Import YAML dialog box, paste in the following content, and then click Create.

    kind: StorageClass
    apiVersion: storage.k8s.io/v1
    metadata:
      name: px-csi-aiops
    provisioner: pxd.portworx.com
    parameters:
      fs: xfs
      io_profile: db_remote
      repl: '2'
    reclaimPolicy: Delete
    allowVolumeExpansion: true
    volumeBindingMode: Immediate
    

    Option 2: Define px-csi-aiops-mz

    Log in to your OpenShift cluster's console. Click the plus icon on the upper right to open the Import YAML dialog box, paste in the following content, and then click Create.

    kind: StorageClass
    apiVersion: storage.k8s.io/v1
    metadata:
      name: px-csi-aiops-mz
    provisioner: pxd.portworx.com
    parameters:
      fs: xfs
      io_profile: db_remote
      repl: '3'
    reclaimPolicy: Delete
    allowVolumeExpansion: true
    volumeBindingMode: Immediate
    

AWS native storage

The following storage classes are required by IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps. gp3-csi is created for you, but you must create efs-sc using the instructions in the following section.

Storage provider Storage class name Large block storage class name
AWS native storage (without OADP backup and restore) gp3-csi gp3-csi
AWS native storage (with OADP backup and restore) efs-sc gp3-csi

Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) provides block storage - the storage class is gp3-csi, and is created when ROSA is installed. Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) provides file storage - the storage class is efs-sc. You must create the efs-sc storage class using the instructions in the following section.

Installing AWS native storage

For more information about Amazon Web Services (AWS) native storage, see Cloud Storage on AWS in the AWS documentation.

For more information, see Setting up the AWS EFS CSI Driver Operator and Creating the AWS EFS storage class in the Red Hat OpenShift documentation. You can also review the information in the Red Hat article Enabling the AWS EFS CSI Driver Operator on ROSA.