Software requirements

Before you install IBM® Cloud Pak for Data, review the software requirements for the control plane, the shared cluster components, and the services that you plan to install, and review the supported web browsers.

Cloud Pak for Data platform software requirements

You must have the following software to install Cloud Pak for Data:

Red Hat® OpenShift® Container Platform cluster
For entitlement information see Licenses and entitlements.

The following versions of Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform are supported. (Cloud Pak for Data supports the same operating system requirements as Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform.)

Version Learn more Cluster sizing guidance Notes
Version 4.6.29 or later fixes For details, see the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform documentation: Refer to the Cloud Pak for Data platform hardware requirements as you configure your cluster. The following services are not supported on OpenShift Version 4.6:
  • MongoDB
  • Watson™ Machine Learning
  • Watson Machine Learning Accelerator
Version 4.8.0 or later fixes For details, see the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform documentation: Refer to the Cloud Pak for Data platform hardware requirements as you configure your cluster.  
Version 4.10.0 or later fixes For details, see the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform documentation: Refer to the Cloud Pak for Data platform hardware requirements as you configure your cluster.  
Container runtime
Your Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform cluster must include a container runtime.
Software Notes®
CRI-O Version 1.13 or later fixes You might need to adjust the CRI-O container settings. For details, see Changing required node settings.
Kubernetes Metrics Server
If you do not enable the default monitoring stack on your Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform cluster and you want to gather use metrics for your pods and nodes, install Kubernetes Metrics Server.
Important: If you do not enable the default monitoring stack or install Kubernetes Metrics Server, the platform monitoring features in Cloud Pak for Data will not work.
IBM Cloud Pak® foundational services
For entitlement information see Licenses and entitlements.
Cloud Pak for Data release Minimum required release of IBM Cloud Pak foundational services
4.5.0 Version 3.19.0 or later fixes
Important: The Cloud Pak for Data command-line interface (cpd-cli) can automatically install and upgrade IBM Cloud Pak foundational services. You do not need to install IBM Cloud Pak foundational services separately.

Shared cluster component software requirements

There are no additional software requirements for:
  • Scheduling service
  • Common core services

Service software requirements

Use this table to determine whether the service that you want to install depends on other software being available:
  • Some services require other software to be installed outside of Cloud Pak for Data (marked as external dependencies)
  • Some services require other Cloud Pak for Data services to be installed as prerequisites or to support specific functionality (marked as service dependencies)
  • Some services require other underlying components, which the service installs if needed (marked as component dependencies)
Service External dependencies Service dependencies Component dependencies
Anaconda Repository for IBM Cloud Pak for Data For details, see the Anaconda installation requirements.
None
None
Analytics Engine Powered by Apache Spark None
None
None
Cognos® Analytics To use Cognos Analytics, you must have:
None
The service automatically installs the following dependencies if they are not already installed:
  • Common core services (ccs)
Cognos Dashboards None
None
The service automatically installs the following dependencies if they are not already installed:
  • Common core services (ccs)
Data Privacy None

To install this service, you must have the following services already installed:

  • Analytics Engine Powered by Apache Spark
  • Watson Knowledge Catalog
None
Data Refinery None
None
None
Data Virtualization None
The service automatically installs the following services if they are not already installed:
  • Db2® Data Management Console
The service automatically installs the following dependencies if they are not already installed:
  • Common core services (ccs)
  • Db2U (db2u)
DataStage® None
The following services are not required but provide additional functionality:
  • Tech previewWatson Studio Pipelines enables you to convert DataStage sequence jobs to pipelines.
The service automatically installs the following dependencies if they are not already installed:
  • Common core services (ccs)
Db2 None
The following services are not required but provide additional functionality:
  • Db2 Data Management Console provides:
    • A graphical user interface for SQL execution
    • A runtime monitoring interface
This service automatically installs the following dependencies if they are not already installed:
  • Db2U (db2u)
Db2 Big SQL To use Db2 Big SQL, you must have remote data storage, such as:
  • A Hadoop cluster (Cloudera Data Platform Version 7.1.7)
  • Object storage
    Db2 Big SQL supports:
    • IBM Cloud Object Storage
    • Amazon Web Services object storage
    • IBM Spectrum® Scale object storage
    • Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation
The following services are not required but provide additional functionality:
  • Db2 Data Management Console provides:
    • A graphical user interface for SQL execution
    • A runtime monitoring interface
This service automatically installs the following dependencies if they are not already installed:
  • Db2U (db2u)
Db2 Data Gate To use this service, you must have:
  • IBM z/OS® V2.2 (5650-ZOS) or later.
  • Db2 for z/OS, either:
    • V12 (5650-DB2 or 5770-AF3) with APAR fixes installed and running at Function Level 505 or higher. You find the list of required APAR fixes here: Software dependencies
    • V13 (5698-DB2 or 5698-DBV)
  • Distributed data facility (DDF) with a secure port, configured for network encryption through AT-TLS. For details, see Configuring network access between Db2 Data Gate and IBM Z®.
To use this service, you must have at least one instance of a supported, integrated database:
  • Db2
  • Db2 Warehouse
The following services are not required but provide additional functionality:
  • Watson Knowledge Catalog enables you to automatically publish metadata about Db2 Data Gate tables to catalogs.
None
Db2 Data Management Console None
None
This service automatically installs the following dependencies if they are not already installed:
  • Redis (opencontent_redis)
Db2 Warehouse None
The following services are not required but provide additional functionality:
  • Db2 Data Management Console provides:
    • A graphical user interface for SQL execution
    • A runtime monitoring interface
This service automatically installs the following dependencies if they are not already installed:
  • Db2U (db2u)
Decision Optimization None
To install this service, you must have the following services already installed:
  • Watson Studio
  • Watson Machine Learning
None
EDB Postgres None
None
This service automatically installs the following dependencies if they are not already installed:
  • Cloud Native PostgreSQL (postgresql)
Execution Engine for Apache Hadoop To use this service, you must have an Execution Engine for Apache Hadoop RPM installation on a Hadoop or IBM Spectrum Conductor cluster. 
To install this service, you must have the following services already installed:
  • Watson Studio
None
Guardium® External S-TAP® To use this service, you must have an existing IBM Security Guardium collector. The following versions of IBM Security Guardium are supported:
  • Version 11.2
  • Version 11.3
  • Version 11.4
None
None
Informix® None
None
This service automatically installs the following dependencies if they are not already installed:
  • informix
IBM Match 360 with Watson None
The following services are not required but provide additional functionality:
  • Watson Knowledge Catalog provides the ability to profile and automap data assets.
This service automatically installs the following dependencies if they are not already installed:
  • Common core services (ccs)
  • Elasticsearch (opencontent_elasticsearch)
  • FoundationDB (opencontent_fdb)
  • RabbitMQ (opencontent_rabbitmq)
  • Redis (opencontent_redis)
MongoDB None
None
You must install the following dependencies when you install the service:
  • mongodb
OpenPages® If you prefer to connect to an external database rather than having OpenPages automatically provision a Db2 database for you, you must have IBM Db2 on Linux.
The following services are not required but provide additional functionality:
  • Cognos Analytics
  • Watson Assistant
  • Watson Discovery
  • Watson Knowledge Catalog

    Integration with AI Factsheets supports reviewing machine learning models and related activities as part of enterprise risk and compliance monitoring.

  • Watson OpenScale
This service automatically installs the following dependencies if they are not already installed:
  • Db2U (db2u)
  • Db2 as a service (db2aaservice)
  • RabbitMQ (opencontent_rabbitmq)
Planning Analytics If you want to use Microsoft Excel, you must have the Planning Analytics for Microsoft Excel plug-in.
None
None
Product Master If you want to connect to a database outside of Cloud Pak for Data, it must be an IBM Db2 or Oracle database.
If you want to connect to an integrated database, you must have the following service already installed:
  • Db2
None
RStudio® Server with R 3.6 None
To install this service, you must have the following service already installed:
  • Watson Studio
None
SPSS® Modeler None
To install this service, you must have the following services already installed:
  • Watson Studio
None
Voice Gateway None
To install this service, you must have the following service already installed:
  • Watson Assistant
  • Watson Speech to Text
  • Watson Text to Speech
None
Watson Assistant None
The following services are not required but provide additional functionality:
  • Watson Discovery enables you to add a search skill to your assistant.
This service automatically installs the following dependencies if they are not already installed:
  • Cloud Native PostgreSQL (postgresql)
  • etcd (opencontent_etcd)
  • Elasticsearch (opencontent_elasticsearch)
  • MinIO (opencontent_minio)
  • RabbitMQ (opencontent_rabbitmq)
  • Redis (opencontent_redis)
  • Watson audit webhook (opencontent_auditwebhook)
  • Watson data governor (data_governor)
  • Watson Gateway (watson_gateway)
  • Watson model trainer (model_train)
Watson Discovery None
IBM Cloud Pak foundational services
This service automatically installs the following dependency if it is not already installed:
  • Cloud Native PostgreSQL (postgresql)
  • etcd (opencontent_etcd)
  • Elasticsearch (opencontent_elasticsearch)
  • MinIO (opencontent_minio)
  • RabbitMQ (opencontent_rabbitmq)
  • Watson Gateway (watson_gateway)
Watson Knowledge Catalog None
The service automatically installs the following services if they are not already installed:
  • Analytics Engine Powered by Apache Spark
  • Data Refinery
If you choose to install the data quality feature, the service automatically installs the following services if they are not already installed:
  • DataStage Enterprise
The following services are not required but provide additional functionality:
  • Data Privacy
  • MANTA Automated Data Lineage
The service automatically installs the following dependencies if they are not already installed:
  • Common core services
  • Db2U (db2u)
  • Db2 as a service (db2aaservice)
If you choose to install the semantic search and data lineage feature, the service automatically installs the following dependencies if they are not already installed:
  • FoundationDB (opencontent_fdb)
Watson Knowledge Studio None
None
This service automatically installs the following dependencies if they are not already installed:
  • Cloud Native PostgreSQL (postgresql)
Watson Machine Learning None
The following services are not required but provide additional functionality:
  • Watson Machine Learning Accelerator provides the Experiment Builder user interface.
The service automatically installs the following dependencies if they are not already installed:
  • Common core services (ccs)
Watson Machine Learning Accelerator To install this service, you must install the NVIDIA GPU Operator, either:
x86-64
  • NVIDIA GPU Operator 1.10 on OpenShift 4.10
  • NVIDIA GPU Operator 1.7.1 on OpenShift 4.8
POWER
  • Rocket Software GPU Operator 1.10 on OpenShift 4.10 (POWER9)
To install this service, you must have the following service already installed:
  • Scheduling service
The following services are not required but provide additional functionality:
  • Watson Machine Learning enables you to use Deep Learning Experiments
None
Watson OpenScale If you prefer to connect to an external database, you must have Db2 Enterprise Server Edition 11.5 or later.
If you want to connect to an integrated database, you must have at least one instance of a supported, integrated database:
  • Db2
  • Db2 Warehouse

The following services are not required but provide additional functionality. To use the functionality, you must install the services before you install Watson OpenScale:

  • Watson Studio enables you to:
    • Create AutoAI models and Jupyter Notebooks
    • Set up a demo environment where you can quickly tour the Watson OpenScale capabilities
  • Watson Machine Learning enables you to:
    • Create a deployed model that Watson OpenScale can check for bias and drift
    • Automatically log payloads
None
Watson Speech services None
None
This service automatically installs the following dependencies if they are not already installed:
  • Cloud Native PostgreSQL (postgresql)
  • MinIO (opencontent_minio)
  • RabbitMQ (opencontent_rabbitmq)
  • Watson audit webhook (opencontent_auditwebhook)
  • Watson Gateway (watson_gateway)
Watson Studio None
The service automatically installs the following services if they are not already installed:
  • Data Refinery
  • Watson Studio Runtimes
This service automatically installs the following dependencies if they are not already installed:
  • Common core services (ccs)
Watson Studio Runtimes To use the following environments, you must have an NVIDIA GPU Operator 1.6.2 installed:
  • Jupyter Notebooks with Python 3.9 for GPU
To install this service, you must have the following service already installed:
  • Watson Studio
None

Supported web browsers

You can use the following web browsers to access the Cloud Pak for Data web client:

  • Mozilla Firefox (recommended)
  • Google Chrome
  • Microsoft Edge

It is recommended that you use the latest available versions or the latest version approved by your enterprise.