Hardware requirements and recommendations

Review the minimum CPU, Memory, RAM, and disk space requirements for setting up and running IBM® Cloud Private clusters.

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

The following tables list the minimum system requirements per node for running IBM Cloud Private. The minimum requirement for IBM Cloud Private is one master (and proxy) node, one management node, and one worker node.

Hardware requirements

Single node requirements

Table 1. Minimum hardware requirements for a single node cluster
Requirement All management services enabled All management services including logging disabled
Number of hosts 1 1
Cores 8 or more 8 or more
CPU >=2.4 GHz >=2.4 GHz
RAM 32 GB or more 8 GB or more
Free disk space to install >=200 GB >=150 GB

Note for CPUs:

Multi-node requirements

Note: In your multi-node cluster, if you do not use a management node, ensure that the master node meets the requirements of the management node plus the master node.

Table 2. Minimum hardware requirements for a multi-node cluster
Requirement Boot node Master node Proxy node Worker node Management node VA node etcd node
Number of hosts 1 1, 3, or 5 1 or more 1 or more 1 or more 1, 3, or 5 1 or more odd number of nodes
Cores 1 or more 8 or more 2 or more 1 or more 8 or more
  • 4 or more
  • 8 or more (production environment)
 1 or more
CPU >= 2.4 GHz >= 2.4 GHz >= 2.4 GHz >= 2.4 GHz >= 2.4 GHz >= 2.4 GHz >= 2.4 GHz
RAM >=4 GB >=16 GB >=4 GB >=4 GB >=16 GB
  • >=8 GB
  • >=16 GB (production environment)
 >=4 GB
Free disk space to install >=100 GB >=200 GB >=150 GB >=150 GB >=150 GB
  • >=100 GB
  • >=400 GB (production environment)
 >=100 GB

Notes:

  1. Accounts that use PowerVM can share cores. For larger environments, assign processor cores.

  2. For CPUs:

    • For a Linux x86_64 cluster, use a CPU that supports SSE 4.2.
    • For a Linux on Power (ppc64le) cluster, use a CPU that is version Power8 or higher.
    • For a Linux® on IBM® Z and LinuxONE cluster, use a CPU that is either version EC12 or later or any LinuxONE system.

Disk space requirements

Table 3. Minimum storage requirements for runtime
Location Minimum disk space Node
/ 50 GB All nodes
Note: Certain temporary files are copied to /root and /tmp. You need 50 GB on /root and 50 GB on tmp. Another option is to assign 50 GB to a file system shared by /root and tmp such as /.
/var 240 GB Master and management nodes
/var/lib/docker >=100 GB All nodes
/var/lib/etcd >=10 GB Master
/var/lib/icp >=100 GB Master, management, and VA nodes
/var/lib/mysql >=10 GB Master
/var/lib/registry >=10 GB Master
Note: Must be large enough to host all the Docker images that you plan to store in your private image registry.
/var/lib/kubelet >=10 GB
  • All nodes need >10 GB of disk space
  • If you enable the Vulnerability Advisor, the VA node needs >=100 GB of disk space.
/tmp 50 GB Staging directory for installation files on all the nodes.
Installation directory 50 GB Boot node
Note: The directory must have at least 50 GB of available disk space for the installation and installation files.

Important: The /var directory is the default storage location for most Docker images and the containers that are used in your IBM Cloud Private cluster. Other directories that are used by the installer but do not require significant amounts of disk space includes the following directories:

To prevent disk space issues, mount the default storage directories on separate paths that have larger disk capacities. For more information about mounting the Docker storage directory (/var/lib/docker), see Specifying a default Docker storage directory by using bind mount. You can also use this bind method to mount the other IBM Cloud Private default storage directories. To prevent disk space issues in your cluster, you might want to use a bind mount to mount the following directories:

Note: For offline installation, the installation directory must have at least 50 GB of available disk space for the installation and installation files.

For more information about mounting the default storage directories, see Specifying other default storage directories by using bind mount.

File system requirements

IBM Cloud Private requires POSIX file systems. In high availability (HA) clusters, you must set up a POSIX-compliant file system for shared storage. This file system must be located outside of your IBM Cloud Private cluster. For HA clusters, see High availability IBM® Cloud Private clusters for the file system requirements on master and proxy nodes.

For a list of file systems that are supported by IBM Cloud Private, see Supported file systems and storage.

Supported IaaS and hypervisors

IBM Cloud Private is certified on several Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) providers and hypervisors.

Table 4. Supported IaaS versions
IaaS Versions
VMware vCenter 6.0, 6.5, 6.7
OpenStack Mitaka and later
Hyper-V 10.0.15063.0 and later
Nutanix AHV 20170830.94 (AOS 5.5.2)
IBM PowerVC 1.4.1 and later

IBM Cloud Private is certified on KVM, ESX, Nutanix Acropolis, and IBM PowerVM hypervisors.

Kubernetes and Cloud Foundry demonstrated portability across multiple IaaS providers in the community. While IBM Cloud Private is certified for on premises installations on VMware, OpenStack, and bare metal, you can install it on other IaaS systems. For additional information, contact your sales representative.

Supported environments

IBM Cloud Private can run on other environments, with other products installed. For details see Supported environments.