Instana backend requirements

For Instana SaaS, you don't need to install the Instana backend. Install only Instana agents as described in the Instana agents.

For self-hosted (on-premises) Instana deployment, you need to install the Instana backend in a Kubernetes/OpenShift environment or a Docker-based environment as described in Self-hosted (on-premises) Instana deployment.

Before you install the Instana backend, ensure that the following requirements are met.

Instana backend on Kubernetes/Red Hat OpenShift

Supported Kubernetes and Red Hat OpenShift versions

The Kubernetes Operator runs on any vanilla Kubernetes distribution and Red Hat OpenShift.

Platform Minimum supported version
Kubernetes 1.22
Red Hat OpenShift 4.9

Docker-based data store setup

Supported OS

The supported OS for Instana data store on Docker is the same as in the Supported OS section of Instana backend on Docker.

Supported Docker versions

The supported Docker versions for Instana data store on Docker is the same as in the Supported Docker versions section of Instana backend on Docker.

Prerequisites

  • To authenticate against the Docker repository, make sure that the host machine that you want to install the Instana backend can connect to auth-infra.instana.io:443.

  • All installation and migration commands must be run as root user.

  • You must ensure that Docker Engine is installed and at least 25 GB of free disk space is available for Docker images. For more information, see Install Docker Engine.

  • Set up mount points and external volumes:

    • Data stores

    Defaults to /mnt/data.

    • Cassandra

    It can't use the same volume for production installs. Defaults to /mnt/metrics.

    • ClickHouse

    It can't use the same volume for productions installs. Defaults to /mnt/traces.

    • Logs

    Defaults to /var/log/instana. If required, you can create a different directory.

Prerequisites for an air-gapped Instana backend

To install a self-hosted Instana backend in an environment that is not connected to the internet, ensure that the following prerequisites are met:

  1. Configure your image registry to proxy Instana's image registry (containers.instana.io) transparently.
  2. List the images that you need to mirror by running the command kubectl instana images. You can pull and push these images to your internal image registry.
  3. Point image.registry to your image registry. See the Operator configuration section in this topic.

Instana backend on Docker

Supported OS

The following Linux® distributions on x86-64 processors are supported:

  • Ubuntu 18.04
  • Ubuntu 20.04
  • Ubuntu 22.04
  • Debian 10.x
  • Debian 11.x
  • CentOS / Oracle Linux / Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.9
  • CentOS / Oracle Linux / Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.x with Docker CE
  • CentOS / Oracle Linux / Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.x with Docker CE
  • Amazon Linux 2.x
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP5
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15

Note: Instana images are based on Red Hat Universal Base Images (UBI), which requires CPU hardware that supports the x86-64-v2 microarchitecture. For more information, see this blog.

Supported Docker versions

The following Docker versions are supported:

  • 24.0+
  • 23.0+
  • 20.10+
  • 19.03+
  • 18.03+
  • 1.13

Minimum requirements

The machine where you want to install the Instana backend must have at minimum 12 CPUs and 48 GiB available memory. This is the lowest limit and only recommended for small installations. Production environments must have a minimum size of 16 CPUs and 64 GiB memory.

Network security notes

Note: Don't expose Instana without taking proper precautions.

Make sure to set the firewall properly for the installation. The only ports that you need to expose for a self-hosted installation are as follows:

  • Port 80: Used to detect broken links and promote them to SSL.

  • Port 443: Primary application port for UI and API.

  • Port 86 and 446: EUM ports. For more information, see Exposing the monitoring endpoint to end users.

  • Port 1444: Acceptor port for agents to connect to.

Prerequisites

The prerequisites for Instana backend on Docker is the same as in the Prerequisites for single-host datastore setup section of Instana backend on Kubernetes/Red Hat OpenShift.