Installation prerequisites

Go through these general prerequisites and ensure that they are all met before you go ahead with your installation.

  • Run vgen on the provisioner to do a sanity check on the wiring and networking of all nodes. 
    
cd /home/kni/isfconfig
chmod +x ./vgen
./vgen
  • A connection to the internet is needed to install the software that operates the IBM Storage Fusion HCI System appliance. If you plan to do an offline installation of IBM Storage Fusion, mirror external-operators and OpenShift® Container Platform image repositories to your registry. For the actual steps, see Enterprise registry for IBM Storage Fusion HCI System installation.
  • IBM’s delivery service removes the rack from the pallet, unpacks, and moves the rack to its final location on the data center floor. If you instruct to leave the pallet or rack packed in the staging area, then it is your responsibility to remove, unpack, and move the rack to its final location. Follow the printed manual to unbox the rack and locate it in your data center.
    If client-provided rack is used, then the following system components are delivered in two boxes that are shipped on one or more pallets:
    • First box has four switches (two High-speed and two management) and all nodes
    • Second box have rails, cables, and manuals
  • Ensure that IBM Storage Fusion HCI System is installed in a restricted access location, such that the area is accessible only to skilled and instructed persons with proper authorization.
  • If you plan to use a custom certificate, follow the OpenShift Container Platform guidelines to create a certificate. Consider the following points for the chain of certificates:
    • Wildcard certificate must be the first certificate in the file.
    • Any intermediate certificates must follow the wildcard certificate.
    • End of the file must have a root CA certificate.
    Note: Ensure that the certificate is well-known and not a self-signed certificate.
  • Go through the Site-readiness topics and confirm whether your premise satisfies the requirements.
  • The following are the high-level steps to set up and configure the hardware appliance:
    1. You must unpack the appliance and locate it in your data center. For planning and prerequisites, see Planning and prerequisites.

      If you purchased the system without an IBM rack, the IBM SSR unpacks the components from their boxes and installs them into the client-provided rack.

    2. The Service Support Representative (SSR) assists you in network cabling and power connections by using the details that are provided by your network team.
    3. The SSR assists you with the Network setup stage of the installation. The network setup includes the configuration of your network, such as high-speed switch and IP configuration. For more information, see Network planning.
  • If you plan to use a proxy server for internet access, then contact the IBM Support team. For more information about proxy configuration, see Proxy configuration.
  • The Container Network Interface (CNI) network (daemon network) is created for IBM Spectrum® Storage Scale Erasure Code Edition (ECE) core pods. By default, IP addresses are assigned for scale daemon network. You can override the default IP address before you begin the Final installation. For the procedure, see Configuring Scale daemon network IP parameters.
    Note: You can override the default IP addresses only before you start the Final Installation wizard.
  • If you plan to install site 2 in a Metro-DR setup, ensure that the following prerequisites are met:
    • IBM Storage Scale on the site 1 is healthy and all IBM Storage Scale core pods are up and running.
    • Ensure that the disk count is same on site 1 and site 2.
    • Ensure that site 2 has the same supported OpenShift Container Platform version as site 1.
    For general Metro-DR prerequisites, see General Metro-DR prerequisites.
  • If you installed IBM Storage Fusion HCI System in the previous version using offline or online installation mode, then ensure that you do not change the mode during the upgrade to the new version. To change the installation mode, reinstall IBM Storage Fusion HCI System.
  • Run the command to pull the image and verify that you have access to the IBM Storage Fusion HCI System images.
    Note: You can use either Podman or Docker to verify the access.
    podman login cp.icr.io -u cp -p "CLIENT ENTITLEMENT KEY"
podman pull cp.icr.io/cp/isf/isf-validate-entitlement@sha256:1a0dbf7c537f02dc0091e3abebae0ccac83da6aa147529f5de49af0f23cd9e8e

    If the pull is successful, then you have a valid entitlement for IBM Storage Fusion HCI System images.

  • For a high availability cluster, you must have received three racks from IBM with a minimum of six nodes per rack. Also, you must buy a pair of spine switches from IBM. Cables of required length to attach the spine switches can be IBM provided or client that is provided.