Planning for installation

You can install IBM Spectrum® Control by using the installation program or the command line in silent mode. Installing IBM Spectrum Control by using console mode is not supported. Also, upgrading the operating system of a server where IBM Spectrum Control is installed is not supported. If you must upgrade the server, contact the IBM® Support team for IBM Spectrum Control Support to discuss your options.

Antivirus software considerations

Installing IBM Spectrum Control involves making use of your operating system in manners typical for installing new application software. If your antivirus software is set on the maximum mode, it might prevent some of your changes from being accepted.

To verify that your installation completes correctly, enable your antivirus software product to allow the following instances:
  • The /etc/hosts file can be edited
  • Files can be created in the /temp directory
  • New executable files can be created in the C:\Program Files directory
McAfee tip for Windows: If McAfee Adaptive Threat Protection is enabled on the server where IBM Spectrum Control is installed, it might prevent some services from starting or stopping. To help avoid this issue, open McAfee Adaptive Threat Protection and go to settings. In the Real Protect Scanning (Windows only) section, verify if Enable client-based scanning is selected. If so, select Low from the Sensitivity level list.

For more information about McAfee Adaptive Threat Protection, see the following links:

Recommended skills and knowledge

Administrators and users of IBM Spectrum Control should be familiar with the following skills and topics:
  • General procedures for installing software on Microsoft™ Windows™, IBM AIX®, and Linux® operating systems
  • Storage Area Network (SAN) concepts
  • IBM Spectrum Control concepts
  • IBM Database
  • Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) concepts

Required user privileges for installation

Ensure that you have the required privileges to install Db2® and IBM Spectrum Control. If you are installing on a Windows operating system, you must install as a user with administrator privileges. If you are installing on an AIX or Linux operating system, you must install as a root user or as a non-root user who has sudo privileges.

Fully qualified host names

Some systems might be configured to return a short host name such as server22, instead of a fully qualified host name such as server22.myorg.mycompany.com. IBM Spectrum Control requires fully qualified host names, so you must install the product on a computer that has a fully qualified host name.

Restriction:

Hostnames must be 15 characters or less and cannot contain special characters, for example, a space or an underscore. Use characters a through z, or characters 0 - 9. Hyphens (-) are also allowed.

Important: Before you run your Db2 installation and begin your IBM Spectrum Control installation, please validate that the Windows server hostname is 15 characters or less in length.

For more information about determining whether you have a fully qualified domain name, see Checking for a fully qualified host name.

Self signed certificate considerations

There are new certificate requirements from the CA/B Forum that are strictly enforced for macOS Catalina users that might affect your ability to access the IBM Spectrum Control GUI. During an upgrade of IBM Spectrum Control, certificates self-signed by IBM Spectrum Control will be made automatically compliant. However, if one or more of your certificates are not self-signed by IBM Spectrum Control, see IBM Spectrum Control and macOS Catalina (10.15) Increased Security Policies on SSL Certificates and validate that your certificates are compliant.

Starting with IBM Spectrum Control 5.3.6, all default self-signed certificates have an expiration date of 825 days based on the new certificate requirements from the CA/B Forum. By default, upgrades of IBM Spectrum Control always renew the expiration of all default self-signed certificates used by the product for another 825 days. However, if you have installed your own certificates, IBM Spectrum Control does not modify those certificates for you.

For more information about determining whether you have a fully qualified domain name, see Replacing the default SSL certificate for the Device, Alert, or Web server with a self-signed certificate.

For more information about determining whether you have a fully qualified domain name, see Replacing the default SSL certificate for the Export server.

Hardware and software requirements

The IBM Spectrum Control server can require a large amount of memory, disk space, network bandwidth, and processor resources. To promote consistent availability and performance, install IBM Spectrum Control on a dedicated server where no other critical business applications, including IBM Copy Services Manager, are installed. IBM Software Support is not responsible for availability, performance, and functional problems that are caused by other business applications that are deployed on the same server as IBM Spectrum Control.

Before you install IBM Spectrum Control, apply all available updates and patches to the operating system on the target computer.

For information about hardware requirements, see Hardware requirements.

For information about software requirements, see Software requirements.

For information about updates to product and operating system support, see Find the Supported Hardware, Products and Platforms Interoperability Matrix Links at External link icon https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/388393.

Installation methods

You can install Db2 and IBM Spectrum Control by using the GUI or silent mode. In silent mode, a command is provided with the values in a response file.

Use the silent-mode installation to install on a server that cannot display graphics. For example, if you are installing on an AIX or Linux server that does not have the X Window System installed.

On a server that does not have the X Window System installed, you cannot change the Db2 and IBM Spectrum Control passwords within IBM Spectrum Control by using the change password tool. For information on how to change the passwords, see Changing passwords on AIX and Linux systems using the Command Line Interface (CLI).

Installation images

Compressed installation images are available electronically. Download and extract these images to a location with adequate disk space. For disk space requirements by operating system, see IBM Spectrum Control™ - Hardware Support: Memory, Processor and Disk Space at External link iconIBM Spectrum Control - Hardware Support: Memory, Processor and Disk Space.

Download the installation images for each product into a separate directory. The following list provides sample download directory paths:
  • c:\downloads\DB2
  • c:\downloads\SC
Extract the image files into a separate temporary directory for each product. For example:
  • c:\temp\DB2
  • c:\temp\SC
Attention: If you do not extract the files into separate directories for each product, the common paths or path structures might overwrite each other, and you cannot install the products.
Follow these rules for naming the directories:
  • Do not include spaces in the directory name.
  • Keep the directory name short.
  • For Linux or AIX operating systems, do not include a period (.) at the end of the directory name.

During the extraction of multi-part images, if you are prompted to merge or replace folders or files with the same name, click Merge/Replace.

Installation files for the following components are provided with IBM Spectrum Control:
Db2
  • Db2 for Windows (64-bit)
  • Db2 for Linux (64-bit)
  • Db2 for AIX (64-bit)
IBM Spectrum Control
  • IBM Spectrum Control for AIX
  • IBM Spectrum Control for Linux
  • IBM Spectrum Control for Windows
In addition, installation files for the following optional agents are available with IBM Spectrum Control:
  • IBM Spectrum Control Storage Resource agent for Windows
  • IBM Spectrum Control Storage Resource agent for UNIX®
On Windows operating systems, assign the appropriate security settings for the Db2 and IBM Spectrum Control compressed files by completing the following steps:
  1. Right-click one of the compressed installation files.
  2. Examine the General tab and determine whether the Unblock button is displayed.
  3. If the Unblock button is displayed:
    1. Right-click the compressed file and click Properties.
    2. On the General tab, next to Security, click Unblock.
  4. Verify that the compressed installation files no longer have the Unblock button displayed.

IBM Spectrum Control GUI

After IBM Spectrum Control is installed, use the GUI to complete your storage management tasks. The GUI runs in a web browser and includes the ability to monitor, manage, and troubleshoot storage resources. You can access this interface from anywhere that you have a web browser and connectivity to a network. You can also use the IBM Cognos® Analytics reporting tool to generate, save, and view reports about the condition, capacity, and performance resources.

Installation language

When you install IBM Spectrum Control, you must select one of the following languages:
  • English
  • Czech
  • French
  • German
  • Hungarian
  • Italian
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Polish
  • Brazilian Portuguese
  • Russian
  • Spanish
  • Chinese (Simplified)
  • Chinese (Traditional)

For more information about changing the operating system for the user interface, see Changing languages .

Messages, online help, and text are displayed in the language that you select. You are not required to install a language pack after installation. When you use IBM Spectrum Control, the language that is displayed is the language setting of the operating system.

To install IBM Spectrum Control on a Windows domain, see Planning to install IBM Spectrum Control in a Windows domain and Installing IBM Spectrum Control on a Windows domain .

Installation images on AIX

When you extract installation images, use the GNU tape archive (tar) program instead of the AIX tape archive program. The AIX tape archive program might truncate long file names, which can cause installation errors in IBM Spectrum Control.

To get the GNU tape archive program, go to AIX Toolbox for Open Source Software. Find tar in the Package column, and click RPM to download the program. You must specify this program as the default tape archive program in the PATH environment variable.

For more information on using the correct program to extract the IBM Spectrum Control installation media, see How to install GNU tar on AIX operating system .