System requirements

Certain system requirements are required for the IBM Storage Archive Enterprise Edition.

IBM Storage Archive Enterprise Edition supports Linux® operating systems and hardware platforms. Refer to Table 1 for Linux system requirements.

Table 1. Linux system requirements
Linux computers
One or more IBM Storage Archive Enterprise Edition nodes	Processor	One of the following servers: x86_64 processor (physical server only) POWER® ppc64le processor (either physical server or PowerVM® partition
	Disk Storage	1 GB (0.93 GiB) of available disk space on each IBM Storage Archive Enterprise Edition node. For migration, more temporary space is needed. Use the following information to estimate the size of the additional space that is needed. The required storage is proportional to the number of files (NF) being acted on and the average length of the path name to each file (AVPL). To make a rough estimate of the space that is required, estimate NF and assume an AVPL of 80 bytes. With an AVPL of 80, the space that is required is roughly (300 X NF) bytes of temporary space. For more information, see the mmapplypolicy -s command in https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/spectrum-scale The file system that contains the /var/log directory must provide sufficient free space to contain all log files that are related to IBM Storage Archive Enterprise Edition. A migration of 50000 files can require 1 GB (.93 GiB), depending on the length of the corresponding file names, of free space. To save space, system message log file /var/log/messages must be compressed regularly, which can be achieved by configuration of the `logrotate` facility. The log rotation for the `ltfs.log`, `ltfsee.log`, and `ltfsee_trc.log` files are already configured this way during the installation. When you create a IBM Storage Archive Enterprise Edition cluster on the top of a GPFS cluster, evaluate the configuration of the GPFS quorum tiebreaker disks, and ensure that the IBM Storage Archive Enterprise Edition cluster works properly with that configuration. For more information about tiebreaker disks, see the https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/spectrum-scale. Refer to the topic GPFS file system size requirements for Storage Archive metadata for more requirements. A sizing tool is available at the following website: https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/6148113
	Memory requirements	For memory requirements, refer to the topic System memory requirements.
	Supported operating systems	The following operating systems are supported: Red Hat® Enterprise Linux 8.6, 8.7, 8.8, 8.9, 8.10 (x86_64, and ppc64le) Find the most current operating system compatibility information on the IBM® Support website, including the following flash alert and any subsequent updates: https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/887213.
	Licensed software	The following licensed software is required: IBM Storage Archive Enterprise Edition One of the following versions of IBM Storage Scale: 5.1.2.1 or later fix pack 5.1.3.0 or later fix pack 5.1.4.0 or later fix pack 5.1.5.0 or later fix pack 5.1.6.0 or later fix pack 5.1.7.0 or later fix pack 5.1.8.0 or later fix pack 5.1.9.0 or later fix pack 5.2.0.0 or later fix pack 5.2.2.0 or later fix pack Java™ virtual machine (JVM) 1.8 or later must be installed before you install IBM Storage Archive Enterprise Edition.
	Supported host bus adapter (HBA)	A supported adapter (Fibre Channel, SAS, or RoCEv2) and the supported SAN/Networking switch are required for connection to the IBM tape drives. Refer to the support information available at the System Storage Interoperability Center (SSIC) website. The TS1160E (3592-60E) drive requires that the supported Mellanox RoCE adapter with the MLNX_OFED software package is installed. When used with PowerVM on the ppc64le platform, the tape drive can be connected through the HBA assigned to CPU LPAR, or the HBA managed by VIOS.
	Ethernet adapter for node-to-node communication	An Ethernet adapter is required for the connection between IBM Storage Archive EE nodes via a TCP/IP-based protocol network. For more information, see Configuration prerequisites. The IBM Storage Archive EE nodes are interconnected by using IPv4 (either on the GPFS daemon network or the GPFS admin network).
Tape libraries	Supported tape libraries	Supports one or two tape libraries. For more information, see Supported tape libraries
Tape libraries	Supported tape drives and media	Supports one or more tape drives per node. Some command operations require having two drives per node, at the minimum. For more information, see Supported tape drives and media
Shared disk space	Managed GPFS file systems	The amount of disk space that is required depends on the GPFS settings used. For more information, see Preparing a GPFS file system for IBM Storage Archive EE
	IBM Storage Archive Enterprise Edition metadata storage that is on one GPFS file system.	The amount of disk space that is required depends on the GPFS settings used. For more information, see Preparing a GPFS file system for IBM Storage Archive EE and GPFS file system size requirements for Storage Archive metadata
	GPFS file systems that are space managed by the HSM component of IBM Storage Archive Enterprise Edition.	IBM Storage Archive Enterprise Edition creates a SpaceMan directory under each GPFS file system that is space managed by the HSM component of IBM Storage Archive Enterprise Edition. Each SpaceMan directory requires 1 GB of disk space. IBM Storage Archive Enterprise Edition supports HSM version 8.1.25.0.

Note: Ensure that all tape drives are at the most current firmware level to fully use IBM Storage Archive functions. See the documentation that is supplied with your tape drives and media for the most current compatibility information. Go to the IBM Fix Central website for the most current information about fixes and updates for your system's software, hardware, and operating system.