Installing Turbonomic on vCenter using an OVA image

About the Turbonomic image

Turbonomic installs as a virtual machine image that runs the Rocky Linux 9 OS. Typically, you install this image once, and then run Turbonomic updates to take advantage of the latest product features, enhancements, and fixes. Turbonomic updates do not affect the underlying Rocky Linux 9 OS.

For important security patches for the Rocky distribution, it is your responsibility to install these patches on your Turbonomic virtual machine whenever necessary.

Note:

Rocky Linux OS is used as long as it remains viable and secure.

Installation requirements

The following table shows the minimum requirements for Turbonomic installations.

Note:

Turbonomic keeps a real-time representation of your environment in memory. As the number of entities in your environment increases, the virtual machine that runs Turbonomic requires additional resources. Adjust the memory and CPU capacities for the virtual machine as needed. To adjust the capacities, power off the virtual machine, make changes, and then power it on.

Resource	Minimum requirement
Host machine	The machine that hosts the Turbonomic platform must support the SSE4.2 instruction set. Support for this instruction set was introduced at different times for different chip manufacturers: Intel: November 2008 AMD: October 2011 The machine that hosts Turbonomic should be newer than these dates. On a Linux system, you can run the following command to check for this support: `cat /proc/cpuinfo \| grep sse4`
Virtual machine storage	Turbonomic provides a VM image that is preconfigured with two hard disk drives. A minimum of 1.80 TB (using thin or thick provisioning) is necessary to ensure that the drives have the proper amount of storage. Note: The `/var` partition must be at least 340 GB.
Virtual machine memory	160 GB (default) 96 GB (if your environment has 10,000 workloads or less) Note: If you plan to install a virtual machine with 96 GB of memory, you must modify the default memory when you install the image.
Virtual machine CPU	12 vCPUs
Network addressing	Turbonomic requires a static IP address. You configure the IP address as part of the installation.
License	To run Turbonomic on your environment, you must have the appropriate license. Licenses enable different sets of Turbonomic features, and they support a specified number of workloads in your environment.
User interface browser	To access the Turbonomic user interface, you must log in to the platform with a browser that can display HTML5 pages. Turbonomic supports the following browsers: Apple Safari Google Chrome Microsoft Edge Mozilla Firefox

Task overview

To install Turbonomic, complete the following tasks:

Import the OVA image and configure settings for the virtual machine. This process installs and starts up the virtual machine that hosts your Turbonomic instance.
Perform post-installation tasks.
Deploy the Turbonomic components.
Log in and get started with the Turbonomic user interface.
(Optional) Track license usage with IBM License Service.

Importing the OVA image and configuring virtual machine settings

Download the Turbonomic installation package.

The email that you received from Turbonomic includes a link to the downloadable installation package, turbonomic_t8c-{version}-{timestamp}.ova.
Import the OVA image into your environment using the vCenter client.
Skip this step to keep the default memory capacity of 160 GB.

To reduce the memory capacity to 96 GB, perform the following steps.
1. Right-click the virtual machine and select Edit Settings.
2. Type 96 as the memory value.
3. Click OK.
Power on the virtual machine.
Open the remote console.

For the Turbonomic virtual machine that you just deployed:
1. Choose the Summary tab.
2. Click Launch Remote Console.
Set up the Turbonomic system administrator account.
1. In the remote console, log in with the following default credentials:
  - Username: turbo
    
    Note:
    Do not use the account name, root.
  - Password: vmturbo
2. When prompted, specify a new password and then repeat it for verification.
  
  The new password must comply with the strong password policy that requires a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and a symbol.
  
  Note:
  Be sure to store the credentials securely as they are required to access and configure the Turbonomic virtual machine. The password cannot be recovered if lost.
Update the root password.

The platform uses the root account for certain processes, such as rolling up log messages in /var/log/messages. To ensure the account credentials are current, update the password.
1. In the remote console, open a super user session.
```
su -
```
2. At the password prompt, specify the default password, vmturbo.
3. Specify a new password when prompted.
  
  The new password must comply with the strong password policy that requires a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and a symbol.
  
  Note:
  Be sure to store the password securely.
4. Exit the super user session.
```
exit
```

Set up a static IP address. A static IP address for the Turbonomic virtual machine is required to manage the platform.

Run the ipsetup script that is included in the virtual machine.
```
sudo /opt/local/bin/ipsetup
```

Specify the following required information when prompted. If the information is incorrect or unspecified, the installation can fail or your virtual machine may be unreachable.

Note:

Proxy servers that are explicitly configured are not supported with the secure client so they should not be specified.

Prompt	Instructions
`Do you want to use DHCP or set a static IP...`	Choose `static`.
`Please enter the Hostname for this machine`	Specify the hostname.
`Please enter the IP Address for this machine`	Specify the IP address. Record the IP address for later use.
`Please enter the network mask for this machine`	Specify the network mask.
`Please enter the Gateway address for this machine`	Specify the gateway address.
`Enter DNS Server(s) IP Address for this machine`	Specify the IP address for the DNS server.
`Do you want to configure a proxy server? (y/n)`	Choose `n`.

Performing post-installation tasks

Review and complete the tasks that apply to your environment.

Deploying the Turbonomic components

Before deploying the platform components, be sure to review the following requirements:

You updated the root password when you imported the image and configured virtual machine settings in a previous task.
Turbonomic images for online upgrades and installations are pulled from IBM Container Registry (icr.io). Ensure that you have access to https://*.icr.io before continuing.
If you want to synchronize the virtual machine's clock now, be sure you have the Network Time Source information. For more information about synchronizing the virtual machine's clock, see Synchronizing time.
Image-based installations use Kubernetes v1.28.8. Use the crictl and ctr commands since Docker commands no longer work. For more information, see the following external resources:

The following instructions describe the default deployment process. If you want to customize your deployment, follow the instructions in Step-wise platform deployment.

Start a secure session (SSH) on your Turbonomic virtual machine using the turbo user account.
Run the t8cInstall.sh script.
```
/opt/local/bin/t8cInstall.sh
```
When the following prompt displays, choose an option.
```
Have you run the ipsetup script to setup networking yet? [y/n]
```
- If you configured a static IP address when you installed the image, press y to continue.
- If you did not configure a static IP address, press n. The setup script runs and prompts you to configure a static IP address before you can continue.
Important:
The virtual machine must have a static IP address. Because of dependencies between Turbonomic and the Kubernetes installation, it is not recommended to change the IP address after the deployment.
Wait for the deployment to complete.

As the deployment begins, the script shows the following message:
```
############################
Start the deployment rollout
############################
```
The script performs the following tasks.
- Configures the platform environment with the necessary certificates
- Configures the Kubernetes cluster on the virtual machine, which can take a few tries before succeeding. For each try that does not succeed, you may see the following message.
```
To further debug and diagnose cluster problems, use 'kubectl cluster-info dump'.
```
  When the connection succeeds, the script advances to the next steps.
- Establishes local storage for the platform
- Creates the turbonomic namespace for the platform
- Configures authorization to access the required Kubernetes secrets
- Initializes the MariaDB database server to manage historical data for the platform. The script creates two accounts on the MariaDB that have full privileges:
  - root@localhost: This account does not use a password. To connect through this account, the user must be system root.
  - mysql@localhost: This account does not use a password. To connect through this account, the user must be system mysql.
  Note:
  For security reasons, Turbonomic recommends that you configure passwords for these accounts. You can connect with these accounts by using the sudo command, such as sudo mysql. After you connect, you can configure passwords. For more information, see the MariaDB documentation.
- Installs the Timescale database for embedded reports and the Data Exporter
- Deploys and starts up the platform components
After the components deploy, the script waits for them to start and shows the following message.
```
The installation process is complete, waiting for all the components to start up.
** The script will wait for as long as 30 minutes. **
```
Check if all the components started within 30 minutes.
- If all components start within 30 minutes, the deployment is complete and successful. The script shows a message similar to the following example.
```
#################################################
Deployment Completed, please login through the UI
https://10.10.123.123
#################################################
```
  Record the Turbonomic server address shown in the message and then open a browser window to access the user interface.
- If some components do not start after 30 minutes, the script shows the following message and then exits.
```
===========================================================================
    One or more of your deployments has not started up yet.
    ** Please give your environment another 30 minutes to stabilize. **
    To check the status of your components, execute the following command:
    kubectl get pods
    If some components are still not ready, contact your support representative
```
  The script then displays the formatted result of the kubectl get pods command. This shows you the status of the pods in the Turbonomic platform.
  
  Wait another 30 minutes. To periodically check the component status, run the kubectl get pods command. If the issue persists, contact your Turbonomic representative.

Save a copy of the platform's master key secret.

The deployment process creates a master key secret in the Kubernetes cluster. Turbonomic uses this secret to provide access to the platform components. Save the key data to a safe location.

Get the platform secrets.

kubectl get secrets

The results include the master key secret.

...
master-key-secret              Opaque                        1      57d
...

Display the master key data.

kubectl get secret master-key-secret -o yaml

The output is similar to the following example:

apiVersion: v1
data:
  primary_key_256.out: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx=
kind: Secret
metadata:
  creationTimestamp: "2021-06-30T02:59:19Z"
  managedFields:
  - apiVersion: v1
    fieldsType: FieldsV1
    fieldsV1:
      f:data:
        .: {}
        f:primary_key_256.out: {}
      f:type: {}
    manager: kubectl-create
    operation: Update
    time: "2021-06-30T02:59:19Z"
  name: master-key-secret
  namespace: turbonomic
  resourceVersion: "1072"
  uid: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
type: Opaque

The important key data to save is the primary_key... data. In this example, save the following line.

primary_key_256.out: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx=

Save the data to a safe place.

Write this data to a file and save it in a safe backup location. If you ever need to recover the master key, your Turbonomic representative uses this data to perform the recovery.

Logging in and getting started with the Turbonomic user interface

Log in to the Turbonomic user interface using the server address and get started.

Open a browser window and then specify the address of your Turbonomic instance in the address bar.
In the login page, specify the required credentials.
- Username: Specify administrator.
- Password: Specify your password.
  
  The password must have a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and a symbol.
- Repeat password: Specify your password again.
Record these credentials for future use.
Activate your license. For more information, see License management.
Add targets. For more information about targets, see Target configuration.
Create other user accounts with various roles. For more information about user accounts and roles, see Managing user accounts.

Note:
For security reasons, you can create a different account with an Administrator role to serve as the main administrator of your Turbonomic installation, and then delete the default administrator account. You must always have at least one user account with administrator privileges.

Tracking license usage with IBM License Service

IBM® License Service is automatically installed in the Open Virtual Appliance (OVA) when you run the t8cInstall.sh script. License Service installs in its own namespace, ibm-common-services, rather than in the Turbonomic namespace.

The installation script installs the prometheus-server pod in the turbonomic namespace since it is used by License Service to pull metrics.

When you run kubectl get pods -n ibm-common-services, you can see the two pods that are running in this namespace: ibm-licensing-operator and ibm-licensing-service-instance, as shown in the following example:

NAME                                              READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
ibm-licensing-operator-5fb7fcfbfc-wpc9q           1/1     Running   0          2d21h
ibm-licensing-service-instance-5945cd746b-ds9cg   1/1     Running   0          2d21h

You can use the License Service user interface (UI) in your browser to retrieve license usage data for monitoring and compliance. You can also retrieve an audit snapshot of the data to use as audit evidence. For more information, see this topic.