Component requirements

Ensure that you have the required system configuration and a supported browser to deploy and run IBM Spectrum Protect Plus. These requirements apply to all installations of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus.

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus support for third-party platforms, applications, services, and hardware parallels that of the third-party vendors. When a third-party vendor product or version enters extended support, self-serve support, or end of life, IBM Spectrum Protect Plus supports it at the same level.

Virtual appliance

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is installed as a virtual appliance.

The IBM Spectrum Protect Plus virtual appliance has five virtual disks that total 536 GB of storage.

Use a Network Time Protocol (NTP) server to synchronize the time zones across resources that are in your environment, such as the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus virtual appliance, storage arrays, hypervisors, and application servers. If the clocks on the various systems are significantly out of sync, you might experience errors during application registration, metadata cataloging, inventory, backup, restore, or file restore jobs. For more information about identifying and resolving timer drift, see the following VMware knowledge base article: Time in virtual machine drifts due to hardware timer drift.

For initial deployment, the virtual appliance must meet the following minimum requirements:
  • 64-bit 8-core machine
  • 48 GB memory
Before deploying to the host, ensure that the following requirements are met:
  • The correct VMware or Microsoft Hyper-V template.
  • vSphere 5.5, 6.0, 6.5, or 6.7 or Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2016 is installed.

    For later versions of vSphere, the vSphere Web Client might be required to deploy IBM Spectrum Protect Plus virtual appliances.

  • Network information and VMware host information.
  • Either an available static IP address to use or access to the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP).

Browser support

Run IBM Spectrum Protect Plus from a computer that has access to the installed virtual appliance. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus was tested against the following web browsers. Later browser versions also might be supported.
  • Firefox 55.0.3
  • Google Chrome 60.0.3112
  • Microsoft Edge 40.15063

If your screen resolution is less than 1024 x 768 pixels, some items might not fit on the window. Pop-up windows must be enabled in your browser to access the help system and some IBM Spectrum Protect Plus operations.

IBM® storage requirements

To integrate IBM Spectrum Protect Plus with IBM Spectrum Protect, IBM Spectrum Protect Version 8.1.0 or later is required.

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus ports

The following ports are used by IBM Spectrum Protect Plus and associated services. Ports that are marked as Accept use a secure connection (HTTPS/SSL).

Table 1. Incoming firewall connections (IBM Spectrum Protect Plus appliance)
Port Protocol Firewall Service Description
22 TCP Accept OpenSSH 5.3 (protocol 2.0) Used for troubleshooting IBM Spectrum Protect Plus.
443 TCP Accept A microservice running a reverse-proxy Main entry point for the client connections (SSL).
5432 TCP Blocked PostgreSQL SQL RDBMS: Supports job management and some security related data and transactions.
5671 TCP, AMQP Accept RabbitMQ Message framework used to manage messages produced and consumed by the VADP proxy and VMware job management workers. Also facilitates job log management.
5672 AMQP Blocked RabbitMQ Message framework used to manage messages produced and consumed within the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus appliance.
8082 TCP Blocked Virgo Modular Java™ application server. Serves core functions for IBM Spectrum Protect Plus including the REST APIs.
8083 TCP Blocked Node.js JavaScript server. Provides higher level APIs to the user interface leveraging the REST APIs running in Virgo.
8090 TCP Accept Administrative Console Framework (ACF) Extensible framework for system administration functions. Supports plugins that perform operations such as system updates and catalog backup/restore.
8092 TCP Blocked ACF Plugin EMI Supports system update, certificate, and license management.
8093 TCP Blocked ACF Plugin Catalog Backup and Recovery Backs up and restores IBM Spectrum Protect Plus catalog data.
8761 TCP Accept Discovery Server Automatically discovers VADP proxies and is used by IBM Spectrum Protect Plus VM backup operations.
27017 TCP Blocked MongoDB Persists configuration related documents for IBM Spectrum Protect Plus.
27018 TCP Blocked MongoDB2 Persists recovery metadata documents for IBM Spectrum Protect Plus.
Table 2. Incoming firewall connections (IBM Spectrum Protect Plus appliance - onboard vSnap server)
Port Protocol Firewall Service Description
111 TCP Accept RPC Port Bind Allows clients to discover ports that Open Network Computing (ONC) clients require to communicate with ONC servers (internal).
2049 TCP Accept NFS Used for NFS data transfer to and from vSnap (internal).
3260 TCP Accept iSCSI Used for iSCSI data transfer to and from vSnap (internal).
20048 TCP Accept NFS Used for NFS data transfer to and from vSnap (internal).
Table 3. Outgoing firewall connections (IBM Spectrum Protect Plus)
Port Protocol Service Description
22 TCP OpenSSH 5.3 (protocol 2.0) Used for SSH communications to remote servers running guest applications components.
25 TCP SMTP Email service.
389 TCP LDAP Active directory services.
443 TCP VMware ESXi Host ESXi host port for managing operations.
443 TCP VMware vCenter Client connections to vCenter.
636 TCP LDAP Active directory services (SSL)
902 TCP VMware NFC service Network File Copy (NFC) provides a file-type-aware FTP service for vSphere components. ESXi uses NFC for operations such as copying and moving data between datastores by default.
5985 TCP Windows Remote Management (WinRM) Hyper-V and guest applications client connections.
8080 TCP VADP proxy Virtual machine data protection proxy.
8900 TCP vSnap OVA/Installer version of the intelligent storage framework used as a target for data protection operations.

vSnap requirements

A vSnap server is the primary backup destination for IBM Spectrum Protect Plus. In either a VMware or Hyper-V environment, one vSnap server with the name localhost is automatically installed at the time that the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus virtual appliance is initially deployed. In larger backup enterprise environments, additional vSnap servers might be required.

For initial deployment, ensure that your virtual machine or physical Linux machine meets the following minimum requirements:
  • 64-bit 8-core processor
  • 32 GB memory
  • 16 GB free space on root file system
  • 128 GB free space on a separate file system mounted at the following location: /opt/vsnap-data

Adjust data based on backup capacity for more efficient data deduplication. The general rule is 1 GB for every 1 TB of backup data.

Optionally, a solid-state drive (SSD) improves backup and restore performance.

To improve backup performance, configure the pool to use one or more log devices backed by an SSD. Specify at least two log devices to create a mirrored log for better redundancy.

To improve restore performance, configure the pool to use a cache device backed by an SSD.

vSnap server virtual machine installation requirements

Before deploying to the host, ensure you have the following:

  • The correct VMware or Microsoft Hyper-V template
  • vSphere 5.5, 6.0, 6.5. or 6.7 or Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2016
  • For later versions of vSphere, the vSphere Web Client might be required to deploy IBM Spectrum Protect Plus appliances.
  • Network information and VMware host information.
  • Either an available static IP address to use or access to DHCP.

vSnap server physical installation requirements

The following Linux operating systems are supported for physical vSnap installations:

  • CentOS Linux7.3.1611 (x86_64)
  • CentOS Linux7.4.1708 (x86_64)
  • CentOS 7.1804 (7.5) (x86_64)
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.3 (x86_64)
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4 (x86_64)
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.5 (x86_64)

vSnap server ports

The following ports are used by vSnap servers. Ports that are marked as Accept use a secure connection (HTTPS/SSL).

Table 4. Incoming vSnap firewall connections
Port Protocol Firewall Service Description
22 TCP Accept SSH Used for troubleshooting vSnap.
111 TCP Accept RPC Port Bind Allows clients to discover ports that ONC clients require to communicate with ONC servers (internal).
2049 TCP Accept NFS Used for NFS data transfer to and from vSnap (internal).
3260 TCP Accept iSCSI Used for iSCSI data transfer to and from vSnap (internal).
20048 TCP Accept NFS Used for NFS data transfer to and from vSnap (internal).

VADP proxy requirements

In IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, running virtual machine backup jobs through VADP can be taxing on system resources. By creating VADP backup job proxies, you enable load sharing and load balancing for your backup jobs. If proxies exist, the entire processing load is shifted off the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus appliance and onto the proxies. Your system must meet the following requirements if you plan to deploy a VADP proxy.

This feature was tested only for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and Red Hat environments. It is supported only in 64-bit quad core configurations with a minimum kernel of 2.6.32.

VADP proxies support the following VMware transport modes: SAN, HotAdd, NBDSSL, and NBD. For more information about VMware transport modes, see Virtual Disk Transport Methods.

The SAN transport mode is not supported when virtual machines reside on VMware virtual volumes (VVols). HotAdd or NBD transport modes must be used.

The HotAdd transport mode is not supported on physical VADP proxies.

This feature is supported only in 64-bit quad core configurations in the following Linux environments:

  • CentOS Linux 6.5+ (beginning with 10.1.1 patch 1)
  • CentOS Linux 7.0+ (beginning with 10.1.1 patch 1)
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, Fix pack 4 or later
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, all updates
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12, all updates

For initial deployment, ensure that your Linux machine meets the following minimum requirements:

  • 64-bit quad core processor
  • 8 GB RAM required, 16 GB recommended
  • 60 GB free disk space

The proxy must have the ability to mount NFS file systems, which in many cases requires an NFS client package to be installed. The exact package details vary based on the distribution.

Each proxy must have a fully qualified domain name and must be able to resolve and reach vCenter. vSnap servers must be reachable from the proxy. If a firewall is active on the proxy, the following ports on the vSnap server must be reachable (both TCP and UDP): 111, 2049, and 20048.

Port 8080 on the VADP proxy server must be open when the proxy server firewall is enabled. If the port is not open, VADP backups will run on local vmdkbackup instead of the VADP proxy server.

VADP proxy ports

The following ports are used by VADP proxies. Ports that are marked as Accept use a secure connection (HTTPS/SSL).

Table 5. Incoming VADP proxy firewall connections
Port Protocol Firewall Service Description
22 TCP Accept SSH Port 22 is used to push the VADP proxy to the host node.
8080 TCP Accept VADP VADP REST APIs
Table 6. Outgoing VADP proxy firewall connections
Port Protocol Firewall Service Description
111 TCP Accept vSnap RPC Port Bind Used for troubleshooting vSnap.
443 TCP Accept VMware ESXi Host/vCenter Allows clients to discover ports that ONC clients require to communicate with ONC servers (internal).
902 TCP Accept VMware ESXi Host NFC provides a file-type-aware FTP service for vSphere components. ESXi uses NFC for operations such as copying and moving data between datastores by default.
2049 TCP Accept vSnap NFS Used for NFS data transfer to and from vSnap (internal).
5671 TCP Accept RabbitMQ Used for iSCSI data transfer to and from vSnap (internal).
8761 TCP Accept Discovery Server Used for NFS data transfer to and from vSnap (internal).
20048 TCP Accept vSnap mounted Mounts vSnap file systems on clients such as the VADP proxy, application servers, and virtualization data stores.

VADP proxies can be pushed and installed to Linux-based servers over SSH port 22.

VADP proxy on vSnap server requirements

VADP proxies can be installed on vSnap servers in your IBM Spectrum Protect Plus environment. A combination VADP proxy/vSnap server must meet the minimum requirements of both devices. Consult the system requirements of both devices and add the core and RAM requirements together to identify the minimum requirements of the combination VADP proxy and vSnap server.

Ensure your combination VADP proxy and vSnap server meets the following minimum requirements, which is the sum of the requirements for each device.

VADP proxy installed on a virtual or physical vSnap server:
  • 64-bit 8-core processor
  • 48 GB RAM

All required VADP proxy and vSnap server ports must be open on the combination VADP proxy and vSnap server.