Solution tab
Figure 142
shows the Solution tab when you add an IBM Storage Fusion HCI product to your project.
Figure 142 IBM Storage Fusion HCI - Solution tab
The following details apply to the
Solution tab for IBM Storage Fusion HCI:
▪Site assignment: This field is prefilled with the site assignment from the Add Product process.
▪Installation Country: This field contains all countries where the IBM Storage Fusion HCI
solution is available.
▪Expert Assist: All IBM Storage Fusion HCI solutions require a level of expert care.
– Click on the arrow in the Offering field to choose one of the following levels:
• IBM Storage Expert Care Basic
• IBM Storage Expert Care Premium
– Term: The Term field indicates the Expert care basic software
maintenance agreement, which ranges from 1 - 5 years.
The Term options depend on the option selection in the License field of the
Red Hat OCP section, because Red Hat offers their licenses with only 1, 3, or 5 years support. Therefore,
when the user switches Licenses from Bring your own to either Need a license - per core pair or
Need a license - per server, the Term options are limited to only 1, 3, and 5 years.
• If the user already selected 2 or 4 years before turning on RHOCP license, then a default of 3
years is applied.
• If the user already selected 1, 3, or 5 years, their selection stays active.
▪Storage Fusion software
– License: Click the arrow and choose one of the following:
• Need a license (default): If the client needs an IBM Storage Fusion software license.
• Bring your own - license part of ELA: If the client has enough IBM
Storage Fusion software licenses to fulfill the licensing requirements for the IBM Storage Fusion HCI.
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Note: The fields on the right side of the
IBM Storage Fusion software
section depend on the selection in the
License field. See Figure 142:
▪If you select Need a license, the Client-provided licenses number is ‘0’.
▪If you select Bring your own - license part of ELA, the Client-provided licenses number is equal to the
Modelled Virtual Processor Cores
number
▪The Ordered licenses (Virtual Processor Cores) is the difference between Modelled Virtual Processor Cores and
Client-provided licenses.
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– Erasure Code Storage Fusion HCI GEN1
The options shown in this input depend on the number of 9155-C01 and 9155-C05 servers added to all racks.
• If 9155-C01 + 9155-C05 servers <= 10 in any rack, then 4 + 2p is the
only option shown.
• If 9155-C01 + 9155-C05 servers > 10 in all racks, then both options (4 + 2p
and 8 + 3p) are shown.
It doesn't matter if the 9155-C01 and 9155-C05 servers are control nodes. They are counted equally towards the number of storage nodes.
Figure 142
shows the Erasure code (8 + 3p) when the total number of 9155-C01 and 9155-C05 servers is 11 or more in all racks.
Figure 143
shows the right side of the
Solution tab shows the following three tables:
• The Hardware details table shows a high-level summary of the
configuration - even across multiple racks.
• The Compute Resources table shows the amount of CPU cores
and memory available for your workloads.
• The Storage table shows the amount of raw capacity that can
effectively be used and the capacity that needs to be licensed.
Figure 143 IBM Storage Fusion HCI GEN1 hardware details
– Erasure Code Storage Fusion HCI GEN2
The options shown in this input depend on the number of 9155-C10 and 9155-C14 servers added to all racks.
• If 9155-C10 + 9155-C14 servers <= 10 in any rack, then 4 + 2p is the
only option shown.
• If 9155-C10 + 9155-C14 servers > 10 in all racks, then both options (4 + 2p
and 8 + 3p) are shown.
It doesn't matter if the 9155-C10 and 9155-C14 servers are control nodes. They are counted equally towards the number of storage nodes.
Figure 142
shows the Erasure code (8 + 3p) when the total number of 9155-C10 and 9155-C14 servers is 11 or more in all racks.
Figure 144
shows the right side of the
Solution tab shows the following three tables:
• The Hardware details table shows a high-level summary of the
configuration - even across multiple racks.
• The Compute Resources table shows the amount of CPU cores
and memory available for your workloads.
• The Storage table shows the amount of raw capacity that can
effectively be used and the capacity that needs to be licensed.
Figure 144 IBM Storage Fusion HCI GEN2 hardware details
There are 2 ways to change the amount of storage nodes, drives, memory, etc. Refer to
“I will design a solution”
to design a system manually or refer to
“Help me design a solution” to have the system help you design a system.
I will design a solution
Figure 145
shows the
I will design a solution option within the Solution tab when you add an
IBM Storage Fusion HCI product to your project.
Figure 145 IBM Storage Fusion HCI Design
You can set the number of racks and fill them with the required servers in a similar fashion as before. The right side of
Figure 146
and
Figure 147
show the Configure hardware details for Fusion HCI GEN1 and GEN2, respectively.You can also define whether your client will provide the racks, request pre-cabled
racks, and add spine switches with the check boxes at the top.
Figure 146 IBM Storage Fusion GEN1 HW Details
Figure 147 IBM Storage Fusion GEN2 HW Details
Help me design a solution
In this section, you will use
Help me design a solution
approach. This approach is the automatic configuration sizer that will configure the solution based on your client's workload requirements. See
Figure 148.
Figure 148 IBM Storage Fusion Help Automatic Configuration - Configuration Import
The dialog allows you to either import the requirements from
IBM Sales Configurator for Cloud Pak for Data
or enter them manually. On the first page, Configuration Import, you can upload a single .xlsx file downloaded from IBM Sales Configurator via its Export function and process it by
clicking the Import Requirements button, which will prefill the inputs of the Solution Requirements page. The Skip Import button leads
to the same page, but without importing any values. To see the results for:
▪Storage Fusion HCI GEN1 refer to “Configuration Import Results for Fusion HCI GEN1”.
▪Storage Fusion HCI GEN2 refer to “Configuration Import Results for Fusion HCI GEN2”.
Configuration Import Results for Fusion HCI GEN1
In this section, you will see the results of the import data process for Storage Fusion HCI GEN1 based on your client's workload requirements. See
Figure 149.
Figure 149 IBM Storage Fusion HCI Automatic Configuration - Solution Requirements
The 9155-G02 has a fixed quantity of 3 GPUs per node, where the 9155-G03 can have up to 8 GPUs per node, as shown in
Figure 150.
Figure 150 IBM Storage Fusion HCI Automatic Configuration - Slots
Additional inofrmation:
• G02 and G03 servers are mutually exclusive, where G02 and G03 servers can not be in the same
configuration.
• G03 servers are not available in all countries. Users should check country availability.
• The maximum number of servers per rack is 2. Every G03 can have a different number of GPU adapters.
Configuration Import Results for Fusion HCI GEN2
In this section, you will see the results of the import data process for Storage Fusion HCI GEN2 based on your client's workload requirements. See
Figure 151.
For Fusion HCI GEN2,
Figure 151 IBM Storage Fusion HCI GEN2 Automatic Configuration - Solution Requirements
Storage Fusion HCI Solution Requirements
The “Solution Requirements” contains the client’s requirements for the Storage Fusion HCI system. They can be entered in one or multiple resource pools. Resource pools provide an exclusive
usage of their allocated resources, especially dedicating worker nodes to a specific application. This is a good design practice for resource-hungry applications like DB2 or MongoDB. They
can be added with “Add resource pool” and removed from the tab itself. If additional resource pools are defined in the Sales Configurator configuration, StorM will create them here
automatically and give them the same name as in Sales Configurator.
The Usable Compute input can be expressed in vCPU (SMT=2), vCPU (SMT=1), and VPC. SMT=2 means Hyperthreading is active, which is the default and means that 2 vCPU equal 1 VPC. SMT=1 means
that 1 vCPU equals one VPC. You can also express the compute requirement in VPCs directly.
GPU Nodes are only available in the “Main” resource pool and their memory and compute resources will be used to fulfill the requirements entered above.
StorM will configure dedicated worker nodes for each resource pool according to the compute, memory and minimum worker nodes entered. The usable capacity is an exception, because the total
of the capacity will be provided by the underlying IBM Storage Scale ECE cluster across all resource pools.
Finally, you can define how many drive slots should be kept free per storage node to allow for future growth. The erasure code selection will determine the size of a recovery group. So, if
you choose “8 + 3p”, you will obtain at least 11 storage nodes per rack.
If you uploaded a valid .xlsx file exported from the current version of
IBM Sales Configurator for Cloud Pak for Data, StorM will also show any warnings and informational messages stored in that file. If there were errors in the .xlsx, StorM considers this configuration to be invalid.
After entering the requirements, select
Propose Solution to proceed. The results are displayed in
Figure 152
for Storage Fusion HCI GEN1 and .displayed in
Figure 153
for Storage Fusion HCI GEN2.
Figure 152 IBM Storage Fusion HCI GEN1 Automatic Configuration – Proposed Solution
Figure 153 IBM Storage Fusion HCI GEN2 Automatic Configuration – Proposed Solution
Selecting “Change Requirements” brings you back to the first part of the process and selecting “Apply Configuration” closes the dialog and configures your Fusion HCI System accordingly.
How to Determine Application Workload Requirements
Application workload requirements could be provided by the client, or you could use a tool like the IBM Cloud Pak Sales Configurator. It is located at:
https://app.ibmsalesconfigurator.com/
and it allows you to size a Cloud Pak for Data. It can also be used for cloud instances, in addition to designing the compute and memory requirements of real-world applications.
In this example,
Figure 154, the configuration contains many services, and workloads could be larger. The result
is an Excel file that contains the vCPUs and memory requirements. If you configured a service to be placed in its own resource pool, the spreadsheet will list them individually. Please
keep in mind that at this point, StorM only supports 1 additional segment, which in this case equals an additional resource pool, besides the main one.
Figure 154 IBM Storage Fusion Cloud Pak
After selecting Export, you need to confirm the Control Pane sizing
Figure 155. The selected Add-ons have no effect on the requirements for StorM.
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Note: The VPC numbers shown in Sales Configurator are for license purposes and are based on its understanding of the underlying hardware. In our case,
StorM will be used to model the Fusion HCI System including its distributed storage workload. Therefore, sizing results will differ from the Cloud Pak sales configurator output.
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Figure 155 IBM Storage Fusion Export to XSLX
The exported .xlsx file can be imported in the first step of the Automatic Configuration Dialog, see
Figure 148.
▪Red Hat OCP
– Licenses
Click the arrow and choose Bring your own, Need a license - per core pair, or
Need a license - per server.
License details are shown only when the user selects
Need a license - per server or Need a license - per core pair in the Licenses field. See
Figure 156.
Figure 156 Red Hat license options
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Note: The fields described below are for the
Need a license - per server
selection. If the user selects
Need a license - per core pair,
the fields will include the word
Core Pair instead of Servers. (For example, Modelled Core pairs instead of
Modelled Servers).
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The following fields are shown for the
Need a license - per server selection. See Figure 157.
– Modelled Core Pairs: The amount of licenses derived from the modelled configuration in
the System tab. This field is not editable.
– Servers for Infrastructure Nodes: Integer number ranging from 0 - 2000.
– Client-provided licenses (Servers):
Integer number ranging from 0 - 2000.
– Ordered licenses (Servers): This field is not editable.
Figure 157 Red Hat OCP - Need a license - per server
▪Additional Capacity
– Backup (TiB): The Backup value Affects the calculation of
Additional Capacity for Protection.
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Note: If the Backup (TiB) value is greater than zero, it is added to the value of the
IBM Storage Fusion HCI Backup Storage in the
IBM Storage Fusion HCI Software
table in the System tab.
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Figure 158
shows the configuration for an instance of IBM Storage Fusion HCI with
Licenses = Bring your own for Red Hat OCP. You can modify the settings in the configuration dialog box. The configuration settings are then used to populate the fields on the right.
Licenses = Bring your own for Red Hat OCP. You can modify the settings in the configuration dialog box. The configuration settings are then used to populate the fields on the right.
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Note: The values displayed for Modelled Servers (or Modelled Core-Pairs) and
Ordered licenses
depends on what the user selects within the
Licenses field in the Red Hat OCP section:
▪If Bring your own is selected, the value for both fields is zero (0).
▪If Need a license - per core pair is selected, the values shown depend on the total number of core pairs in the configuration.
▪If Need a license - per server is selected, the values shown depend on the total number of servers in the configuration. See
Figure 158
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Figure 158 Red Hat OCP
Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management (ACM)
Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes provides end-to-end management visibility and control to manage your Kubernetes environment. See
Figure 159.
Figure 159 Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management
ACM is included in Red Hat OpenShift Platform Plus (OPP) but needs additional licensing if you only have the standard Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform subscription (OCP). In StorM it
can be added to your Fusion HCI CFR regardless of your selection in the “Red Hat” section, but StorM will make you aware that it is already included in Red Hat OPP. ACM is only available
for terms of 1 and 3 years and can only be purchased as a “per core pair” license. A combination of for example Red Hat OCP “per server” and Red Hat ACM “per core pair” is possible.
Configuration details
The following configuration rules
per rack define how servers can be added to your IBM Storage Fusion HCI solution.
▪You can allocate a set of 16 server slots among the first five servers:
– A minimum of 6 storage servers (9155-C01 + 9155-C05)
– A maximum of 10 compute and GPU servers (9155-C00 + 9155-C04 + 9155-G03)
– A maximum of 16 non-AFM servers (9155-C01 + 9155-C05 + 9155-C00 + 9155-C04 + 9155-G03)
– A maximum of 2 GPU servers (9155-G03)
– A maximum of 2 AFM servers (9155-F01)
– All servers can be added in increments of 1
– All three control nodes must be of the same server model, either 9155-C01 or 9155-C05
The following configuration rules apply to all servers:
▪All storage servers (9155-C01 and 9155-C05) must have the same number of drives
▪All 9155-C01 servers must have the same amount of memory
▪All 9155-C05 servers must have the same amount of memory
▪All 9155-C00 servers must have the same amount of memory
▪All 9155-C04 servers must have the same amount of memory
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Note: Make sure that you review the Compute Resources section.
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Make sure that you review the
Compute Resources section.
Figure 160 Compute Resources
▪The Hardware details table shows the quantity of each server type and a total in a per-rack basis. See
Figure 161.
Figure 161 Hardware details
System memory
You can upgrade the system memory for the following servers:
▪Compute/Storage Server 9155-C01 (32 Cores)
▪Compute/Storage Server 9155-C05 (64 Cores)
▪Compute Server 9155-C00 (32 Cores)
▪Compute Server 9155-C04 (64 Cores)
▪Compute Server 9155-G03 (24 Cores)
For the Compute Server 9155-C00 (32 Cores) and the Storage Server 9155-C01 (32 Cores):
▪The default system memory is 256 GiB.
▪You can upgrade to 512 GiB. When you upgrade to 512 GiB, the system memory is upgraded for all Compute/Storage Servers 9155-C01 or all Compute Servers 9155-C00.
For the Compute/Storage Server 9155-C05 (64 Cores) and the Compute Server 9155-C04 (64 Cores):
▪The default system memory is 1024 GiB.
▪You can upgrade to 2048 GiB. When you upgrade to 2048 GiB, the system memory is upgraded for all Compute/Storage Servers 9155-C05 servers or all Compute Servers 9155-C04.
You can upgrade to 512 GiB. When you upgrade to 512 GiB, the system memory is upgraded for all Compute/Storage Servers 9155-C01 or all Compute Servers 9155-C00.
For the Compute Server 9155-G03 (24 Cores):
▪The default system memory is 768GiB.
License Calculation Details
The license quantity of IBM Storage Fusion HCI Appliance Software VPC is calculated based on the total quantity of processor cores in the OpenShift cluster for the following servers:
▪All Compute/Storage Servers 9155-C01 (excluding the three controller node servers) and all Compute/Storage Servers 9155-C05
Plus
▪All Compute Servers 9155-C00 and all Compute Servers 9155-C04
Plus
▪All GPU Servers 9155-G02
Plus
Plus
▪All GPU Servers 9155-G03
The G02 and G03 servers are mutually exclusive.
The license quantity of IBM Storage Fusion HCI Primary TiB software and IBM Storage Fusion HCI Backup TiB software is calculated based on the total quantity of usable capacity (all
servers, all drives) divided by the total quantity of processor cores for all servers as calculated above.
▪For calculated TiB quantities < 2: TiB software licenses are not needed.
▪For calculated TiB quantities > 2: The calculated quantity is rounded up and then 2 is subtracted to determine the number of required licenses for Fusion HCI Primary TiB software and
Fusion HCI Backup TiB software.
The minimum quantity of Fusion HCI Backup TiB software licenses, and associated software maintenance agreement (SWMA), can be increased by the customer to purchase additional licenses for
their external attached storage.
Control Node details
▪Fusion SW licensing:
– Compute/Storage Servers 9155-C01 and AFM Servers 9155-F01 servers do not have Fusion SW licensing.
– Compute/Storage Servers 9155-C05 control nodes count for Fusion SW licensing like non-control node 9155-C05.
▪RH OCP licensing:
– Compute/Storage Servers 9155-C01 control nodes do not have OCP licensing.
– Compute/Storage Servers 9155-C05 control nodes count for OCP licensing like non-control node 9155- C05 (both as
server in bare-metal and ALL cores for core-pair-based).
– AFM Servers 9155-C01 servers count for OCP licensing.
▪Resource Table:
– Compute/Storage Servers 9155-C01 control node resources are used exclusively for control node services.
– Compute/Storage Servers 9155-C05 control nodes require that 32 cores are available for user workloads; 256 GiB of
memory is available for user workloads.
Configuration details - IBM Storage Fusion HCI GEN2
The following configuration rules
per rack define how servers can be added to your IBM Storage Fusion HCI GEN2 solution.
▪The first six nodes in each rack must have a minimum of 2 drives and they must all have the same amount
– Minimum quantity of 3 C10 (non-control) or 3 C14 (non-control) in rack 1.
– Minimum quantity of 6 C10 or 6 C14 in racks 2 and 3.
– Maximum quantity of 2 C10 with AFM function per rack.
– Maximum quantity of 4 G03 per rack.
– Maximum quantity of 16 C10 plus C14 plus G03 per rack.
The following configuration rules apply to all servers:
– All C10 and C14 servers need to have the same quantity of drives. The same quantity of drives are required in
both server types.
– 32-core storage nodes can have different memory from 32-core compute-only nodes.
– 64-core storage nodes can have different memory from 64-core compute-only nodes.
– Control nodes only exist in rack 1. So there is a maximum of 3 control nodes in the whole configuration.
– All servers are orderable in increments of 1, with the exception of having the minimum 3 control nodes in rack 1.
System memory - IBM Storage Fusion HCI GEN2
You can upgrade the system memory for the following servers:
▪Compute/Storage Server 9155-C10 (32 Cores)
▪Compute/Storage Server 9155-C14 (64 Cores)
For the Compute Server 9155-C10 (32 Cores):
▪The default system memory is 256 GiB.
▪You can upgrade to 512 GiB.
For the Compute Server 9155-C14 (64 Cores):
▪The default system memory is 1024 GiB.
▪You can upgrade to 2048 GiB.
For the Compute Server 9155-G03 (24 Cores):
▪The default system memory is 768 GiB.
License Calculation Details - IBM Fusion HCI GEN2
The license quantity of IBM Storage Fusion HCI GEN2 Appliance Software VPC is calculated based on the total quantity of processor cores in the OpenShift cluster for the following servers:
▪All 32-core Compute-Only/Storage Servers (excluding the three controller node servers)
Plus
▪All 64-core Compute-Only/Storage Servers
Plus
▪All GPU Servers 9155-G03
The license quantity of IBM Storage Fusion HCI GEN2 Primary TiB software and IBM Storage Fusion HCI GEN2 Backup TiB software is calculated based on the total quantity of usable capacity
(all servers, all drives) divided by the total quantity of processor cores for all servers as calculated above.
– For calculated TiB quantities < 2: TiB software licenses are not needed.
– For calculated TiB quantities > 2: The calculated quantity is rounded up and then 2 is subtracted to determine
the number of required licenses for Fusion HCI GEN2 Primary TiB software and Fusion HCI GEN2 Backup TiB software.
The minimum quantity of Fusion HCI GEN2 Backup TiB software licenses, and associated software maintenance agreement (SWMA), can be increased by the customer to purchase additional licenses
for their external attached storage.
Control Node details - IBM Storage Fusion HCI GEN2
▪Fusion SW licensing:
– 32-core servers do not have Fusion SW licensing.
– 64-core control nodes count for Fusion SW licensing
▪RH OCP licensing:
– 32-core control nodes do not have OCP licensing
– 64-core control nodes count for OCP licensing.
– AFM Servers (9155-C10) servers count for OCP licensing..
▪Resource Table:
– Compute/Storage Servers 9155-C10 control node resources are used exclusively for control node services.
Compute/Storage Servers 9155-C14 control nodes require that 32 cores are available for user workloads; 256 GiB of memory is available for user workloads.