Installation on Bare Metal Server

You can install Portworx Enterprise on a bare metal server using either a custom Kubernetes manifest or Helm chart, based on your infrastructure requirement. Portworx Enterprise supports clusters running on major cloud service providers and on-premises data centers in both air-gapped and connected environments. The installation process includes preparing the server, configuring the Kubernetes cluster, and deploying Portworx with a generated specification.

You can install Portworx on a bare metal server with a PX-StoreV2 datastore. For more information on PX-StoreV2 datastore, see PX-StoreV2.

• To install Portworx Enterprise on a bare metal server with Directly Attached Storage (DAS) or Storage Area Network (SAN) see the following topics:

  • Openshift
  • Kubernetes
    • Non-Air-Gapped Kubernetes Cluster
    • Air-Gapped Kubernetes Cluster
  • Google Anthos
  • VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid
  • Rancher Kubernetes Engine

• To install Portworx Enterprise on a bare metal server with FlashArray or FlashBlade, see Portworx with Pure Storage FlashArray and FlashBlade on Kubernetes or Portworx with Pure Storage FlashArray and FlashBlade on Openshift.

Each Kubernetes distribution might require specific steps to prepare the bare metal cluster before you deploy Portworx Enterprise.

Prerequisites

In addition to the System Requirements, ensure that your cluster meets the following requirements before installing Portworx Enterprise:

• Provide a dedicated disk for KVDB (internal or external) on at least three nodes. Each disk must have a unique device name across all KVDB nodes. For more information, see KVDB for Portworx.
• If you have a disaggregated setup, designate your nodes as storage or storageless (compute) before installing Portworx. Portworx uses the following labels on Kubernetes nodes to determine their roles:
  • portworx.io/node-type: storage
  • portworx.io/node-type: storageless
• Add labels to the nodes:
  • For new node groups: When using a managed Kubernetes cluster, you can add these label pairs when you create the node groups. This ensures that your cloud provider consistently applies the labels to all nodes.
  • For existing node groups: If your cluster is already running, add or update the labels on your nodes using a Kubernetes command. For example:

    kubectl label node <node-name> portworx.io/node-type=storage  
    # or for storageless nodes
    kubectl label node <node-name> portworx.io/node-type=storageless