Prerequisites

Environment Prerequisites

The minimum supported size for a Portworx cluster is three nodes. Each node must meet the following hardware, software, and network requirements:

Hardware
CPU	4 cores minimum, 8 cores recommended
RAM	4GB minimum, 8GB recommended
Disk /var /opt	2GB free 3GB free
Backing drive	8GB (minimum required) 128 GB (minimum recommended)
Operating system root partition	64 GB is the minimum required size for the root filesystem which contains the operating system 128 GB minimum recommended
Storage drives	Storage drives must be unmounted block storage: raw disks, drive partitions, LVM, or cloud block storage.
Network connectivity	Bandwidth: 10 Gbps recommended 1 Gbps minimum Latency requirements for synchronous replication: less than 10ms between nodes in the cluster
Node type	Bare metal and virtual machine (VM)

Software
Linux kernel and distro	Kernel version 3.10 or greater. To check if your Linux distro and kernel are supported, see Supported Kernels.
Docker	Version 1.13.1 or greater.
Key-value store	Portworx needs a key-value store to perform its operations. As such, install a clustered key-value database (kvdb) with a three node cluster. You can also use Internal KVDB during installation. In this mode, Portworx will create and manage an internal key-value store (KVDB) cluster. If you plan of using your own KVDB, refer to KVDB for Portworx for details on recommendations for installing and configuring a KVDB cluster.
Disable swap	Please disable swap on all nodes that will run the Portworx software. Ensure that the swap device is not automatically mounted on server reboot.

Hypervisor
VMware vSphere	Version 7.0 Version 8.0

Portworx network requirements

East-to-west

note

• Portworx also requires the following ports:
  • An open KVDB port. For example, if you're using etcd externally, open port 2379.
  • An open UDP port at 9002.
• For telemetry, open ports 9024, 12001, and 12002. Ensure you are running Portworx Operator version 23.7.0 or higher to configure the telemetry port:
  • Portworx Versions 2.13.7 and Older: Open port 9024 specifically for telemetry.
  • Portworx Versions 2.13.8 and Newer: Use port 9029 for telemetry.

Inbound

Outbound

Supported Kubernetes versions

Before you install Portworx on Kubernetes, ensure that you're using a supported Kubernetes version:

Portworx Enterprise supported Kubernetes versions

note

K3s users: You must use CSI integration to generate/use PVCs.

3.1

Supported Kubernetes Version

Bare metal Anthos version: 1.14; Kubernetes version: 1.25 Anthos versions: 1.15; Kubernetes version: 1.26 Anthos versions: 1.16; Kubernetes version: 1.27 Anthos versions: 1.28.200-gke.118; Kubernetes version: 1.27 Anthos versions: 1.29.0-gke.1449; Kubernetes version: 1.29.3 VMware Anthos version: 1.14; vSphere version: 7.0.3; Kubernetes version: 1.25.5-gke.100 Anthos versions: 1.15, vSphere version: 7.0.3; Kubernetes version: 1.26.2-gke.1001 Anthos version: 1.16; vSphere version: 8.0; Kubernetes version: v1.27.4-gke.1600 Anthos version: 1.28.200-gke.111; vSphere version: 8.0; Kubernetes version: v1.28.4-gke.1400 Anthos version: 1.29.100-gke.248; vSphere version: 7.0.3 & 8.0; Kubernetes version: v1.29.4-gke.200

3.0

Supported Kubernetes Version
Bare metal Anthos version: 1.14; Kubernetes version: 1.25 Anthos versions: 1.15; Kubernetes version: 1.26 VMware Anthos version: 1.14; vSphere version: 7.0.3; Kubernetes version: 1.25.5-gke.100 Anthos versions: 1.15, vSphere version: 7.0.3; Kubernetes version: 1.26.2-gke.1001

2.13

Supported Kubernetes Version
Bare metal Anthos version: 1.14; Kubernetes version: 1.25 VMware Anthos version: 1.14; vSphere version: 7.0.3; Kubernetes version: 1.25.5-gke.100

Supported disk types

Portworx provides multiple disk types to meet different platform needs. This document lists all the disk types that Portworx supports for disk provisioning across different cloud providers.

Cloud provider	Disk types
vSphere	eagerzeroedthick lazyzeroedthick thin
GKE	pd-balanced pd-ssd pd-standard

Considerations/Warnings

warning

By default, Google includes Kernel version 5.15 from Anthos version 1.14 for vSphere. Therefore, upgrading to Anthos version 1.14 or newer can result in Kernel performance issues, leading to a drop in the sequential write operations. Avoid using this Anthos version and Kernel version until the issue is fixed. See the bug description for more information.