Version: 3.2

Prerequisites for OCP on IBM Cloud

Environment Prerequisites

For a Portworx cluster on OCP IBM, 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	Disable swap on all nodes that will run the Portworx software. Ensure that the swap device is not automatically mounted on server reboot.
Network Time Protocol (NTP)	All nodes in the cluster should be in sync with NTP time. Any time drift between nodes can cause unexpected behaviour, impacting services.

Portworx runs as a pod in a Kubernetes cluster and uses specific ports for communication, data transfer, and telemetry.

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 17002.

OpenShift	Description
17001	Portworx management port [REST]
17002	Portworx node-to-node port [gossip]/UDP
17003	Portworx storage data port
17004	Portworx namespace [RPC]
17009	Portworx node-to-node communication port [gRPC]
17010	Portworx namespace driver [gRPC]
17011	Portworx diags server port [gRPC]
17015	Portworx kvdb peer-to-peer port [gRPC]
17016	Portworx kvdb client service [gRPC]
17018	Portworx gRPC SDK gateway [REST]
17019	Portworx health monitor [REST]
17021	Telemetry log uploader
20002	Telemetry phone home

Before you install Portworx on OpenShift, ensure that you're using a supported versions:

Type	Supported Versions
Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud	ROKS version: 4.13, verified up to 4.13.51 ROKS version: 4.14, verified up to 4.14.38 ROKS version: 4.15, verified up to 4.15.36 ROKS version: 4.16, verified up to 4.16.17 ROKS version: 4.17, verified up to 4.17.0 ROKS version 4.17.1 is qualified with Kubernetes version 1.30

Type	Supported Versions
Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud	ROKS version: 4.13, verified up to 4.13.49 ROKS version: 4.14, verified up to 4.14.35, Operator 23.10.4 or newer is required ROKS version: 4.15, verified up to 4.15.30 ROKS version: 4.16, verified up to 4.16.10

Supported Kubernetes Version
Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud: ROKS 4.10: (Verified up to 4.10.61) ROKS 4.11: (Verified up to 4.11.53) ROKS 4.12: (Verified up to 4.12.44) ROKS 4.13: (Verified up to 4.13.23) NOTE: Supports both bare metal and VM.