General
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All servers intended for hosting
PowerFlex components and the
PowerFlex Gateway meet the system requirements described in the
Getting to Know Dell PowerFlex Guide.
NOTE: The
Dell-supplied hardware configurations satisfy all of the hardware requirements.
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Secure Boot on servers is not supported. Ensure that Secure Boot is disabled in each server's BIOS.
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All nodes must have unique hostnames.
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Servers that contained
PowerFlex components from other systems must be completely cleaned before deployment of a new system. Use operating system tools to remove all of those
PowerFlex components.
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Configure disks so they are visible to the operating system according to operating system and vendor hardware guidelines.
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To use secure authentication mode, ensure that OpenSSL 64-bit v1.1 is installed on all servers in the system.
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Prepare passwords for the
PowerFlex Gateway, MDM and LIA. These passwords will be required for future access to system components for upgrade and certain configuration procedures. Store them in a secure location.
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On nodes configured with NVDIMMs, running on RHEL 7.6, ensure that the following package is installed:
kmod-redhat-nfit-3.10.0_957-1.el7_6.x86_64.rpm
For more information, see
Dell EMC NVDIMM-N Persistent Memory User Guide.
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On nodes configured with NVDIMMs, ensure that the ndctl and daxio packages are installed:
ndctl package—for example:
ndctl-64.1-2.el7.x86_64.rpm
daxio package—for example:
daxio-1.5.1-2.1.el7.x86_64.rpm
Verify that there are no bad blocks on the NVDIMMs. If there are bad blocks, replace the corresponding NVDIMMs before deploying the
PowerFlex system. Perform this check on every SDS that uses NVDIMMs:
- Using shell, run the following command on each Linux-based node that uses NVDIMMs:
ndctl list --media-errors
- If the output for any of the hosts displays a result for
"badblock_count":, the NVDIMM (devdax device) has bad blocks. For example:
{
"dev":"namespace1.0",
"mode":"devdax",
"map":"dev",
"size":62914560,
"uuid":"47072fee-1447-4e04-b4ca-f28e2c03af80",
"chardev":"dax1.0",
"align":4096,
"badblock_count":13,
"badblocks":
}
- Refer to the Linux NVDIMM replacement procedure for the specific server model.
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For SELinux, follow the guidelines included in "Preparation for Deployment" before deploying the system.
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For SELinux activation and SDC deployment, ensure that the relevant packages are installed. For more information, refer to the operating system requirements described in the
Getting to Know Dell PowerFlex Guide.
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Gateway
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The server that will host the
PowerFlex Gateway must have adequate memory to run the
PowerFlex Installer and any other applications. Ensure that this server meets all the requirements listed in the
Getting to Know Dell PowerFlex Guide.
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The
PowerFlex Gateway must not be installed on a server that will host either the SDC component, or on an SDS component that will use
RFcache acceleration feature.
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The
PowerFlex Gateway cannot be installed on a Fedora\RH CoreOS-based server. For a Fedora\RH CoreOS environment, prepare a supported Linux or Windows-based server on which the
PowerFlex Gateway can be installed.
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Oracle JRE
1.8 build 301 or
OpenJDK
JDK 8 build 302.b08 is installed.
On Linux-based servers,
OpenJDK
11.0.12.0.7 is also supported.
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If LDAP authentication will be used for LIA authentication, before deploying the
PowerFlex Gateway, perform configurations on the server that will host the
PowerFlex Gateway, as described in
Dell PowerFlex User Roles and LDAP Usage Technical Notes.
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PowerFlex presentation server
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Oracle JRE
1.8 build 301,
OpenJDK
JDK 8 build 302.b08, or
OpenJDK
11.0.12.0.7 is installed.
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ESXi
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For two-layer system SDCs running on VMware, the host from which you run the PowerShell (.ps1) script meets the following prerequisites:
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The required network interfaces and IP addresses are configured.
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Networking
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For a fully converged Linux-based system, follow the networking recommendations in the
Getting to Know Dell PowerFlex Guide.
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For two-layer system SDCs running on VMware, the vSphere web client (Virgo) server has network connectivity to the host on which the PowerShell script will be used.
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The server which will host the
PowerFlex Gateway has connectivity to both data and management
PowerFlex networks.
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For data networks using IPv6, if you plan to implement a floating virtual IP address for the MDM, disable the IPv6 DAD setting on the server's relevant interfaces, using the command:
sysctl net.ipv6.conf.<interface_name>.dad_transmits=0
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Replication
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Use the information provided in the
Getting to Know Dell PowerFlex Guide to calculate the percentage of replication journal capacity that is required for each Storage Pool.
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