Hardware and Network Requirements
There are minimum node hardware and network requirements necessary for installation and testing of the Fawkes system.
Hardware requirements
The Fawkes hypervisor has the following requirements and recommendations for installation and testing.
Hypervisor Node Requirements
Hypervisor nodes are home to virtual machines, these require hardware-assisted virtualization and will be home to the management and Kubernetes VMs.
| Type | Requirements and Recommendations |
|---|---|
CPU |
x86_64.[1] Hardware-assisted virtualization is required. 8-core processor minimum for testing; 16-core or above is recommended for production. |
Memory |
8 GB minimum for testing; 32 GB or above recommended for production. |
Disk Capacity |
100 GB minimum for testing; 1 TB or above recommended for production. |
Disk Quantity |
1 for testing; 3 or more recommended for production, 2 of which will be used for OS redundancy. The third disk should be larger than 1.5 TB for ephemeral, virtual machine storage. |
Disk Performance |
5,000+ random IOPS per disk(SSD/NVMe). Management nodes (first 3 nodes) must be fast enough for Etcd. |
Network Card |
1 Gbps Ethernet minimum for testing, at least two 25 Gbps Ethernet for production. |
Network Switch |
Trunking of ports required for VLAN support (IEEE 802.1Q tagging). |
Storage Node Requirements
Storage nodes play a pivotal role in the deployment of an HPC cluster. These nodes are not deployed as hypervisors and do not run any virtualization services other than Podman.
The current storage solution of choice is CEPH.
| Type | Requirements and Recommendations |
|---|---|
CPU |
x86_64.[2]. 8-core processor minimum for testing; 16-core or above is recommended for production. |
Memory |
8 GB minimum for testing; 32 GB or above recommended for production. |
Disk Capacity |
100 GB minimum for testing; 4 TB or above recommended for production. |
Disk Quantity |
1 for testing; 8 or more recommended for production, 2 of which will be used for OS redundancy. The remaining disks will be used for the storage solution. |
Disk Performance |
5,000+ random IOPS per disk(SSD/NVMe). Management nodes (first 3 nodes) must be fast enough for Etcd. |
Network Card |
1 Gbps Ethernet minimum for testing, at least four 25 Gbps Ethernet for production. |
Network Switch |
Trunking of ports required for VLAN support (IEEE 802.1Q tagging). |