Host Requirements

1 Host Requirements

This chapter describes the hardware and OS requirements for the hosts in Oracle Cloud Native Environment.

Hardware Requirements

Oracle Cloud Native Environment is a clustered environment that requires more than one node to form a cluster. You can install Oracle Cloud Native Environment on any of the following server types:

Bare-metal server
Oracle Linux Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) instance
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure bare-metal instance
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure virtual instance
Oracle Private Cloud Appliance virtual instance
Oracle Private Cloud at Customer virtual instance

Oracle Cloud Native Environment is available for 64-bit x86 hardware only.

Oracle Cloud Native Environment doesn't require specific hardware, but certain operations are CPU and memory intensive. For a list of certified bare-metal servers, see the Oracle Linux Hardware Certification List at:

https://linux.oracle.com/hardware-certifications

For information on the current Oracle x86 Servers, see:

https://www.oracle.com/servers/x86/

For information on creating an Oracle Linux KVM instance, see Oracle^® Linux: KVM User's Guide.

The installation instructions for Oracle Private Cloud Appliance and Oracle Private Cloud at Customer, and information about the Oracle Cloud Native Environment releases that can be installed, are available in the Oracle Private Cloud Appliance and Oracle Private Cloud at Customer documentation at:

https://docs.oracle.com/en/engineered-systems/private-cloud-appliance/

The hardware requirements listed here are for the absolute minimum to run Oracle Cloud Native Environment. A deployment is highly likely to require nodes with a larger footprint.

For a list of the cloud platforms and hypervisors you can use with Oracle Cloud Native Environment, see Doc ID 2899157.1 in My Oracle Support.

Kubernetes Control Plane Node Hardware

The Kubernetes control plane is the container orchestration layer that exposes the Kubernetes API and interfaces to create and manage the lifecycle of containers. The nodes that form the Kubernetes control plane are referred to as control plane nodes. A control plane node is a host that runs the daemons and services needed to manage the cluster and orchestrate containers, such as the Oracle Cloud Native Environment Platform Agent, etcd, the Kubernetes API Server, Scheduler, Controller Manager, and Cloud Controller Manager.

A minimum Kubernetes control plane node configuration is:

4 CPU cores (Intel VT-capable CPU)
16GB RAM
1GB Ethernet NIC
XFS file system (the default file system for Oracle Linux)
40GB hard disk space in the /var directory

Kubernetes Worker Node Hardware

A Kubernetes worker node is a host that runs the daemons and services needed to run pods, such as the Platform Agent, kubelet, kube-proxy, CRI-O, RunC, and Kata Runtime.

A minimum Kubernetes worker node configuration is:

1 CPU cores (Intel VT-capable CPU)
8GB RAM
1GB Ethernet NIC
XFS file system (the default file system for Oracle Linux)
15GB hard disk space in the /var directory
XFS mount-point /var/lib/containers with dedicated space based on the number of container images going to be saved and leveraged.

Operator Node Hardware

An operator node is a host that contains the Oracle Cloud Native Environment Platform CLi. This node might also include the Oracle Cloud Native Environment Platform API Server.

A minimum operator node configuration is:

1 CPU cores (Intel VT-capable CPU)
8GB RAM
1GB Ethernet NIC
15GB hard disk space in the /var directory

Kubernetes High Availability Requirements

A minimum high availability (HA) configuration for a Kubernetes cluster is:

3 Kubernetes control plane nodes. At least 5 control plane nodes is recommended.
2 Kubernetes worker nodes. At least 3 worker nodes is recommended.

Important:

The number of control plane nodes must be an odd number equal to or greater than three, for example, 3, 5, or 7.

Istio Module Requirements

A minimum configuration for deploying the Istio module for Oracle Cloud Native Environment is:

1 Kubernetes control plane node
2 Kubernetes worker nodes

These requirements are the minimum needed to successfully deploy Istio into a Kubernetes cluster. However, as a cluster expands and more nodes are added, Istio requires more hardware resources.

Rook Module Requirements

The Rook module deploys Ceph as containers to the Kubernetes worker nodes. You need at least three worker nodes in the Kubernetes cluster.

In addition, at least one of these local storage options must be available on the Kubernetes worker nodes:

Raw devices (no partitions or formatted file systems).
Raw partitions (no formatted file system).
LVM Logical Volumes (no formatted file system).
Persistent Volumes available from a storage class in block mode.

Tip:

Use the lsblk -f command to ensure no file system is on the device or partition. If the FSTYPE field is empty, no file system is on the disk and it can be used with Ceph.

OS Requirements

Oracle Cloud Native Environment is available for the following x86_64 OSs.

Table 1-1 OSs (x86_64)

OS	Release Number	Update Number	Kernel
Oracle Linux	9	Latest and latest-1	Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 7 (UEK R7)
Oracle Linux	9	Latest and latest-1	Red Hat Compatible Kernel (RHCK)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux	9	Latest and latest-1	Red Hat Kernel
Oracle Linux	8	Latest and latest-1	Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 7 (UEK R7)
Oracle Linux	8	Latest and latest-1	Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 6 (UEK R6)
Oracle Linux	8	Latest and latest-1	Red Hat Compatible Kernel (RHCK)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux	8	Latest and latest-1	Red Hat Kernel