Installation overview

This chapter describes the Fabric Services System components, the requirements for these components, and provides an overview of the installation process.

Supported deployment models

The Fabric Services System is deployed on three or six Fabric Services System nodes which can be deployed as bare metal servers or virtual machine servers.

Networking for the Fabric Services System nodes

Nokia recommends that you use two different networks for the Fabric Services System nodes:
  • Fabric Services System OAM interface

    This interface is used to access the UI and the API of the Fabric Services System. This is also the network through which the deployer VM reaches the node.

  • Fabric management interface

    This interface is used to communicate with the management interfaces of the fabric (for example, SR Linux devices). This interface is where the Fabric Services System exposes its DHCP and ZTP services.

Figure 1. Deployment with six Fabric Services System nodes, with Digital Sandbox enabled

DHCP and ZTP

The Fabric Services System deployment can serve as a DHCP service for the fabric devices using one of the following methods:
  • All the management interfaces of the fabric devices are connected to the same Layer 2 network as the DHCP interface of the Fabric Services System
  • DHCP relay

Fabric Services System deployer

The Fabric Services System deployer is a virtual machine (VM) that is used to provision a Kubernetes environment and install Fabric Services System microservices on the Fabric Services System nodes.

It contains all the software packages, container images, and Helm charts that are used by the deployer script to install the entire Fabric Services System environment.

The Fabric Services System deployer VM does the following:

  • installs a Kubernetes cluster on the Fabric Services System nodes in your environment
  • configures the nodes on the cluster for local storage
  • labels the nodes to prepare them for Fabric Services System software deployment
  • installs microservices using Helm charts and container repositories hosted in the deployer
  • provides technical support tools
CAUTION: To maintain the security of the Fabric Services System deployment, ensure that access to the deployer host and the deployer VM are restricted and password protected.
Note: The deployer VM must remain powered on and must be reachable by the Fabric Services System cluster throughout its life cycle, as it serves as a container registry for all the Fabric Services System components. Additionally, the technical support scripts are hosted on the deployer VM and must be executed from the deployer VM.

Fabric Services System nodes

The Fabric Services System nodes are the bare metal servers or KVM-based VMs that host the Kubernetes environment on which the Fabric Services System application and Digital Sandbox are run.

The following deployment models are supported:

  • A three-node environment that hosts only the Fabric Services System application and does not support the use of Digital Sandbox.
  • An environment of a minimum of 6-node which hosts both the Fabric Services System application and does support the use of Digital Sandbox.

Requirements

This section details the specific requirements for the components and their connectivity.

Fabric Services System deployer requirements

The Fabric Services System deployer is delivered as a QCOW2 image that is used to launch a VM. The QCOW2 image must be used as the disk of a VM in a Kernel-based virtual machine (KVM) hypervisor.

The minimal requirements for the Fabric Services System deployer virtual machines are:
  • CPU: 1 virtual CPU (vCPU) on a KVM hypervisor with a modern x86_64 CPU that supports virtualization. Recommended: 2 vCPU
  • Memory: 8GB RAM
  • Storage: 50GB of storage (used by the deployer QCOW2 image)
  • Networking: 1GbE network interface card (NIC)

Fabric Services System node requirements

The Fabric Services System nodes can be deployed either as bare metal servers or as virtual machine servers. The following requirements apply to both types of deployments:

  • CPU: 32 cores on a modern x86_64 CPU
  • Memory: 64GB
  • Storage: At least 500GB of available SSD-based storage
  • Networking: At least one 10Gbps NIC
You can run the Fabric Services System nodes as virtual machines using the following virtualization platforms:
  • Operating system: RHEL/CentOS 7.9
  • Hypervisor: KVM
  • Resource reservation for CPU, memory, and disks must be set to 100% for the Fabric Services System node virtual machines

Installation process overview

The installation consists of the following high-level tasks:

  1. Downloading the Fabric Services System deployer image

    This task describes how to access the Fabric Services System deployer image so it can be used in the next task.

  2. Deploying and configuring the Fabric Services System deployer VM

    This task describes how to create the VM in a KVM environment and how to configure the Fabric Services System deployer VM.

  3. Preparing the Fabric Services System nodes

    Complete the applicable procedure for your deployment scenario.

  4. Editing the installation configuration file

    The Fabric Services System deployer uses a JSON-based configuration file to identify the configuration and deployment of the Fabric Services System environment. This task describes the different variables and the expected data.

  5. Installing the Fabric Services System environment

    The deployment of the Fabric Services System environment involves the sample-input.json file.