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 one, three, or six Fabric Services System nodes. The Fabric Services System is deployed as an application on virtual machine servers. In a deployment with six nodes, the Fabric Services System can be deployed with the Digital Sandbox.

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
  • as the 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:

  • 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 Fabric Services System microservices using Helm charts and container repositories hosted in the deployer
  • provides technical support tools and backup and restore tools
  • initializes the self-signed certificates used by the system used for the northbound services
  • initializes the self-signed certificates use with managed nodes
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 backup and restore tools and 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 VMware vSphere-based 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:

  • an environment with one node, which hosts only the Fabric Services System application for very small scale deployments and does not support the use of Digital Sandbox
  • an environment with three nodes, which hosts only the Fabric Services System application and does not support the use of Digital Sandbox
  • an environment with a minimum of six nodes, which hosts both the Fabric Services System application and supports the use of Digital Sandbox

Requirements

This section details the specific requirements for the components and their connectivity. For geo-redundant systems, see Configuring geo-redundancy in the Fabric Services System User Guide.

Fabric Services System deployer requirements

The Fabric Services System deployer is used to install Kubernetes and the Fabric Services System application. It is delivered as one of the following images:
  • QCOW2: the image that provides the deployer VM and which includes the operating system and the deployer software for the KVM hypervisor

  • OVA: the VM image for the VMware vSphere 7.0 or 8.0 hypervisor

The minimal requirements for the Fabric Services System deployer virtual machines are:
  • CPU: 1 virtual CPU (vCPU) on a VMware vSphere or KVM hypervisor with a modern x86-64 CPU that supports virtualization

    Recommended: 2 vCPU

  • memory: 8 GB RAM
  • storage: 50 GB of storage (used by the deployer QCOW2 image)
  • networking:
    • 1 GbE network interface card (NIC)
    • the configured DNS servers must be reachable, functional, and able to resolve the hostnames used for the Fabric Services System nodes

Fabric Services System node requirements

The Fabric Services System nodes are deployed as virtual machine servers. The following are the requirements of the Fabric Services System nodes in KVM and VMware hypervisor:

  • CPU: 32 vCPUs on a modern x86-64 CPU

  • memory: 64 GB
  • storage: at least 500 GB of available SSD-based storage
  • networking:
    • at least one 10 Gbps NIC
    • the configured DNS servers must be reachable, functional, and able to resolve the hostnames used for the Fabric Services System nodes
You can run the Fabric Services System nodes as virtual machines using the following virtualization platforms:

  • operating system: VMware vSphere 7.0 or 8.0 or RHEL/Rocky 8.9

  • hypervisor: ESXi 7.0 or 8.0 or KVM
  • resource reservation for CPU, memory, and disks must be set to 100% for the Fabric Services System node virtual machines

Geo-redundancy

To bring up geo-redundant setup, ensure that the setup is similar in the active and backup sites and that network connectivity is stable in both sites. For additional requirements, see Geo-redundancy configuration in the Fabric Services System User Guide.

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. Fabric Services System deployer VM creation

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

  3. Preparing the Fabric Services System virtual machine nodes

    This task describes how to prepare and configure the nodes for deployment.

  4. Editing the installation configuration file

    This task describes how to modify the variables and enter the expected data in the JSON-based configuration file, which is used to specify the configuration and deployment of the Fabric Services System environment.

  5. Installing the Fabric Services System environment

    This task describes the deployment of the Fabric Services System environment using the sample-input.json file.