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Hardware and software prerequisites

The Lenovo XClarity Administrator management appliance runs in a virtual machine on a host system.

Hypervisor requirements​

Container environments
The following container environment are supported for running XClarity Administrator as a container.

  • Docker v20.10.9

  • Docker-compose v1.29.2

Hypervisors
The following hypervisors are supported for running XClarity Administrator as a virtual appliance.
  • Citrix Hypervisor v8.2
  • Citrix XenServer v7.6
  • CentOS 7 and 81
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2022 with Hyper-V installed
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2019 with Hyper-V installed
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2016 with Hyper-V installed
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V installed
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2012 with Hyper-V installed
  • Nutanix Acropolis Hypervisor (AHV)
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux v9.x with Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) v6.2.0 installed
  • RedHat Enterprise Linux v8.x with KVM v2.12.0 installed
  • RedHat Enterprise Linux v7.x with KVM v1.2.17 installed
  • Rocky Linux 8.x and 9.x with KVM v7.0.0 installed
  • Ubuntu Server 22.04.x LTS with KVM v6.2.0 installed
  • Ubuntu Server 20.04.2 LTS with KVM v4.2.3 installed
  • VMware ESXi 8.0
  • VMware ESXi 7.0, U1, U2, and U3
  • VMware ESXi 6.7, U1, U22, and U3
Note

  1. CentOS Linux is no longer updated by Red Hat. Consider migrating to Red Hat Enterprise Linux instead (see the Red Hat: How to convert from CentOS or Oracle Linux to RHEL webpage).

  2. For VMware ESXi 6.7 U2, you must use the ISO image VMware-ESXi-6.7.0.update02-13981272-LNV-20190630.iso or later).

For VMware and Citrix, the virtual machine is available as an OVF template. For Hyper-V and Nutanix AHV, the virtual machine is a virtual-disk image (VHD). For CentOS and KVM, the virtual machine is available as qcow2 format.

Important
For Hyper-V environments that run on Linux guests with a 2.6 kernel base and that use large amounts of memory for the virtual appliance, you must disable the use of non-uniform memory access (NUMA) on the Hyper-V Settings Panel from Hyper-V Manager. Changing this setting requires you to restart the Hyper-V service, which also restarts all running virtual machines. If this setting is not disabled, XClarity Administrator virtual appliance might experience problems during initial startup.

Hardware requirements​

The following minimum requirements must be met for XClarity Administrator. Depending on the size of your environment and your use of Configuration Patterns, additional resources might be required for optimal performance.
  • Two virtual microprocessors
  • 8 GB of memory
  • 192 GB of storage for use by the XClarity Administrator virtual appliance.
  • Display with a minimum resolution of 1024 pixels in width (XGA)
The following table lists the minimum recommended configurations for a given number of devices. Keep in mind that if you run the minimum configuration, you might experience longer than expected completion times for management tasks. For provisioning tasks such as operating system deployment, firmware updates, and server configuration, you might need to increase the resources temporarily.
Number of Managed DevicesVirtual CPU/Memory Configuration
0 - 100 devices2 vCPUs, 8 GB RAM
100 - 200 devices4 vCPUs, 10 GB RAM
200 - 400 devices6 vCPUs, 12 GB RAM
400 - 600 devices8 vCPUs, 16 GB RAM
600 - 800 devices10 vCPUs, 20 GB RAM
800 – 1,000 devices12 vCPUs, 24 GB RAM
Note

  • A single XClarity Administrator instance can support a maximum of 1,000 devices.

  • For the latest recommendations and additional performance considerations, see the XClarity Administrator: Performance Guide (White paper).

  • Depending on the size of your managed environment and the pattern of use in your installation, you might need to add resources to maintain acceptable performance. If you frequently see processor usage in the system resources dashboard displaying high or very high values, consider adding 1-2 virtual processor cores. If your memory usage persists above 80% at idle, consider adding 1-2 GB of RAM. If your system is responsive at a configuration as defined in the table, consider running the VM for a longer period to assess system performance.

  • For information about how to free up disk space by deleting XClarity Administrator resources that are no longer needed, see Managing disk space.

Software requirements​

  • Orchestrator server

    If you manage a large number of devices using multiple XClarity Administrator instances, you can centralize monitoring, management, provisioning, and analytics using Lenovo XClarity Orchestrator. XClarity Orchestrator can support an unlimited number of XClarity Administrator instances that collectively manage a maximum of 10,000 non-ThinkEdge-Client devices.

    To manage XClarity Administrator v4.0 or later instances using Lenovo XClarity Orchestrator, XClarity Orchestrator v2.0 or later is required.

  • Authentication server

    By default, XClarity Administrator uses a local Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) server to authenticate user credentials. You can choose to use external authentication server instead.

    If you choose to use an external authentication server, only Microsoft Active Directory running on Windows Server 2008 or later is supported.

    If you choose to use an SAML identify provider, only Microsoft Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) versions 2.0 or later running on Windows Server 2012 is supported.

  • NTP server

    A Network Time Protocol (NTP) server is required to ensure that timestamps for all events and alerts that are received from managed devices are synchronized with XClarity Administrator. Ensure that the NTP server is accessible over the management network (typically the Eth0 interface).

    Tip
    Consider using the host system on which XClarity Administrator is installed as the NTP server. If you do, ensure that the host system is accessible over the management network.

Manageable resources​

A single XClarity Administrator instance can manage, monitor, and provision a maximum of 1,000 physical devices.

You can find a complete list of supported devices and options (such as I/O, DIMM, and storage adapters), minimum required firmware levels, and limitations considerations from the following Lenovo XClarity Support webpages.

For general information about hardware configuration and options for a specific device, see the Lenovo Server Proven webpage.

Restriction: If the host system on which XClarity Administrator is installed is a managed rack server or compute node, you cannot use XClarity Administrator to apply firmware updates to that host system or to the entire chassis at one time. When firmware updates are applied to the host system, the host system must be restarted. Restarting the host system also restarts XClarity Administrator, making XClarity Administrator unavailable to complete the updates on the host system.

Supported web browsers​

The XClarity Administrator web interface works with the following web browsers.

  • Chrome™ 48.0 or later (55.0 or above for Remote Console)

  • Firefox® ESR 38.6.0 or later

  • Microsoft® Internet Explorer® 11

  • Microsoft Edge

  • Safari® 9.0.2 or later (IOS7 or later and OS X)