System Requirements

Please see the following sections to get an overview which system requirements are defined.

Software Requirements

  • OpenShift (Version 3.11 or Version 4.1)

  • IBM Cloud Pak for Data (Version 2.5)

To setup OpenShift please follow the instructions in the OpenShift documentation.

To install and setup IBM Cloudpak for Data please see the IBM documentation at https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSQNUZ.

Hardware Resources

Hardware

Number of server

Available VPC Memory Storage
x86-64 3+ worker nodes. The nodes must be able to schedule pods.

16 virtual processor cores (VPCs)

64 GB memory

Your cluster must have either:

A storage class that can create a persistent volume with at least 500 GB of available space and bind the PV to a persistent volume claim.

An external NFS server with 500 GB of available space.

The server cannot have squash enabled.

All of the nodes in the cluster must have access to mount the NFS server and have read/write access to the server.

Operation System Requirements

The platform has no specific operating system requirements. Please refer to the OpenShift documentation for detailed OS requirements.

Required third-party components

The IBM Financial Services Workbench requires the following third-party components with the specified versions. These can be either deployed into the cluster or be deployed separately.

Component Required Version Minimum specifications for worker nodes Minimum Storage requirements
MongoDB Version 3.6

Cores: 2

Memory: 4 GB

20 GB
Apache Kafka * Version 1.0.2 or higher

Cores: 12

Memory 16 GB

20 GB
Keycloak Version 5.0 or higher

Cores 1

Memory 2 GB

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GitLab (including a GitLab runner)

Version 11.10.0 or higher

Cores 4

16 GB

65 GB

* As an alternative to Apache Kafka, also strimzi can be used. The minimum required version is 0.14. strimzi provides an easy way to run Apache Kafka in an OpenShift environment.

Note: For installing GitLab in the OpenShift environment we recommend using the GitLab cloud native helm chart and the corresponding GitLab runner. More information can be found at the official GitLab website at https://docs.gitlab.com/charts/
Note: Keycloak is only supported with https mode enabled. Therefore it needs proper certificate and hostname setup.

Clock Synchronization

The IBM Financial Services Workbench requires that you synchronize the clocks on each node in the cluster. The clocks must be within one second of each other. It is recommended that you use chrony to synchronize your clocks. For more information about setting up chrony, see the user documentation for your operating system.

Certificates

It is recommended NOT to use self-signed certificates. As a feasible solution it might be sufficient to use certificates that are signed by let’s encrypt.

Supported web browsers

  • Mozilla Firefox (recommended) - Version 54 and higher
  • Google Chrome - Version 60 and higher