Paragon Automation System Requirements

Minimum Hardware Requirements

Dimensioning of your Paragon Automation production deployment is based on the network scale and features used. Table 1 lists the minimum hardware requirements.

Table 1: Minimum Hardware Requirements

Node	Minimum Number of Nodes Required	Hardware Requirement	Storage Requirement	Role
Control Host	1	2–4-core CPU, 12-GB RAM, 100-GB HDD	NA	Carry out Ansible operations to install the cluster.
Primary	1	8-core CPU, 32-GB RAM, 250-GB SSD	NA	Kubernetes primary node
Worker	3	8-core CPU, 32-GB RAM, 250-GB SSD	Minimum three nodes with unpartitioned disks or unformatted disk partitions attached for system storage requirements. See Disk Partition Requirements.	Kubernetes worker node

The numbers listed here are minimum requirements. The actual system resources is determined by the intended capacity of the system, including number of devices to be monitored, type of sensors, frequency of telemetry messages, and number of playbooks and rules.

Proof-of-concept (POC) systems typically support up to two device groups with two devices and two to three playbooks per device group across all Paragon Automation components, which is supported with the minimum resources specified in Table 1. Increase in the number of device groups, devices, or playbooks, will need higher CPU and memory capacities.

Similarly, the total number of cluster nodes depends on the intended capacity of the system, you need at least one primary and one worker. While it is possible to have a single node acting as both primary and worker it is not recommended.

For a fully redundant setup, you must have a minimum of three primary nodes and one worker node. In this case, master scheduling must be enabled when the installation configuration file is created.

In release 21.2, Paragon Automation uses Ceph to provide system storage. For successful installation, you need three or more worker nodes with unpartitioned disks or unformatted disk partitions available. If master scheduling is configured, then primary nodes can also provide storage.

Note:

To get a production deployment scale and size estimate and to discuss detailed dimensioning requirements, contact your Juniper Partner or Juniper Sales Representative.

Software Requirements

• Ubuntu version 18.04.4 or later, or RHEL version 8.3, or CentOS versions later than version 7.1 must be installed on each node.

• Docker must be installed on the control host. If you are using Docker CE, the recommended version is 18.09 and later.

  If you are using Docker EE, the recommended version is 18.03.1-ee-1 and later. Also, to use Docker EE, you must install Docker EE on the cluster nodes.

  Docker allows you to run the Paragon Automation installer file, which is packaged with Ansible (version 2.9.5) and the roles and playbooks that are required to install the cluster.

Note:

Installation will fail if you do not have the correct versions. Commands to verify these versions are described in this guide in subsequent sections.

Disk Partition Requirements

The following disk partitions are recommended for the cluster nodes.

• Root partition mounted at / with minimum 20-GB space.
• Unformatted partition or disk for Ceph storage with minimum 20-GB space.

The following optional disk partitions are recommended.

• Docker partition mounted at /var/lib/docker with minimum 50-GB space.
• Data partition mounted at /export with minimum 50-GB space. The data partition is used for Postgres, Zookeeper, Kafka, and Elasticsearch.
• Data partition mounted at /var/local with minimum 50-GB space, The data partition is used for Paragon Insights influxdb.

  You can mount /export and /var/local on the same partition, but you must mount /var/lib/docker on a separate file system to increase the stability of the cluster. If one of the databases fills up its available disk space, Kubernetes can respond by shutting down applications and reschedule them on other nodes.

If you do not create the optional partitions, you must add their minimum size requirements to the root partition.

Web Browser Requirements

Table 2 lists the 64-bit Web browsers that support Paragon Automation.

Table 2: Supported Web Browsers

Browser	Supported Versions	Supported OS Versions
Chrome	85 and later	Windows 10
Firefox	79 and later	Windows 10
Safari	14.0.3	MacOS 10.15 and later