System Requirements
These topics provide system requirements for each supported environment.
Minimum Hardware and Software Requirements for KVM
Table 1 lists the hardware requirements for KVM.
Table 1: Minimum Hardware Requirements for KVM
Description | Value |
|---|---|
Required CPUs and NICs | For lab simulation and low performance (less than 100 Mbps) use cases, any x86 processor (Intel or AMD) with VT-d capability. For all other use cases, Intel Ivy Bridge processors or later
are required. To use single root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) NIC type on vMX, the following NICs are required and no other NICs are supported with SR-IOV.
|
Number of cores Note: Performance mode is the default mode and the minimum value is based on one port. | For lite mode with lab simulation use case applications: Minimum of 4
Note: If you want to use lite mode when you are running more than 3 vCPUs for the VFP, you must explicitly configure lite mode. |
For performance mode with low-bandwidth (virtio) or high-bandwidth (SR-IOV) applications: Minimum of 9
The exact number of vCPUs needed differs depending on the Junos OS features that are configured and other factors, such as average packet size. You can contact Juniper Networks Technical Assistance Center (JTAC) for validation of your configuration and make sure to test the full configuration under load before use in production. For typical configurations, we recommend the following formula to calculate the minimum vCPUs needed by the VFP. Note:
Note: All VFP vCPUs must be in the same physical non-uniform memory access (NUMA) node for optimal performance. In addition to vCPUs for the VFP, we recommend 2 x vCPUs for VCP and 2 x vCPUs for Host OS on any server running the vMX. | |
Memory Note: Performance mode is the default mode. | For lite mode: Minimum of 3 GB
For performance mode:
Additional 2 GB recommended for host OS |
Storage | Local or NAS Each vMX instance requires 30 GB of disk storage. |
Other requirements | Intel VT-d capability Hyperthreading (recommended) AES-NI |
Table 2 lists the software requirements for Ubuntu.
Table 2: Software Requirements for Ubuntu
Description | Value |
|---|---|
Operating system | Ubuntu 16.04.5 LTS (recommended host OS) |
Virtualization | QEMU-KVM 2.0.0+dfsg-2ubuntu1.11 |
Required packages Note: Other additional packages might be required to satisfy all dependencies. | bridge-utils qemu-kvm libvirt-bin python python-netifaces vnc4server libyaml-dev python-yaml numactl libparted0-dev libpciaccess-dev libnuma-dev libyajl-dev libxml2-dev libglib2.0-dev libnl-dev python-pip python-dev libxml2-dev libxslt-dev Note: libvirt 1.3.1 |
Table 3 lists the software requirements for Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Table 3: Software Requirements for Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Description | Value |
|---|---|
Operating system | Red Hat OpenStack Platform 10 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.7 |
Virtualization | QEMU-KVM 1.5.3 |
Required packages Note: SR-IOV requires these packages: kernel-devel gcc | python27-python-pip python27-python-devel numactl-libs libpciaccess-devel parted-devel yajl-devel libxml2-devel glib2-devel libnl-devel libxslt-devel libyaml-devel numactl-devel redhat-lsb kmod-ixgbe libvirt-daemon-kvm numactl telnet net-tools Note: libvirt 1.2.17 or later |
Table 4 lists the software requirements for CentOS.
Table 4: Software Requirements for CentOS
Description | Value |
|---|---|
Operating system | CentOS 7.2 |
Virtualization | QEMU-KVM 1.5.3 |
Required packages | python27-python-pip python27-python-devel numactl-libs libpciaccess-devel parted-devel yajl-devel libxml2-devel glib2-devel libnl-devel libxslt-devel libyaml-devel numactl-devel redhat-lsb kmod-ixgbe libvirt-daemon-kvm numactl telnet net-tools Note: libvirt 1.2.19 To avoid any conflicts, install libvirt 1.2.19 instead of updating from libvirt 1.2.17. |
Minimum Hardware and Software Requirements for VMware
Table 5 lists the hardware requirements for VMware.
Table 5: Minimum Hardware Requirements for VMware
Description | Value |
|---|---|
Number of cores Note: Performance mode is the default mode and the minimum value is based on one port. | For performance mode with low-bandwidth (virtio) or high-bandwidth (SR-IOV) applications: Minimum of 9
The exact number of vCPUs needed differs depending on the Junos OS features that are configured and other factors, such as average packet size. You can contact Juniper Networks Technical Assistance Center (JTAC) for validation of your configuration and make sure to test the full configuration under load before use in production. For typical configurations, we recommend the following formula to calculate the minimum vCPUs needed by the VFP. Note: To calculate the optimal number of vCPUs needed by VFP for performance mode:
Note: All VFP vCPUs must be in the same physical non-uniform memory access (NUMA) node for optimal performance. In addition to vCPUs for the VFP, we recommend 2 x vCPUs for VCP and 2 x vCPUs for Host OS on any server running the vMX. |
For lite mode: Minimum of 4
Note: If you want to use lite mode when you are running with more than 3 vCPUs for the VFP, you must explicitly configure lite mode. | |
Memory Note: Performance mode is the default mode. | For performance mode:
For lite mode: Minimum of 3 GB
|
Storage | Local or NAS Each vMX instance requires 30 GB of disk storage. |
vNICs |
|
Table 6 lists the software requirements.
Table 6: Software Requirements for VMware
Description | Value |
|---|---|
Hypervisor | VMware ESXi 5.5 (Update 2), 6.0, or 6.5 Note: Due to a DPDK version change in Junos OS Release 18.1R1 or later, ESXi 6.5 is the minimum version required to run the vMX router if you are operating in high-bandwidth mode (performance mode). If you are operating the vMX router in low-bandwidth(lite) mode, you can use ESXi 6.0 or ESXi 5.5. |
Management Client | vSphere 5.5 or vCenter Server |
