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Minimum Hardware and Software Requirements for Junos Node Slicing

To set up Junos node slicing using the external server model, you need an MX Series router and a pair of industry standard x86 servers. The x86 servers host the Juniper Device Manager (JDM) along with the GNF VMs.

To set up Junos node slicing using the in-chassis model, you need an MX Series router with MX Series Routing Engines that support x86 virtualization and have sufficient resources to host JDM and GNF VMs.

MX Series Router

The following routers support Junos node slicing:

  • MX2010

  • MX2020

  • MX480

  • MX960

  • MX2008

Note:

  • For the MX960 and MX480 routers, the Control Boards must be SCBE2; and the Routing Engines must be interoperable with SCBE2 (RE-S-1800X4-32G, RE-S-1800X4-16G, RE-S-X6-64G, RE-S-X6-128G, REMX2K-X8-128G).

  • To configure in-chassis Junos node slicing, the MX Series router must have one of the following types of Routing Engines installed:

    • RE-S-X6-128G (used in MX480 and MX960 routers)

    • REMX2K-X8-128G (used in MX2010 and MX2020 routers)

    • REMX2008-X8-128G (used in MX2008 routers)

x86 Servers (External Server Model)

Ensure that both the servers have similar (preferably identical) hardware configuration.

The x86 server hardware resource requirements comprise:

  • Per-GNF resource requirements (CPU, memory, and storage).

  • Shared resource requirements (CPU, memory, storage and network ports).

The server hardware requirements are thus the sum of the requirements of the individual GNFs, and the shared resource requirements. The server hardware requirements are a function of how many GNFs you plan to use.

x86 CPU:

  • Must be Intel Haswell-EP or newer server class processor.

    BIOS:

    • Must have hyperthreading disabled.

    • Must have performance mode enabled.

Storage:

  • Must be local to the server.

  • Must be solid-state drive (SSD)-based.

The storage space for GNFs is allocated from the following:

  • /(root), which must have a minimum available storage space of 50 GB.

  • /vm-primary, which must have a minimum available storage space of 350 GB.

Note:

We recommend that you:

  • use hardware RAID 1 configuration for storage resiliency.

  • set up /vm-primary as a Linux partition.

  • do not use software RAID.

Server Hardware Resource Requirements (Per GNF)

Each GNF must be associated with a resource template, which defines the number of dedicated CPU cores and the size of DRAM to be assigned for that GNF.

Table 1 lists the GNF resource templates available for configuring Junos node slicing on external servers:

Table 1: GNF Resource Template (External Server Model )

Template

CPU cores

DRAM (GB)

2core-16g

2

16

4core-32g

4

32

6core-48g

6

48

8core-64g

8

64
Note:

Each GNF requires a minimum of 64 GB storage.

Table 2 lists the GNF resource templates available for configuring in-chassis Junos node slicing:

Table 2: GNF Resource Templates for In-Chassis Model

Template

CPU cores

DRAM (GiB)

1core-16g

1

16

1core-32g

1

32

1core-48g

1

48

2core-16g

2

16

2core-32g

2

32

2core-48g

2

48

4core-32g

4

32

4core-48g

4

48

Shared Server Hardware Resource Requirements (External Server Model)

Table 3 lists the server hardware resources that are shared between all the guest network functions (GNFs) on a server:

Note:

These requirements are in addition to the per-GNF requirements mentioned in the Server Hardware Resource Requirements (Per GNF) section.

Table 3: Shared Server Resources Requirements (External Server Model)

Component

Specification

CPU

  • Four cores to be allocated for JDM and Linux host processing.

Memory

  • Minimum of 32 GB DRAM for JDM and Linux host processing.

Storage

  • Minimum of 64 GB storage for JDM and Linux host.

Network Ports

  • Two 10-Gbps Ethernet interfaces for control plane connection between the server and the router.

    • Minimum—1 PCIe NIC card with Intel X710 dual port 10-Gbps Direct Attach, SFP+, Converged Network Adapter, PCIe 3.0, x8

    • Recommended—2 NIC cards of the above type. Use one port from each card to provide redundancy at the card level.

  • One Ethernet interface (1/10 Gbps) for Linux host management network.

  • One Ethernet interface (1/10 Gbps) for JDM management network.

  • One Ethernet interface (1/10 Gbps) for GNF management network. (This port is shared by all the GNFs on that server).

  • Serial port or an equivalent interface (iDRAC, IPMI) for server console access.

Server Software Requirements (External Server Model)

The x86 servers must have the following installed:

  • Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® (RHEL) 7.3, (RHEL) 9, or Ubuntu 20.04 LTS - with virtualization packages.

    Note:

    Starting in Junos OS Release 23.2R1, the external server-based Junos node slicing supports deployment of Juniper Device Manager (JDM) using the Pod Manager tool (podman). This change is applicable to servers running Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® (RHEL) 9. In Junos releases prior to 23.2R1, Junos node slicing supported RHEL 7.3, which provided libvirt lxc driver (libvirt-lxc) to deploy JDMs.

    To enable virtualization for RHEL, choose “Virtualization Host" for the Base Environment and "Virtualization Platform" as an Add-On from the Software Selection screen during installation. Add the Container Management package for RHEL 9 installations.

    Note:

    • The hypervisor supported is KVM.

  • Install additional packages required for Intel X710 NIC Driver and JDM. For more information, see the Updating Intel X710 NIC Driver for x86 Servers and Installing Additional Packages for JDM sections.

  • Ensure that you have the latest X710 NIC driver (2.4.10 or later version) and firmware (18.5.17 or later version) installed. For more details, see Updating Intel X710 NIC Driver for x86 Servers.

The servers must also have the BIOS setup as described in x86 Server CPU BIOS Settings and the Linux GRUB configuration as described in x86 Server Linux GRUB Configuration.

Ensure that the host OS is up to date.

Note:

  • The x86 servers require internet connectivity for you to be able to perform host OS updates and install the additional packages.

  • Ensure that you have the same host OS software version on both the servers.

Note:

The following software packages are required to set up Junos node slicing:

  • JDM package

  • Junos OS image for GNFs

  • Junos OS package for BSYS

  • Junos OS vmhost package for REMX2K-X8-64G and RE-S-X6-64G Control Board-Routing Engine based BSYS

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