Hardware Configuration

Refer to the Product Specifications document for detailed description of supported Server Hardware and Network Interface Cards.

Prepare the Server Hardware

Follow your server manufacturer’s instructions to configure the following values on your servers.

BIOS

The following BIOS settings must be configured on the server. Depending on the role or configuration of the Server, different settings must be applied. Refer to the table below for the exact values required for Traffic Processors, Management Servers, and Management Servers with Traffic Processing installed.

Storage

For both traffic processors and management servers, use enterprise grade SSDs for storage. A minimum of 2 identical disks must be installed in an RAID configuration for redundancy.

• Systems with 2 disks should be configured for RAID-1 (mirroring)
• Systems with 3 or more disks should be configured with RAID-5

Network Cabling

Traffic Processor servers have specific network cabling requirements depending on what function the server will perform. Consult the Deployment Guide for details on the various deployment modes.

Inline Connections

When a Traffic Processor is deployed in-line, it will receive data on one interface, process it, and forward the data out a second interface. Together, these interfaces constitute a “port pair”.

When connecting network cables to Network Interface Cards in the server, you MUST ensure that:

• Uplink connection (traffic destined for the Internet) is connected to an even numbered port on the NIC
• Downlink connection (traffic destined for the Access Layer of the network) is connected to the adjacent odd numbered port on the NIC.
• Port pairs are connected to the same NIC. Uplink and Downlink connections may not be spread across multiple NICs.

Refer to the diagram below for an example of the correct cabling for a quad port NIC.

Network Card Configuration

Note the PCI addresses of each NIC you connect to the network, and the corresponding port number. Port numbers are represented by the decimal portion of the PCI address. You may identify PCI addresses in the server manufacturer’s system settings, or by running the the following linux command:

sudo lshw -class network -businfo

This command will return a list of network interfaces and the corresponding PCI address and device names, for example:

Bus info          Device      Class          Description
========================================================
pci@0000:02:00.0  eth0        network        Ethernet interface
pci@0000:02:00.1  eth1        network        Ethernet interface
pci@0000:02:00.2  eth2        network        Ethernet interface
pci@0000:02:00.3  eth3        network        Ethernet interface

In the above examples, port pair 1 would consist of pci@0000:02:00.0 (eth0) connected to the uplink, and pci@0000:02:00.1 (eth1) connected to the downlink. Similarly, port pair 2 is comprised of pci@0000:02:00.2 (eth2) for uplink and pci@0000:02:00.3 (eth4) for downlink.

Note these values for your specific server installation for use during the software installation process.