Hardware and software requirements

The hardware and software requirements vary according to the type of deployment that you want to set up. Before you install IBM® Operations Analytics - Log Analysis, review the requirements that are listed here.

Supported operating systems

Table 1. Supported operating systems
Operating system Red Hat Enterprise Linux version SUSE Linux Enterprise Server version
IBM System z® 6, 7, or 7.1 11 and 12
IBM System x 5, 6, 7, or 7.1 11 and 12
IBM Power8 Little Endian 7.1 -

Log Analysis supports both System z and x86 hardware. Operating systems that are installed on System z based hardware are referred to as Linux on System z. Operating systems that are installed on x86 based hardware are referred to as Linux on System x.

Supported browsers

  • Mozilla Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR) version 38
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer 10 and 11
  • Google Chrome versions 44, 45, and 47
  • Microsoft EDGE
Warning: If you use Internet Explorer 11, the user interface might not render properly or at all. To fix the issue, you need to disable the compatibility lists. For more information about how to do disable the compatibility lists, see the Cannot display the UI in Microsoft Internet Explorer 11 topic in the Troubleshooting Guide.

Software requirements

  • KornShell
  • Python Version 2.4.3 with simplejson module (RHEL v5) or Python Version 2.6.6 to 2.6.8 (RHEL v6 or higher, SLES v11 or higher)
  • Perl Version 5.8.8 or later is required to load sample data
  • Unzip utility is required to install the Indexing Server.
  • Sed utility is required to install the Indexing Server.
Tip: To install the required libraries on Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server Edition, YUM is recommended. On SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, YaST is recommended. For more information about installing these libraries and additional information about setting up your environment, see the Installing section of the documentation.

Hardware requirements

The following hardware requirements are representative of what may be required for an installation of IBM Operations Analytics - Log Analysis. The hardware requirements can change depending on the amount of data that you stream.

The specifications assume that you install IBM Operations Analytics - Log Analysis, the Indexing Engine component, and IBM InfoSphere® on separate servers:
Test configuration
The test configuration assumes that you intend to stream about 1 Gigabyte (GB) of data daily and that you plan to retain data for seven days.
IBM Operations Analytics - Log Analysis server:
  • Four 2.8 Gigahertz (GHz) core processors
  • 16 gigabytes (GB) of RAM
  • 60 GB of hard disk space
Indexing Engine server
  • Four 2.8 GHz core processors
  • 16 GB of RAM
  • 10 GB of hard disk space
Commodity configuration
The commodity configuration assumes that you intend to stream about 250 GBs of data daily and that you plan to retain data for 15 days.
IBM Operations Analytics - Log Analysis server:
  • Eight 2.8 Gigahertz (GHz) core processors
  • 16 GB of RAM
  • 60 GB of hard disk space
Indexing Engine server
  • Eight 2.8 GHz core processors
  • 64 GB of RAM
  • 4 Terabytes (TB) of hard disk space
Production configuration
The production configuration assumes that you intend to stream about 500 GBs of data daily and that you plan to retain data for 30 days.
IBM Operations Analytics - Log Analysis server:
  • Sixteen 2.8 Gigahertz (GHz) core processors
  • 16 GB of RAM
  • 60 GB of hard disk space
Indexing Engine server
  • Sixteen 2.8 GHz core processors
  • 64 GB of RAM
  • 16 TB of hard disk space

You can use IBM Operations Analytics - Log Analysis to stream up to two TBs of data daily.

Processor, disk, and memory types

IBM Operations Analytics - Log Analysis is designed to be compatible with a wide range of processors, hard disks and memory types.

Software requirements for Linux on System z and Linux on System x

You can install IBM Operations Analytics - Log Analysis on Linux on System z and Linux on System x. For more information, see the Installing on Linux on System z and Linux on System x based servers in topic the Installing section of the documentation.

Software requirements:
  • KornShell is required for the IBM Tivoli® Monitoring Log File Agent.
  • Python Version 2.4.3 with simplejson module (RHEL v5) or Python Version 2.6.6 to 2.6.8 (RHEL v6 or higher, SLES v11 or higher).
  • Perl Version 5.8.8 or later is required to load sample data.
  • The Unzip utility is required to install the Indexing Server.
  • The Sed utility is required to install the Indexing Server.
  • The following RPMs are required for both Red Hat Enterprise Linux on System z and SUSE Linux on System z:
    • libstdc++ (32-bit and 64-bit)
    • gtk2 (32-bit and 64-bit)
    • libXpm (32-bit and 64-bit)
    • libXtst (32-bit and 64-bit) is required if you want to run the Installation Manager in GUI mode.

You also need to complete the prerequisite tasks, which include disabling the Security Enhanced Linux module. For more information, see the Prerequisite topic in the Installing section of the documentation.

To tune the Linux operating system, ensure that the following resource configuration settings are made:
Number of concurrent files: 4096
Use the ulimit -n command to change this setting to 4096.
Virtual memory: Unlimited
Use the ulimit -v command to change this setting to unlimited.

Hardware for Linux on System z and Linux on System x

The following hardware requirements are representative of what may be required for an installation of IBM Operations Analytics - Log Analysis on Linux on System z and Linux on System x. The hardware requirements can change depending on the amount of data that you stream.

This configuration assumes that you intend to stream about 10 GB of data daily. This scenario assumes that you install two logical partitions (LPARs) and that the LPARs stream 5 GBs of data each day. It is assumed that data is retained for 10 days:
  • One Central Processing Unit (CPU)
  • 16 GB of RAM
  • 150 GB of hard disk space

Supported file systems

The following file systems are supported for both operating systems:
  • ext2/3/4
  • reiser3
  • XFS
  • NFS 3/4

Hardware and software requirements for Hadoop

Standard Edition users can integrate Hadoop for long term data storage.

Several different versions of Hadoop are supported. For more information see the Supported versions of Hadoop topic in the Data tiering and storage section of the documentation.