Checklist: Verifying the installation requirements

Procedure

Solution documentation

Review the following documentation before starting with deployment procedure:

  • Visually verify that the HPE Telco Core Blueprint components match the published Bill of materials (BOM) listing.
  • Access and understand the Port map. The Port Map is a catalog for information on cabling between the Server NIC ports and the Switches. This document also defines the physical cabling and the port connectivity between the HPE Telco Core Blueprint hardware components and storage.
  • Access and understand the Power map. The power map diagram describes the layout of the power sockets in the rack and the power connection to various hardware components.
  • Access and understand the Rack diagram. The rack diagram provides the layout of the various hardware components such as servers and switches in the rack. It provides information about the rack unit (RU) requirements of these components.
  • Access and understand the Network diagram. This document describes the layout of the various networks used.

Environment: Installation requirements

  • As per the BOM, ensure the USB is attached to the server for Image Service.
  • Ensure there is internet connectivity. Internet access is required for the following:

    • Download the CentOS 7.7 DVD ISO image, the dependent packages, and update the CentOS repositories.

    • NPS toolkit host and VM must have Internet connectivity.

    • Ensure that the DNS server is configured and reachable from NPS toolkit VM. For more information, see Configuring DNS.

    • Ensure that the NTP server is configured and reachable from NPS toolkit VM.

    • Ensure iLO IPs are reachable from Customer infrastructure switch.

    • Ensure that the Spine and Border Leaf switches are manually configured completely to enable connectivity between NPS toolkit VM and the server rack.

Artifacts

  • Ensure that the following artifacts are downloaded:

    • NPS toolkit artifacts

    • VIM automation artifacts - Download the VMware images from VMware portal using VMware credentials.

      For information on version of ESXi, VCSA ISO, NSX-T ova, VIO ova, and optools ova files that includes Operations Manager, Orchestrator, Log Insight, and Network Insight, see release-specific HPE Telco Blueprint Compatibility Matrix available at Hewlett Packard Enterprise Information Library.

    • Hostnames and IP addresses of all the components and servers used in the VMware vCloud deployment environment must be mentioned in the DNS server entries and all of them must be resolvable.

    IMPORTANT:

    You can download the latest versions of NPS toolkit and VMware VIM bits from the kiosk My HPE Software Center. For more information how to access the kiosk, contact HPE Sales and Support team.

NPS toolkit VM deployment

  • Ensure you have a laptop or baremetal node which can be converted into a virtualization host for NPS toolkit VM deployment to bring up a NPS toolkit VM. The laptop or the additional server must have the following minimum configuration:

    • Ensure that OAM IP is assigned to the NPS toolkit host.

    • Ensure that there is Internet connectivity available for NPS toolkit host.

    • Ensure that the capacity of the directory for copying the install bits is more than 300 GB.

    • Ensure that the NPS toolkit host has minimum 4GB RAM and 4 vCPUs allocation.
      NOTE:

      You can customize this allocation based on your requirements. For more information, see Deploying NPS toolkit VM.

    • Ensure that the latest centOS 7 is installed in the NPS toolkit host. This must be a virtualization host.
      NOTE:

      During centOS installation in the host machine, select Software Selection > Base Environment and click Virtualization Host.

HPE Telco Infrastructure Configuration Generator tool (TICG)

  • Knowledge of JSON file formats or usage of the HPE Telco Infrastructure Configuration Generator tool (TICG).

    All the infrastructure and installation specifications are provided to the online tool, which creates a JSON file that serves as the major input for the deployment.

  • Review the sample input JSON file and understand the field descriptions and values that must be provided in the TICG tool.
  • Ensure all the details (DNS entry, IP addresses, domain name, hostnames, usernames, passwords, and VLANs) are provided correctly in the HPE TICG tool which is responsible for the generation of input.json file.