Cloud Instance Minimum Hardware Requirements

The minimum hardware requirements are described below. To learn about the default settings and how to use the Charon-SSP configuration options to determine the resource allocation, refer to the different configuration sections of this guide, in particular, the /wiki/spaces/DocCHSSP420CLD/pages/801865837 section.

Important general information:

• To facilitate a fast transfer of emulator data from one cloud instance to another, it is strongly recommended to store all relevant emulator data on a separate disk volume that can easily be detached from the old instance and attached to a new instance.
• Please make sure to dimension your instance correctly from the beginning (check the minimum requirements below). The Charon-SSP license for Charon-SSP AL is created when the instance is first launched. Changing later to another instance size/type and thereby changing the number of CPU cores will invalidate the license and thus prevent Charon instances from starting (new instance required). The license for Charon-SSP VE is created based on the fingerprint taken on the license server. If the license server is run directly on the emulator host and the emulator host later requires, for example, a change in the number of CPU cores, the license will be invalidated (new license required).

General CPU requirements: Charon-SSP requires modern x86-64 architecture processors with a recommended CPU frequency of at least 3.0GHz.

Minimum requirements for Charon-SSP:

• Minimum number of host system CPU cores:
  • At least one CPU core for the host operating system.
  • For each emulated SPARC system:
    • One CPU core for each emulated CPU of the instance.
    • At least one additional CPU core for I/O processing (at least two, if server JIT optimization is used). See the CPU Configuration section mentioned above for default allocation and configuration options
      

• Minimum memory requirements:
  • At least 2GB of RAM for the host operating system.
  • For each emulated SPARC system:
    • The configured memory of the emulated instance.
    • 2GB of RAM (6GB of RAM if server JIT is used) to allow for DIT optimization, emulator requirements, run-time buffers, SMP and graphics emulation.
• If hyper-threading cannot be disabled on the Charon-SSP host, configure the hyper-threading option in the Charon-SSP Manager. See the CPU Configuration section mentioned above for additional configuration information.
• One or more network interfaces, depending on customer requirements.
• Charon-SSP/4U+ and Charon-SSP/4V+ must run on physical Intel hardware supporting VT-x/EPT (baremetal instances) and therefore cannot run in all cloud environments. Please check your cloud provider's documentation for the availability of such hardware. In addition, note the following points:
  
  • The support of these product variants on AMD processors (AMD-v/NPT required) is currently experimental.
  • Charon-SSP/4U+ and Charon-SSP/4V+ are only available when using the Linux kernels provided by Stromasys.
  • Please contact Stromasys or your Stromasys VAR if you need this type of emulated SPARC hardware to discuss your requirements in detail.

Please note:

• The sizing guidelines above—in particular regarding number of host CPU cores and host memory—show the minimum requirements.
  Every use case has to be reviewed and the actual host sizing has to be adapted as necessary. For example, the number of I/O CPUs may have to be increased if the guest applications produce a high I/O load. Also take into consideration that a system with many emulated CPUs in general is also able to create a higher I/O load and thus the number of CPUs for I/O processing may have to be increased.

• The CPU core allocation for emulated CPUs and CPU cores for I/O processing is determined by the configuration. See CPU Configuration in the general Charon-SSP User's Guide for more information about this and the default allocation of CPU cores for I/O processing.