Chapter 6 Planning your Installation

It is highly recommended that you first perform installations and upgrades in a test environment. Standard installation and upgrade procedures and use cases are tested prior to release. However, due to the wide range of possible configurations and customizations, it is important to exercise caution when deploying new versions of software into your production environments. This is especially true when the workload has vital bearing on your organization's day-to-day operations. We recommend that you test in an environment that mirrors your production environment's configuration, workflow and load as closely as possible. Please contact your Adaptive Computing account manager for suggestions and options for installing/upgrading to newer versions.

There are many different ways to install and configure the Moab HPC Suite. Each environment has its own set of requirements and preferences. This chapter is intended to help an administrator understand how each of the Moab HPC Suite components interact, basic requirements and configuration information to prepare for the installation.

Code samples have been provided for convenience. Some code samples provide sample passwords (i.e. “changeme!”). We strongly recommend that you do not use these passwords during installation, as using the documented passwords could introduce unnecessary security vulnerabilities into your system.

In this chapter:

6.27.1 Installation Terminology

To aid in documentation clarity, Adaptive Computing uses the following terms in this Installation and Configuration Guide:

Components – The different "products" included in the Moab HPC Suite. For example, Moab Workload Manager, Moab Web Services.
Servers – Also known as components, but specifically relating to the actual services. For example, the Moab Workload Manager component is referred to as the Moab Server for non-client services.
Host – The actual box where an Moab HPC Suite component (server or client) is installed.

Previous documentation typically used Head Node to designate a host or a Server.

6.27.2 Where to Start

You will need to plan your environment and determine how many hosts you will need and for which you components you will install using the Manual Installation or the RPM Installation method. The following are suggested steps to help you in your planning and installing process.

Determine whether you have a small, medium, High-Throughput or large environment; including an example, and required and recommended hardware requirements. See 6.26 Server Hardware Requirements.
Decide whether you will perform a Manual Installation or an RPM Installation for the various components. See 6.27 Identify the Manual or RPM Installation Methods.
The Manual Installation and the RPM Installation chapters each have an "Additional Configuration" section that provides additional information and instructions for optional, but recommended configurations.
Review the software requirements for your components and set up your hosts accordingly. See 6.25 Component Requirements.
Install the individual components on their respective host(s). See 6.10 Preparing for Manual Installation or 6.28 About RPM Installations and Upgrades as applicable.
Refer to Chapter 6 Troubleshooting for assistance in addressing common problems during installation and configuration.