This documentation supports an earlier version of BMC Helix IT Service Management on-premises deployment.To view the documentation for the latest version, select 23.3.04 from the Product version picker.

System requirements

Before you deploy the product, make sure that your environment meets the hardware and software requirements.

Related topics

BMC-Helix-Service-Management-deployment-architecture

Setting-up-BMC-Deployment-Engine

Sizing-and-scalability-considerations

System requirements

Make sure that your environment meets the following requirements:

Component

Supported Versions

Orchestration platforms

Orchestration platforms

  • Kubernetes 1.23 –  1.29
  • OpenShift 4.10 – 4.14

Important:

  • If you are using BMC Helix Service Management in Kubernetes version 1.25, 1.26, 1.27, or 1.28 make sure that you use the baseline pod security standard for the namespace where it is being deployed.
  • If you are performing a fresh installation of BMC Helix Service Management on Kubernetes 1.27 or OpenShift 4.13, we recommend that you use BMC Helix Platform Common Services 23.4.00. Do not use the BMC Helix Platform Common Services version 23.2.02.

Supported Kubernetes and OpenShift platforms

The following Kubernetes and OpenShift based platforms are supported with the underlying Kubernetes or OpenShift versions as listed in the previous row.

  • Kubernetes management tools
    • VMware Tanzu 
    • Rancher Kubernetes
       
  • OKD (Community Edition OpenShift)
  • Public Cloud Managed Kubernetes
    • Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Container Engine for Kubernetes (OKE) with underlying Kubernetes 1.24.x – 1.29.x 
    • Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) with underlying Kubernetes 1.24.x – 1.29.x
    • Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) with underlying Kubernetes 1.24.x – 1.29.x
    • Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) with underlying Kubernetes 1.24.x – 1.29.x

Important: Kubernetes clusters that use only the Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) are supported.

Ingress controller

Ingress

NGINX Ingress Controller1

1.7.0, 1.9.3, 1.8.1, 1.9.5, 1.9.6, 1.11.5

Important:

BMC has certified using the Nginx Ingress Controller version 1.9.6 and 1.11.5 with Kubernetes version 1.29.

BMC has certified using the Nginx Ingress Controller version 1.9.5 and 1.11.5 with Kubernetes version 1.28.

BMC has certified using the Nginx Ingress Controller version 1.9.3 and 1.11.5 with Kubernetes version 1.27.

BMC has certified using the Nginx Ingress Controller version 1.8.1 and 1.11.5 with Kubernetes version 1.26.

BMC has certified using the Nginx Ingress Controller version 1.7.0 with Kubernetes versions 1.24 and 1.25.

server-name-hash-bucket-size

1024

ssl-redirect

false

NGINX Ingress Controller is installed by default in the ingress-nginx namespace. Review the following parameter value requirements in the nginx-configuration configmap:

  • enable-underscores-in-headers: "true"
  • proxy-body-size: 250m
  • server-name-hash-bucket-size: "1024"
  • ssl-redirect: "false"
  • use-forwarded-headers: "true"
  • proxy-connect-timeout: "300"
  • proxy-read-timeout: "600"
  • proxy-send-timeout: "600"

You can use the following command to view the parameters in the nginx-configuration configmap:

kubectl describe cm nginx-configuration -n ingress-nginx

Package Manager

  • Helm 3.11 for Kubernetes 1.23 – 1.25
  • Helm 3.12 for Kubernetes version 1.26
  • Helm 3.13 for Kubernetes version 1.27
  • Helm 3.14 for Kubernetes version 1.28 and 1.29

Load Balancer

Load Balancer

F5 Load Balancer or other Load Balancer.

The following load balancer SSL methods are supported:

  • SSL Offloading at the load balancer
  • SSL Passthrough to offload at the Ingress Controller
  • SSL Full Proxy
  • Allow X-Forwarded- Headers Upstream of Ingress
  • Reverse Proxy http back to https

Important: Make sure that you configure the following headers for SSL Offloading at the load balancer:

  • X-Forwarded-Proto—https
  • X-Forwarded-Host
  • X-Forwarded-Port—443

Storage and security certificates

Persistent or Elastic Storage

BMC supports a Bring-Your-Own-Storage-Class model, for any block storage supporting high performance IOPS.

CephRBD is certified by BMC

Security Certificates

DigiCert and R3 certificates.

Custom CA signed certificates and self-signed certificates are supported.

Important: If you are using a self-signed or custom CA certificate, make sure that you use the same custom certificate during BMC Helix Platform and BMC Helix Service Management installation.

Other system requirements

Java

Java 11 and later for AR System clients, such as Developer Studio, and Atrium Integrator.

Container Host OS

BMC Helix Innovation Suitehas no specific dependencies on the underlying Linux OS or release running on your Worker Nodes.

You can use any x86_64 GNU/Linux OS supported by your Kubernetes or OpenShift platform and release version.

Host OS Bash Shell

Bash Shell 4.2 or later

Docker Registry

  • Direct access to BMC's Docker Trusted Registry (DTR) at https://containers.bmc.com
    OR
    Latest version of Harbor synchronized with BMC’s Docker Trusted Registry
  • A docker client is required.

DB Support

  • Oracle Database 19.16 
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2019
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2017
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2016 (SP2)
  • PostgreSQL 13

Notes:

  • You must set up the database server outside the Kubernetes clusters on a physical or virtual machine.
  • In general, BMC recommends running on the latest Service Pack, Maintenance Level, or other such update to listed databases.
  • AR System server and BMC Helix CMDB support 'AlwaysOn' for Microsoft SQL Server.
  • Remedy AR System and BMC Helix CMDB server support Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC) feature of Oracle Database.
  • Oracle database pluggable/un-pluggable are supported.

Email Engine

Microsoft Exchange Server 2016 (64-bit) and Microsoft Office 365 Exchange

Notes:

  • BMC internally certifies Email Engine with Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft Office 365 Exchange. Because Email Engine makes use of JavaMail API that is capable of working with other SMTP servers, SMTP servers that are not listed in this table might still operate correctly with AR System. You might be able to run AR System in a configuration not listed as supported. However, BMC has not certified the integration of Email Engine with such SMTP servers in their labs.
  • Microsoft has discontinued MAPI support in Microsoft Exchange Server 2016; Support for EWS (exchange web service) is available for Microsoft Exchange Server 2016 only.
    See, https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/new-features/discontinued-features?view=exchserver-2016.
  • OAuth 2.0 based authentication is required for Microsoft Office 365 Exchange starting with 20.02.01 and later

  • Starting with AR System 20.02.01 (also known as 20.02 Patch 1), Email Engine supports OAuth 2.0 based authentication for the Exchange Web Services (EWS) protocol to access Microsoft Office 365 Exchange.
    For more information, see AR System 20.08 enhancements in the AR System online documentation.

BMC Helix Platform

BMC Helix Platform 23.2.02

BMC Helix Platform 23.4.00

BMC Helix Platform 24.1.00

BMC Helix Service Managementinstallation uses the following services provided by BMC Helix Platform:

  • Foundational services such as user management, tenant management, and BMC Helix Single Sign-On
  • Data lake such as Elasticsearch, PostgreSQL, and MinIO

Metrics Server

BMC Helix uses the HorizontalPodAutoscaler (HPA) for its services so that the product can scale based on the customer usage. For the HPA to function, Kubernetes must expose metrics that are used to trigger scaling activities, for which a Metrics Server is required.

For information about the HPA, seethis page in the Kubernetes documentation.

For information about the Metrics Server, seethis page in the Kubernetes documentation

The supported Ingress and Helm versions with the Kubernetes orchestration platforms are as follows:

Orchestration platform

Ingress

Helm

Kubernetes 1.29

1.11.5
1.9.6

3.14

Kubernetes 1.28

1.11.5
1.9.5

3.14

Kubernetes 1.27

1.11.5
1.9.3

3.13

Kubernetes 1.26

1.11.5
1.8.1

3.12

Kubernetes 1.25

1.7.0

3.11

Kubernetes 1.24

1.7.0

3.11

The supported Ingress and Helm versions with the OpenShift orchestration platforms are as follows:

Orchestration platform

Ingress

Helm

OpenShift 4.14

1.9.5

3.13 

OpenShift 4.13

1.9.3

3.13

OpenShift 4.12

1.7.0

3.11

OpenShift 4.11

1.7.0

3.11

OpenShift 4.10

1.6.4

3.11

Network port requirements

Review the following components and the ports used:

Source component

Destination

Port

Direction

Local image registry (Harbor) with internet access

BMC Docker Trusted Registry (DTR)

(containers.bmc.com)

443

Outbound

Kubernetes cluster (Worker nodes)

Local image registry (Harbor) with internet access

443, 80
The default Harbor port is 80 if Secure Socket Layer (SSL) is not enabled.

Outbound

End user traffic

Load balancer or HA proxy

443

Incoming

Load balancer

Ingress controller

Ingress controller service port
The port varies based on your Kubernetes platform and Ingress controller service.

Incoming

Kubernetes cluster (Worker nodes)

Database server

Database port

The port varies based on your database type and service.

Outbound

AR Clients (Developer Studio)

BMC Helix Innovation Suite server Admin service

46262

You can expose this port through EXTERNAL-IP or Nodeport for the platform-admin-ext service.

Inbound

Kubernetes cluster (Worker nodes)

SMTP server

SMTP server port

Outbound

BMC Deployment Engine

Kubernetes cluster

Kubernetes API server port

Outbound

HDM virtual machine

Staging database server

Database port

The port varies based on your database type and service.

Outbound

Ports used by BMC Helix Service Management services

You might use the following ports to set your network policy:

Important

All service types are ClusterIP unless specified otherwise.

Service name                    

Port and protocol                                                                       

atriumwebsvc              

8080/TCP                                                                      

catalog-itsm-plugin       

9822/TCP                                                                      

clamav                    

3310/TCP                                                                      

dwp-tomcat               

9000/TCP                                                                      

midtier-int               

8080/TCP                                                                      

midtier-int-dns-lookup    

5701/TCP                                                                      

midtier-user              

8080/TCP                                                                      

midtier-user-dns-lookup   

5701/TCP                                                                      

openfire                  

5222/TCP                                                                      

openfire-dns-lookup       

5701/TCP                                                                      

openfire-ext              

7001/TCP,7070/TCP                                                             

platform-admin            

46262/TCP,8008/TCP,20000/TCP,61617/TCP,7319/TCP,40001/TCP                     

platform-admin-ext        

46262/TCP,8008/TCP,20000/TCP,61617/TCP,7319/TCP,40001/TCP,9999/TCP,9556/TCP 

 This service requires either EXTERNAL-IP, Nodeport, or Load balancer to access external clients like the Developer Studio.

platform-fts              

46262/TCP,8008/TCP,20000/TCP,61617/TCP,7319/TCP,40001/TCP,9977/TCP            

platform-fts-ext          

46262/TCP,8008/TCP,20000/TCP,61617/TCP,7319/TCP,40001/TCP,9977/TCP            

platform-int              

46262/TCP,8008/TCP,20000/TCP,61617/TCP,7319/TCP,40001/TCP                     

platform-int-ext          

46262/TCP,8008/TCP,20000/TCP,61617/TCP,7319/TCP,40001/TCP                     

platform-sr               

46262/TCP,8008/TCP,20000/TCP,61617/TCP,7319/TCP,40001/TCP                     

platform-sr-ext           

46262/TCP,8008/TCP,20000/TCP,61617/TCP,7319/TCP,40001/TCP                     

platform-user             

46262/TCP,8008/TCP,20000/TCP,61617/TCP,7319/TCP,40001/TCP                     

platform-user-ext         

46262/TCP,8008/TCP,20000/TCP,61617/TCP,7319/TCP,40001/TCP                     

smartit                   

9000/TCP                                                                      

smartit-dns-lookup        

5701/TCP                                                                      

smartreporting            

8080/TCP                                                                      

virtualchatplugin         

9822/TCP                                                                      

virtualchatserver         

8080/TCP,6226/TCP,6225/TCP                                                    

virtualchatserver-ext     

8080/TCP,6226/TCP,6225/TCP                       

To get more information about the ports used by the BMC Helix Service Management services, run the following command:
kubectl get svc -n <Innovation suite namespace>

Ports used by BMC Helix Platform Common Services 

You might use the following ports to set your network policy:

Important

All service types are ClusterIP unless specified otherwise.

Service name                                                

Ports and protocol                                                  

adeauthsvc                                            

8000/TCP                                                   

adereporting                                          

8080/TCP,8000/TCP                                          

adereporting-apiservice                               

8080/TCP                                                   

adereporting-renderer-service                         

8081/TCP                                                   

adereporting-report-generator-service                 

3002/TCP,3003/TCP                                          

aif-api-service                                       

50197/TCP,60197/TCP,8094/TCP,9094/TCP,11000/TCP            

aif-clustering-ingestion-service                      

50220/TCP,60220/TCP,11000/TCP                              

aif-clustering-query-service                          

50219/TCP,60219/TCP,11000/TCP                              

aif-clustering-service                                

50221/TCP,60221/TCP,11000/TCP                              

aif-core-service                                      

50177/TCP,60177/TCP,11000/TCP                              

aif-incident-ingestion-service                        

50197/TCP,60197/TCP,11000/TCP                              

aif-job-manager-service                               

50207/TCP,60207/TCP,11000/TCP                              

aif-machine-learning-utilities                        

50052/TCP,60052/TCP,11000/TCP,8080/TCP,9080/TCP            

aif-ticket-service                                    

50217/TCP,60217/TCP,11000/TCP                              

ans                                                   

8000/TCP                                                   

aud                                                   

8000/TCP                                                   

efk-elasticsearch-coordinating-hl                     

9200/TCP,9300/TCP                                          

efk-elasticsearch-data-hl                             

9200/TCP,9300/TCP                                          

efk-elasticsearch-efk-elasticsearch-coordinating-hl   

9200/TCP,9300/TCP                                          

efk-elasticsearch-ingest-hl                           

9200/TCP,9300/TCP                                          

efk-elasticsearch-kibana                              

5601/TCP                                                   

efk-elasticsearch-master-hl                          

9200/TCP,9300/TCP                                          

efk-fluent-bit                                        

9880/TCP                                                   

elasticsearch-events-opendistro-es-client-service     

9200/TCP,9300/TCP,9600/TCP,9650/TCP                        

elasticsearch-events-opendistro-es-data-svc           

9300/TCP,9200/TCP,9600/TCP,9650/TCP                        

elasticsearch-events-opendistro-es-discovery          

9300/TCP                                                   

elasticsearch-logs-opendistro-es-client-service       

9200/TCP,9300/TCP,9600/TCP,9650/TCP                        

elasticsearch-logs-opendistro-es-data-svc             

9300/TCP,9200/TCP,9600/TCP,9650/TCP                        

elasticsearch-logs-opendistro-es-discovery            

9300/TCP                                                   

featureflag                                           

8000/TCP                                                   

ims                                                   

8000/TCP                                                   

imsportal                                             

8000/TCP,9000/TCP                                          

kafka                                                 

9092/TCP                                                   

kafka-headless                                        

9092/TCP,9093/TCP                                          

kafka-zookeeper                                       

2181/TCP,2888/TCP,3888/TCP                                 

kafka-zookeeper-headless                              

2181/TCP,2888/TCP,3888/TCP                                 

metric-gateway-service                                

50059/TCP,60059/TCP,8093/TCP,9093/TCP,11000/TCP,8080/TCP   

metric-gateway-service-svc                            

50059/TCP,60059/TCP,8093/TCP,9093/TCP,11000/TCP,8080/TCP   

metric-ingestion-service                              

50051/TCP,60051/TCP,8080/TCP                               

metric-ingestion-service-svc                          

50051/TCP,60051/TCP,8080/TCP                               

metric-query-service                                  

50051/TCP,60051/TCP,8091/TCP,8080/TCP                      

metric-query-service-svc                              

50051/TCP,60051/TCP,8091/TCP,8080/TCP                      

minio                                                 

9000/TCP,9001/TCP                                          

minio-headless                                        

9000/TCP,9001/TCP                                          

postgres-bmc-pg-ha                                    

5432/TCP                                                   

postgres-bmc-pg-ha-config                             

<none>                                                     

postgres-bmc-pg-ha-pool                               

5432/TCP                                                   

postgres-bmc-pg-ha-repl                              

5432/TCP                                                   

redis-redis-ha                                        

6379/TCP,26379/TCP                                         

redis-redis-ha-announce-0                             

6379/TCP,26379/TCP                                         

redis-redis-ha-announce-1                             

6379/TCP,26379/TCP                                         

redis-redis-ha-announce-2                            

6379/TCP,26379/TCP                                         

redis-redis-ha-haproxy                                

6379/TCP                                                   

rsso                                                  

8080/TCP                                                   

smart-graph-api                                       

8000/TCP                                                   

smart-graph-controller                                

25210/TCP,25677/TCP                                        

tas                                                   

8000/TCP                                                   

tms                                                   

8000/TCP,9000/TCP                                          

tmsportal                                             

8000/TCP                                                   

ucs                                                   

8000/TCP                                                   

victoria-metrics-cluster-vminsert                     

8480/TCP,2003/TCP,2003/UDP,8189/TCP,8189/UDP               

victoria-metrics-cluster-vmselect                     

8481/TCP                                                   

victoria-metrics-cluster-vmstorage         

8482/TCP,8401/TCP,8400/TCP                 

To get more information about the ports used by the BMC Helix Platform Common Services , run the following command:

kubectl get svc -n <Platform Common Services namespace>

Jenkins server requirements

Review the following requirements for the Jenkins server: 

Component

Node

vCPU

Operating System

RAM (GB)

Disk space (GB)

Jenkins server

1

2

  • RHEL 7.x and 8.x are certified.
  • CentOS 7.x and CentOS Core 8.x  are certified.

Minimum 8

100

For information about setting up BMC Deployment Engine, see Setting-up-BMC-Deployment-Engine.

Harbor repository requirements

Use Harbor latest version. For information about Harbor installation requirements, see Harbor Installation and Configuration and Harbor Installation Prerequisites  in Harbor documentation.

 To access images from a local Harbor repository, make sure that your system has minimum 4 CPU with 8 GB memory and the following disk space:

  • 750 GB disk space when you are setting up the Harbor repository for the first time.
  • 100 GB approximately when you are synchronizing the container images in BMC DTR with the Harbor repository for an upgrade.

For information about setting up Harbor repository, see Setting-up-a-Harbor-repository-to-synchronize-container-images.

Controller machine requirements

If you are using BMC Helix Platform Common Services 24.1.00, make sure that the controller machine supports the following operating systems:

Operating System

Version

Linux 

8.5 or higher

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

  

8 or higher

Ubuntu 

20.04.6 or higher

Browser support

 Operating System

Browsers

Windows

Firefox

Chrome

Microsoft Edge

HARMAN Packaged Browser

Macintosh OS X

Safari

Namespaces

Review the following requirements for the namespaces in your cluster: 

  • Namespace to install BMC Helix Service Management.
    Make sure that the namespace name consists of only lowercase alphanumerics and hyphens. Example, 'bmc-itsm'.

Important

  • In your network policy, you must allow communication between the two namespaces - namespace where you will install BMC Helix Platform Common Services and the namespace where you will install BMC Helix Service Management.
  • If you are using BMC Helix Service Management in Kubernetes version 1.25, make sure that you use the baseline pod security standard for the namespace where it is being deployed.

The actual namespace names are specific to your environment.

Important

To support Elastic deployment, increase the maximum number of memory maps on each worker node by running following command:

 # echo vm.max_map_count=262144 > /etc/sysctl.d/es-custom.conf

# sysctl -w vm.max_map_count=262144

 For more information, see https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current//vm-max-map-count.html.

1. In this documentation, NGINX Ingress Controller refers to the Open-Source NGINX Ingress Controller maintained by Kubernetes.

Where to go from here

Next task

Back to process

If you are finished understanding the Persistent Volume Claim requirements, return to the appropriate installation or upgrade process:

 

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