3. Introduction

This document describes the steps to install an OPNFV Bramaputra reference platform, as defined by the Genesis Project using the Apex installer.

The audience is assumed to have a good background in networking and Linux administration.

4. Preface

Apex uses the RDO Manager Open Source project as a server provisioning tool. RDO Manager is the RDO Project implimentation of OpenStack’s Triple-O project. The Triple-O image based life cycle installation tool provisions an OPNFV Target System (3 controllers, n number of compute nodes) with OPNFV specific configuration provided by the Apex deployment tool chain.

The Apex deployment artifacts contain the necessary tools to deploy and configure an OPNFV target system using the Apex deployment toolchain. These artifacts offer the choice of using the Apex bootable ISO (opnfv-apex-bramaputra.iso) to both install CentOS 7 and the nessesary materials to deploy or the Apex RPM (opnfv-apex.rpm) which expects installation to a CentOS 7 libvirt enabled host. The RPM contains a collection of configuration file, prebuilt disk images, and the automatic deployment script (opnfv-deploy).

An OPNFV install requires a “Jumphost” in order to operate. The bootable ISO will allow you to install a customized CentOS 7 release to the Jumphost, which includes the required packages needed to run opnfv-deploy. If you already have a Jumphost with CentOS 7 installed, you may choose to skip the ISO step and simply install the (opnfv-apex.rpm) RPM. The RPM is the same RPM included in the ISO and includes all the necessary disk images and configuration files to execute an OPNFV deployment. Either method will prepare a host to the same ready state for OPNFV deployment.

opnfv-deploy instantiates an RDO Manager Instack VM server using libvirt as its provider. This VM is then configured and used to provision the OPNFV target deployment (3 controllers, n compute nodes). These nodes can be either virtual or bare metal. This guide contains instructions for installing either method.