System Requirements

Hardware requirements are based on the following:

  • Number of DB objects (tables, columns) imported into Alation.  These actions cause background processing jobs which impact memory use, and processor utilization.

  • Daily query volume imported by Alation  These actions cause background processing jobs which impact memory use, processor utilization, and disk space consumption.

  • Number of Alation users. This parameter usually has the least impact.

  • Decision to install and use Alation Analytics V2.

  • Decision to use OCF connectors.

    Important

    Alation Analytics V2 requires additional disk space or a separate host. See Enable and Install Alation Analytics V2 for detailed system requirements for Alation Analytics V2.

    OCF Connectors require additional disk space. Refer to Install Alation Connector Manager for detailed system requirements for OCF.

Minimum - POC or Pilot Only

These are typical values that can be used for a pilot project, depending on expected ingestions and log volume:

System Component

Sizing Recommendation

CPU

8 cores (2.4GHz)

RAM

32 GB

Data Disk

150-200 GB

Backup Disk

250-300 GB

Root Disk (free space) or mount at /opt/alation

25 GB (This size will typically allow for one update)

Baseline

A baseline installation can be characterized as follows:

  • Less than 500,000 DB objects

  • Less than 500,000 queries/day

  • Up to 50 users:

System Component

Sizing Recommendation

CPU

8 cores (2.4GHz)

RAM

32 GB

Data Disk

500 GB

Backup Disk

750 GB

Root Disk (free space) or mount at /opt/alation

80 GB

Root Disk if installing Alation Analytics V2 on the same host (not recommended)

160 GB

Alation Analytics V2 installation directory on remote host (recommended)

1.5-2 times Rosemeta size

Midrange

A midrange installation can be characterized as follows:

  • Less than 2.5 Million DB objects

  • Less than 2,000,000 queries/day

  • Up to 250 users:

System Component

Sizing Recommendation

CPU

16 cores (2.4GHz)

RAM

64 GB

Data Disk

1 TB

Backup Disk

1.5 TB

Root Disk (free space) or mount at /opt/alation

80 GB

Root Disk if installing Alation Analytics V2 on the same host (not recommended)

160 GB

Alation Analytics V2 installation directory on remote host (recommended)

1.5-2 times Rosemeta size

Enterprise

System Component

Sizing Recommendation

CPU

20 cores (2.4GHz)

RAM

64 GB + 2 GB per million objects to a maximum of 128 GB

Data Disk

2TB + 1.25GB per 1,000 Queries/day

Backup Disk

1.5 x Data Disk size

Root Disk (free space) or mount at /opt/alation

80 GB

Root Disk if installing Alation Analytics V2 on the same host (not recommended)

160 GB

Alation Analytics V2 installation directory on remote host (recommended)

1.5-2 times Rosemeta size

Disk Requirements

  • All disks must use ext4 or xfs file system

  • Root, Data, and Backup disks must be on different physical disks. The backup drive should be larger than the data drive, as data is staged on the backup drive before being compressed.  A conservative estimate of backup = 1.5 x data will give space to hold both the staged data and the compressed backup files.

  • Data disk and Backup disk mount points should be owned by root:root and permission flags should be rwxr-xr-x, otherwise services may fail to start.

  • LVM is strongly recommended for Data and Backup disks for ease of resizing.

Microsoft Azure

Data and Root (Operating System) disks need to be provisioned with Premium Storage.

VMWare

Create a CentOS, RedHat or other supported Linux 64-bit VM on an ESX/ESXi server.

Note

Development/Test tools like VirtualBox and VMPlayer are not supported.

OS Requirements

x86 64-bit, minimal OS install

  • CentOS 7.x

    Note

    CentOS 8.x has reached the end of life and is no longer on the list of supported operating systems. CentOS 8.x cannot be used for new installations of Alation from version 2022.1.

  • Red Hat 7.x or 8.x

  • Oracle Linux with Red Hat compatible kernel

    • Version 7 supported from release 2021.1

    • Version 8 supported from release 2021.2

  • AWS Linux 2

  • Ubuntu 16, 18, 20

    • Ubuntu 20 supported from release 2021.2

  • Debian 9, 10

    • Support confirmed from release 2021.1

  • Fedora

    • Version 33 supported from release 2021.2

    • Version 34 supported from release 2021.3

Users can run the hostnamectl command to verify details of the operating system.

Unix Users

Alation installer will create the following local UNIX users and groups.

Username

Groups

Home Directory

Shell

alation

alation

/home/alation

/bin/bash

alationadmin

alationadmin

/home/alationadmin

/bin/bash

postgres

postgres

/home/postgres

/bin/bash

elasticsearch

elasticsearch

/home/elasticsearch

/bin/bash

sensu

sensu

/home/sensu

/bin/bash

mongod*

mongod

/home/mongod

/bin/bash

nginx

nginx

/home/nginx

/bin/bash

ntp

ntp

/etc/ntp

/sbin/nologin

postfix

mail, postfix

/home/postfix

/bin/bash

dd-agent

dd-agent

/home/dd-agent

/bin/bash

* Only applies to releases before V R5 (5.9.x). In V R5, MongoDB component is removed.

Note on Managed Systems

In environments where local UNIX users are managed through LDAP/Puppet/Chef, you may need to create these users and groups before running the Alation installer.

Co-location

Co-located Alation installs with other software are NOT supported. Alation runs resource intensive query analysis jobs and requires a dedicated server.

DNS

Alation needs to resolve hostnames. Make sure that /etc/resolv.conf is configured properly. Run the nslookup alation.com command for querying the DNS to get domain name or IP address mapping.

Alation Analytics V2

Alation recommends remote installation (separate host) for Alation Analytics V2. Please refer to Enable and Install Alation Analytics V2 for detailed system requirements for Alation Analytics V2.

Open Connector Framework (OCF)

Applies from release 2020.4

Alation recommends installing the OCF Components on the same host with Alation. Refer to Install Alation Connector Manager for detailed system requirements for OCF.