OpCenter Installation in AWS
The following is a list of possible issues you may encounter when installing OpCenter on AWS.
My AWS administrator configured my AWS account as an IAM User Account rather than a Root Account. Will this work for me?
No. You need the privileges associated with a Root Account to create the resources needed to deploy an OpCenter.
I created a Key Pair to use for deploying an OpCenter, but I get an error message saying it is invalid. Why?
A Key Pair is only valid the region in which it was created. Make sure you create a Key Pair for the AWS region in which you deploy the OpCenter.
My AWS account has a default VPC. Should I deploy OpCenter in this VPC?
Every AWS has a pre-configured default VPC. The default VPC uses private addresses from the 172.31.0.0/16 CIDR block and comes with a pre-configured gateway and route table to allow access to and from the public internet. Using the default VPC is a quick way to get started with AWS resources and for testing an OpCenter deployment. For production deployments, best practice recommends a dedicated VPC for the MMCloud compute environment, which includes the OpCenter and all the compute nodes.
In the CloudFormation template, I select a subnet and an availability zone, but the CloudFormation Stack fails. Why?
Every VPC has one or more subnets. Each subnet is paired with a matching availability zone (you can see how they match up on the AWS VPC dashboard). If you select a subnet and an availability zone that don't match, the Cloud Formation Stack fails and you get an error message that looks like this.
Can I start more than one OpCenter in the same region?
Yes. Each OpCenter is an independent server. You may consider starting OpCenters in different regions for geographical redundancy or to take advantage of different EC2 prices in different regions.
I successfully started an OpCenter. Using the same parameters, I tried to start a second OpCenter in the same region, but the CloudFormation Stack failed. Why?
If the CloudFormation Stack worked once, the configuration parameters are valid. If the CloudFormation fails when you try to create a second OpCenter, it is likely that the requested resources are not available in AWS. In this case, you see an error like this.
Resource handler returned message: "Your requested instance type (c6a.large) is not supported in your requested Availability Zone (us-east-1e). Please retry your request by not specifying an Availability Zone or choosing us-east-1a, us-east-1b, us-east-1c, us-east-1d, us-east-1f...[edited]
Try again with a different VM instance type or choose a different subnet-availability zone pair.
What size EC2 instance should I choose?
The parameter 11OpCenterType in the MemVerge-provided CloudFormation template has pre-configured EC2 instances ranging in size (from "POC" to "large"). You can also choose your own instance type by using the 12CustomizedInstanceType parameter. Like any server-based application, performance depends on the combination on the number of CPU cores, memory capacity, and available bandwidth. The features provided by OpCenter do not depend on the EC2 size. The EC2 size determines how many jobs you can place in the input queue and how many jobs can run at the same time.
Can I use a Spot Instance for the OpCenter?
No, you must use an on-demand instance. The OpCenter cannot checkpoint and restore itself if the underlying instance disappears.
My organization requires that all users authenticate via LDAP (or NIS or SAML), but I don't see a parameter for this in the CloudFormation template. What do I do?
The OpCenter supports authentication via LDAP, NIS or SAML. This is accomplished in two steps. First, install OpCenter with the default admin user using local authentication and change the default password immediately. Second, use the float CLI or web interface to configure LDAP or NIS services. For SAML, you must use the float CLI to configure SAML services.
Can I interact programmatically with the OpCenter (instead of using the float CLI or the web interface)?
Yes, the OpCenter supports a RESTful API for you to use.
I forgot the admin password to my OpCenter. Can I reset it?
To reset the OpCenter admin password, contact MemVerge support. A support must ssh in to the OpCenter to access the database.