Dell Unity Prerequisites

1. Unity Operating Environment (OE) Version Requirements:

   1. For SMB workloads using CEE with RabbitMQ, the minimum version of Unity OE is v4.2.

   2. For SMB workloads using HTTP-based CEE, the minimum required version of Unity OE is v5.4.   PeerSync is not supported for SMB workloads using HTTP-based CEE.

   3. For NFS and multi-protocol workloads using HTTP-based CEE, the minimum required version of Unity OE is v5.4. PeerSync is not supported for NFS or multi-protocol workloads.  CEE with RabbitMQ is not supported for NFS or multi-protocol workloads.
      

2. The Unity storage device must be licensed for NAS/file operations and the Dell Common Event Enabler (CEE) Framework.
   

3. Any server that will be interfacing with a Unity device through the Peer Agent or PeerSync must be on the same domain, same network segment, and same subnet as the Unity device.  Additionally, this network connection between the Unity device and the Agent or PeerSync must operate at speeds of at least 1 Gbit/sec with sub-millisecond latency. 
   

4. Time Synchronization:  The Unity storage device as well as the server hosting the Peer Agent or PeerSync must synchronize their system clocks with the same private or public Network Time Protocol (NTP) service.  If you are using virtual machines, ensure that time synchronization between the VM and the hypervisor host is disabled to ensure that the VMs rely solely on NTP for timekeeping.
   

5. Server OS Version Requirements:

   1. For SMB workloads, the minimum version of Windows required for Unity support with the Peer Agent or PeerSync is Windows Server 2016.

   2. For NFS and multi-protocol workloads, the Peer Agent must be installed on Ubuntu Server 22.04 operating system or later, Red Hat Enterprise Linux v9.x or later or Rocky Linux v9.x or later.  PeerSync is not supported for NFS or multi-protocol workloads.
      

6. The server hosting the Peer Agent or PeerSync should not run any other products based on the Common Event Enabler (CEE) framework or syslog from Peer Software or any other vendor.  In addition, no other Peer Software components can be run on this server (such as Peer Management Center).
   

7. Dell Common Event Enabler (CEE) Requirements:

   1. The minimum version of the Dell Common Event Enabler (CEE) is v9.2.

   2. If you are installing the CEE on Red Hat, it requires Red Hat Enterprise Linux v9.x or later. Rocky Linux is not supported by CEE.

   3. The Dell Common Event Enabler (CEE) framework allows up to three different applications to consume events from a Unity NAS Server.  As such, no more than two other CEE-based applications can be in use with a single NAS Server when adding Peer Software products.

   4. The CEE can only be installed on Windows, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and SUSE Linux (SLES) servers. CEE does not support Ubuntu so it cannot be installed on the Peer Agent Virtual Appliance (which is based on Ubuntu).

   5. The Peer Agent does not support SLES so if you want to have CEE and the Agent on a single Linux-based server, it must be running RHEL. Otherwise, the CEE and Agent services can be installed on two different servers.

   6. A CEE server must be configured to send events to a single Peer Agent server. Multiple EndPoints are not supported. If using multiple CEE servers in a pool, all must point to the same single Peer Agent server.

   7. SMB has to be enabled on the NAS Server as it is required by the Event Publishing system in Unity.
      

8. Privileges and Permissions for SMB Workloads:

   1. The service account for the Peer Agent or PeerSync must have local administrator privileges on the Windows Server where the Peer Agent or PeerSync will be hosted.

   2. The service account for the Peer Agent or PeerSync must be included as a local administrator on the NAS Server.
      

9. Privileges and Permissions for NFS Workloads:

   1. The Peer Agent server IP needs to be granted read/write and root access to the exports that this Agent will be monitoring.

   2. NFSv4 ACL support requires:

      1. The Peer Agent server to be in the same DNS domain as its associated NAS Server. The Agent server’s search domain and the domain portion of its FQDN (viewable by running hostname -f) should match the domain of its associated NAS Server.
         

10. Privileges and Permissions for Multi-Protocol Workloads:

    1. When replicating Windows-style permissions, the domain account used by the Samba connection of the Peer Agent must be included as a local administrator on the NAS Server.

    2. The Peer Agent server IP needs to be granted read/write and root access to the exports that this Agent will be monitoring.

    3. When replication Linux-style permissions, NFSv4 ACL support requires:

       1. The Peer Agent server to be in the same DNS domain as its associated NAS Server. The Agent server’s search domain and the domain portion of its FQDN (viewable by running hostname -f) should match the domain of its associated NAS Server.
          

11. Unisphere Management logon credentials are required to connect to the Unity device’s REST API.
    

12. Do not use the Agent or PeerSync service account when testing file activity - it is automatically filtered.
    

13. No firewalls (software or hardware) should be enabled between the server hosting Peer Agent or PeerSync and the Unity device. If the CEE service is installed on a server other than the one hosting the Peer Agent or PeerSync, firewalls between the Unity device and the CEE server, as well as between the CEE server and the server hosting the Peer Agent or PeerSync should be disabled. If firewalls cannot be disabled, review the Firewall Requirements guide for details on the specific ports that must be opened.

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