Review requirements

Before installing or deploying Itential Automation Gateway (IAG), review the following requirements to ensure your environment is ready. The requirements that apply to your deployment depend on the deployment architecture you choose.

Platform requirements

IAG 5 requires the following Itential platform components:

• IAP 2023.2.17+ or Itential Platform 6.0.4+
• Licensed access to Gateway Manager
• Administrative access to the Itential Platform

System requirements

Ensure your environment meets these baseline requirements regardless of installation method:

• Linux environment (for RPM/DEB installations) or Docker environment (for containerized deployments)
• OpenSSL installed for certificate generation
• Access to Itential’s software repository
• Sufficient administrative privileges for installation and service management

Security requirements

IAG uses mutual TLS (mTLS) for secure communications between components. Before you begin installation, ensure you have:

• An understanding of mTLS certificate requirements
• A secure storage location for encryption keys and certificates
• A certificate management strategy for production environments

Server specifications

IAG deployments use two node types: server nodes and runner nodes. In distributed mode, you also need etcd nodes for persistence. Review the specifications below to plan your infrastructure.

Server nodes

In distributed execution deployments, server nodes (controllers) retrieve information from the database and route automation work to runner nodes. Because server nodes don’t perform automation work themselves, you can use smaller, lightweight instances. You typically need only two server nodes to create a highly available cluster, and scaling beyond two nodes isn’t usually necessary.

Server nodes handle these tasks:

• Retrieve repository information, encrypted secrets, and other data from the database when you execute a service
• Create and delete IAG resources (services, repositories, decorators)

Runner nodes

Runner nodes execute the automation work in distributed execution deployments. These instances need more processing power than server nodes. You can scale runner nodes horizontally as your workload increases by adding nodes to the cluster, and removing nodes when workloads decrease.

Etcd nodes

When you run IAG in a distributed execution deployment, you can use etcd as the backing persistence store. Configure etcd in a highly available cluster with at least three nodes. Don’t install etcd nodes on the same physical nodes as your servers and runners. For etcd nodes, memory is the most important consideration. For more information, see the etcd website.