KVM requirements

Overview

This topic outlines the requirements for deploying the DCT appliance on a KVM-based hypervisor, including recommended configuration parameters. Deploying DCT on KVM requires a qcow2 image. Download it from the Delphix download site under the DCT Appliance folder. See KVM deployment for step-by-step instructions.

Delphix supports running the DCT appliance on any KVM-based hypervisor whose vendor supports the Ubuntu 24.04 guest operating system -- Delphix does not certify individual KVM vendors or distributions independently. Nutanix AHV and Proxmox VE are both KVM-based and are covered under this same KVM compatibility statement rather than certified as their own hypervisors. Check your hypervisor vendor's published guest OS support matrix for Ubuntu 24.04 before deploying.
Planning for disaster recovery? If this appliance will be a disaster recovery secondary, it needs additional storage and specific firewall rules. See Automated disaster recovery for sizing and network requirements before you provision it.

Virtual CPUs

  • 8 vCPUs minimum: CPU resource shortfalls can occur on an over-committed host. CPU reservations are strongly recommended so DCT is guaranteed its full vCPU allocation even when the host is under pressure.

  • Reserve host CPU capacity: Do not allocate all available physical CPUs to virtual machines. Reserve a minimum of 8-10% of host vCPUs for KVM hypervisor operations.

Memory

  • 16 GB RAM minimum: Sufficient for most DCT deployments regardless of the number of registered engines.

  • 32-64 GB RAM: Recommended when using Delphix AI Services features, which significantly increase memory pressure.

  • Memory reservation (recommended): Configure a memory reservation for the DCT VM so it is not forced to swap pages during host memory pressure. A swapped page takes orders of magnitude longer to return to physical memory from the KVM swap device than to stay resident.

Network

DCT communicates with registered Continuous Data and Continuous Compliance engines exclusively over HTTPS. It does not use NFS, iSCSI, or DSP, and does not move bulk data between the appliance and the engines. This means DCT has significantly lower network bandwidth requirements than a Continuous Data engine.

  • Standard virtual ethernet adapter: A standard virtio NIC is sufficient. HTTPS control-plane traffic does not require a high-throughput adapter.

  • Dedicated NIC (optional): If the KVM host carries high network load from other VMs, consider dedicating a physical NIC to the DCT VM for consistent API response latency.

Storage

DCT requires two virtual disks: a system disk and a metadata volume. Unlike Continuous Data, DCT does not require a DxFS storage pool or additional data disks.

Disk

Size

Format

Notes

System disk

128 GB

qcow2

Ships at 128 GB in the published image.

Metadata volume

50 GB minimum

qcow2

Stores DCT application metadata.

Provision the disks from KVM host storage backed by redundant storage (for example, RAID or equivalent). DCT does not protect against data loss originating at the hypervisor or storage layer.