Connector Host
Connector Hosts are the runtime service that facilitate the communication between external data sources and Tulip.
Connector Hosts can facilitate the communication of both Connector Functions and Machines.
Connector Host can be run in the cloud, or on premises. The behavior in each of these cases is nearly identical, on-prem Connector Host just has increased access to systems not accessible to The Cloud.
On-Premises Connector Host
On-Prem Connector Host is installed within a secure network and facilitates communication between Tulip (in The Cloud) and internal IT/OT systems that aren't accessible to the cloud.
Minimum Technical Specs
Computation
The minimum requirement for computation for an on-premise installation is:
- 4 Core CPU
- 3.5 GHz clock speed
- 8MB Cache
Hard Drive Capacity
The minimum requirement for hard drive capacity for an on-premise installation is:
- 500GB SSD
This space must be accessible on the / and /var mount points on a Linux Server running one of the recommended operating systems.
RAM
The minimum requirement for RAM for an on-premise installation is:
- 16GB
Networking
Strong networking is the backbone of a digital factory. On-premise solutions benefit from local networking, but it is still worth mentioning that all routers and networking hardware should use the most modern standards and be capable of at least 1Gbps.
The Tulip Server will require both a Static IP as well as a local DNS entry that is resolvable on the relevant networks. If using a Tulip-provided SSL certificate, the hostname must be within the tulip.co domain.
Ports
The only ports required to be open on the network are ports 80 (TLS) and 443 (TLS). These ports must be open for the edge device (the computer, tablet, or I/O Gateway, Edge IO, Edge MC) to send outgoing requests to the host server.
Tulip is additionally able to offer some support for customers running on-premise if the host server is reachable on ports 32009 and 61009. Access on these ports allow the Tulip team to monitor the performance of your system and provide support.
Operating System
Tulip can run on the following operating systems:
- Ubuntu - 14.04, 16.04, and 17.04
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux - 7.4, 7.5, and 7.7
The recommended configuration is Ubuntu 16.04.
Updates/Support
Customers are responsible for supporting the hardware running On-Prem Connector Host.
Updates to OPCH must be manually completed. New versions of On-Prem connector Host are built for each LTS release
Cloud Connector Host
Cloud connector is a Tulip-Hosted version of the same Connector Host that can be run on-prem. All instances of Tulip have access to a cloud connector host.
For services that can be accessed from the broader internet, the Cloud Connector Host is recommended.
Updates/Support
Tulip supports and dynamically scales the resources required to run the Cloud Connector Host.
Updates to the Cloud Connector Host are linked to the release of a new version of the Tulip product (with both standard and LTS releases)