Supported Operating Systems / Distributions

• Ubuntu Linux 16.04 Server
• Ubuntu Linux 18.04 Server
• CentOS 7

Server Hardware Requirements

Determining the specific hardware requirements for your environment requires you to evaluate a number of factors. The following table describes the minimum requirements necessary to run a basic ItemSense configuration, and is intended as a starting point. Please refer to Appendix A: ItemSense Hardware Sizing Guidelines or contact your Impinj account representative for assistance.

General Network Requirements

The network for an Impinj ItemSense installation consists of the components that reside within a private Customer Operated Network.

Hardware Requirements:

• 1000 Mbps Ethernet Network (For small deployments, a 100 Mbps network may be sufficient)
• 802.3af PoE Switches

Port Requirements:

The bulk of the traffic within the customer-operated network consists of the communication between the ItemSense instance and the RAIN RFID gateways, as shown in the following diagram. Note that the IMC and ItemSense core are shown as architecturally separate components but are currently co-located on the same host.

Supported Readers

Impinj ItemSense supports the Turbo version of these readers: Speedway R120, Speedway R220, Speedway R420, xPortal, xSpan, and xArray.

The following table summarizes the reader modes and the readers that support each mode.

Reader Power Requirements

Readers operate at the 802.11af Class 3 limit for POE power, and require that the maximum resistance of the Ethernet cable is 10 Ohms or less (for 100 meter length cable). For more information refer to the Gateway Installation and Operation Guides on the Impinj ItemSense Support website.

Supported Firmware Versions

ItemSense is shipped with the latest Octane Reader firmware. All readers should be upgraded to this firmware version after ItemSense has been installed. Readers without the latest firmware show an alert in the ItemSense Management Console, with instructions to upgrade.

Regulatory Regions

The regulatory requirements of a region must be considered when setting a reader's RF power level, mode, and channel frequency. See Reader Configuration, in the ItemSense Reference Guide for more details.

Appendix A: ItemSense Hardware Sizing Guidelines

Choosing the correct server hardware configuration is key to the stable and reliable operation of ItemSense. This guide will help you identify the right hardware for your specific deployment and reader configuration.

Note that the sizes listed below are estimates, and are provided only as guidelines. To get a more accurate sizing that is specific to your environment, conduct benchmarks based on your physical facility, reader layout, and tag environment.

Preparation

Before proceeding, gather the following information about the new deployment:

• Reader model, count, and approximate physical layout
• Tag count (in total and per reader)
• Tag movement rate per minute
• ItemSense parameters and operating mode (inventory, location, threshold)
• Concurrent job count
• How data will be consumed from ItemSense, e.g. internal broker using AMQP or MQTT, external broker, Item API, etc.
• Hardware requirements for any additional software running on the server/VM, e.g. monitoring software, etc. Note that we recommend minimizing the amount of additional software running on the ItemSense server.

Processor Sizing

Processor requirements can vary considerably depending on the job type (inventory, location, or threshold), reader count, and tags in view for each reader.

The tables below define an estimated maximum count of supported readers (totaled across all concurrent running jobs) for various processor core counts and speeds, and can be used to approximate the processor configuration needed to support your deployment.

If hosting ItemSense in a virtual machine environment, the logical core count should be treated as the number of vCPU to allocate. Be aware that the reader counts below specifically assume a standalone dedicated server. In a VM environment, load from other VMs on the same VM host will affect the performance of a ItemSense VM due to the “noisy neighbor effect” related to processor oversubscription This means it is likely that ItemSense in a VM will support slightly fewer readers than the values shown below and that the number of supported readers will vary as load varies. If insufficient processing power is provided to ItemSense, intermittent job failures or other errors may occur.

The maximum number of readers that ItemSense is capable of supporting is limited only by the available hardware resources.

Inventory

Inventory job settings: reportingInterval = 60 seconds / tagHearbeatDuration = 5 minutes

Location

Location job settings: reporting interval = 60 seconds / tagHearbeatDuration = 5 minutes

Threshold

Because of the nature of the algorithms and processing involved, threshold jobs generate a higher continuous processor load than the inventory and location modes.

Note that the estimated count below are per reader, not per threshold. If using multiple readers per threshold, each reader in the threshold should be counted separately.

Threshold job settings: default; one group of tags passes through each reader's view every 6 seconds.

Memory

Memory usage depends on the number of concurrent jobs running and, to a lesser extent, on the number of readers and tags being processed.

The minimum physical RAM required for a basic installation of ItemSense running one job is approximately 6 GB (approximately 4 GB if running with 5 or less readers).

For each additional concurrent job, up to ~700 MB of additional RAM is required. A table that can be used for estimating RAM requirements is provided below.

If using the internal broker for data egress, an additional 1.5 GB of RAM is recommended. Roughly the same amount must remain free at all times. In the event of a network outage preventing data from being retrieved from the broker, this memory will be used to buffer tag events until network connectivity is restored.

Storage

A minimum of 64 GB of total disk space is recommended to accommodate ItemSense's internal data and log files. Use of a SSD is suggested, particularly for large deployments, but not required.

Maintaining a minimum of 15 GB free disk space at all times is necessary to allow working space for the ItemSense log retrieval system as well as working space for ItemSense version upgrades.

Network

Determining the necessary amount of network bandwidth depends on the the number of readers, the total number of tags being monitored, and, for inventory or location modes, the reporting interval chosen. The table below assumes a reporting interval >= 30 seconds if using inventory or location mode.

(Deprecated) Using ItemSense's Built-in Data Storage Feature

For existing customers using the now-deprecated internal data storage feature through the Item API, the minimum recommended hardware configuration remains the same as for previous releases.

• Processor: Supported reader counts are half that shown in the tables above. Systems with a logical processor count / vCPU count of less than 4 are not supported
• Memory: Increase the required memory by a minimum of 2GB
• Storage: A SSD is required if running more than 10 readers, 256 GB or larger, 96k IOPS or greater

If necessary, please contact Impinj ItemSense Support website. for additional assistance.

Appendix B: Evaluation System Reference Table