The BOM post picked the hardware. Before buying five nodes, I validate everything on one machine. Buy one, test it, scale.
Validation breaks into two stages:
Summary (Validation stages)
- Hardware Validation — CentOS Stream 10 live boot. Prove every component works: storage tiers, NIC detection, PCIe negotiation, SMART health, concurrent I/O, network throughput. No install, no disk writes — just a repeatable checklist.
- OKD SNO Deployment — OKD 4.20 as a Single Node cluster on the validated hardware. DNS, installer config, platform-specific workarounds, first workloads. (coming soon)
Start with hardware validation — confirm the components before any platform touches the disk.