Install and Uninstall

This topic explains how to install and uninstall VMware GemFire Vector Database.

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Prerequisites

VMware GemFire Vector Database requires the following:

• VMware GemFire v10 or later installed, with cluster configuration enabled. For more information about cluster configuration in GemFire, see Overview of the Cluster Configuration Service in the VMware GemFire product documentation.

• Java 11 or Java 17

• A Broadcom Customer Support Portal account.

Note: VMware GemFire Vector Database is compatible with GemFire Search v1.1, but not v1.0.

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Installation

To install VMware GemFire Vector Database on a GemFire server:

1. Log in to Broadcom Customer Support Portal with your customer credentials. For more information, see the Download Broadcom products and software article.
2. Go to the VMware Tanzu GemFire Vector Database downloads page. Select VMware Tanzu GemFire Vector Database, and select a version.
3. Click I agree to Terms and Conditions. Click the HTTPS Download icon next to VMware GemFire Vector Database to download the .gfm file.

4. Do one of the following:

   • Copy the downloaded file to the extensions directory of your GemFire installation. By default, the extensions folder is the vmware-gemfire-XXX/extensions directory of your GemFire installation.

   • Set the GEMFIRE_EXTENSIONS_REPOSITORY_PATH environment variable to the VMware GemFire Vector Database extension path. For example, if your vmware-gemfire-vectordb-VERSION.gfm file is located in /gemfire-extensions, run the following command:

     export GEMFIRE_EXTENSIONS_REPOSITORY_PATH=/gemfire-extensions
     

5. Start the locator:

   gfsh>start locator --name locator1
   

6. Start the server. When running GemFire locator and server members on the same host, you must specify the http-service-port that will host REST services. If you do not specify the http-service-port, the port used defaults to 7070, which may collide with other locators and servers.

   gfsh>start server --name server1 --http-service-port 8080
   

7. If you want high availability or to use multiple servers, start additional servers before you create a vector index. If these servers are on the same host as the locator or other servers, use http-service-port to specify a different port number for each server. The VMware GemFire Vector Database index will be partitioned across all of these servers.

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Uninstallation

To uninstall VMware GemFire Vector Database on a GemFire server:

1. Delete all vector indexes, their embeddings, and their underlying GemFire regions. For more information, see Delete Index in REST API Endpoints. For example:

   curl -X DELETE http://localhost:8080/gemfire-vectordb/v1/indexes/quickstart -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"delete-data: true}'
   

2. Stop each server. For example:

   gfsh>stop server --name server1
   

3. If you copied the .gtm file to the extensions directory of your GemFire installation, remove it from that location.

4. If you set the GEMFIRE_EXTENSIONS_REPOSITORY_PATH environment variable to the VMware GemFire Vector Database extension path, unset the environment variable:

   export GEMFIRE_EXTENSIONS_REPOSITORY_PATH=
   

5. Restart your servers.

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