Ask the Experts: ECS 2.2- A Cloud Unlike Any Other

This Ask the Expert session is now open for questions. For the next couple of weeks our Subject Matter Expert will be around to reply to your questions, comments or inquiries about our topic.

Let’s make this conversation useful, respectful and entertaining for all. Enjoy!

Looking forward to a lively discussion on all topics and questions on Cloud and specifics about EMC's Elastic Cloud Storage!

What are a few of the use cases for ECS 2.2?

ECS has 5 main uses cases which are as follows: Global Content Repository, Modern Applications Platform, Data Lake Foundation, Cold Archive, and 'Internet of Things' Cloud Storage Platform. 

Here's a bit more detail for each use case:

Global Content Repository - ECS enables any organization to consolidate multiple storage systems into a single, globally accessible and efficient content repository.

Modern Application Platform - ECS provides a single turnkey platform designed for modern application development, management and analytics. 

Data Lake Foundation - ECS establishes a data lake foundation for any sized organization. ECS fully maximizes user data with its powerful HDFS service making Big Data applications and analytics a production reality.

Cold Archive - ECS can serve as a secure and affordable on-prem cloud for archival and long term retention purposes.

‘Internet of Things’ Cloud Storage Platform - ECS offers an efficient ‘IoT’ architecture for unstructured data collection at massive scale.

Is ECS an object platform with file access? How does that work? Is it through a cloud storage gateway?

Great question!  ECS v2.2 features a built in native NFS file head. ECS users can now store file data on a globally distributed object infrastructure eliminating the need for cloud gateways and breaking down dedicated storage silos for varied workloads.

The NFS file handle is mapped to an object ID and since the file is mapped to an object, ECS NFS has features similar to the object data services which we provide.  The NFS feature which also include quota management, retention and encryption at the object level.

If you want more information on some of the ECS 2.2 features, check out this video here: https://youtu.be/dVQIyKD_VKY

Does vCloudAir Object Beta (Powered by EMC) use ECS?  If so can someone supply the architectural details?  Also kind of curious why the vCloudAir Object Prod (Powered by Google) is significantly cheaper than the Beta Powered by EMC.

In a 2 site active-active geo-federated/geo replicated configuration, if an object read is initiated from the non-owning site, is the object read from the owning site or from the local replica (assuming that the replica is not stale)?  If an object is written from the non-owning site, does this site now become the owner of the object?

When considering the CloudPools use case of tiering data from Isilon to ECS, at what point does it become cost effective?  I know there are many variables but assuming that the customer is an existing Isilon customer and not an ECS customer, at what point (if any) does it become economical to buy ECS exclusively for CloudPools tiering, rather than scaling out Isilon, or tiering to another Isilon cluster?

ECS "Strong consistency" mitigates any issue of a stale or "outdated" read. As both sites would have mirror copies of the index and data, ownership is shared.  In the event of failover from site 1 (local) to 2 (remote), 2 would be come the primary.  When 1 came back on line, there is a automatic reconciliation process that would sync it back up with 2. This is all done without disruption to the application or users.

Yes, Geo-replication is required and ECS uses active-active replication.  Each ECS site contains a mirror copy of the data, metadata and index.  In this way ECS try's to retrieve the object locally first in an effort to keep latency low. In the event of a local site outage, ECS will then retrieve the object from the next available site.  As ECS uses "Strong Consistency", the application is always inherently guaranteed the latest version of the data.

To address the question of object ownership: currently, if an object is created in site "A", it will always be owned by that site even if it's updated from another site.

Which third-party hardware platforms are supported by ECS2.2?

Good question - ECS is now available as a 'DIY' software-only solution that is offered to certain organizations looking to deploy the benefits of ECS on their own commodity storage. ECS software certifies the HP SL4540 commodity hardware and will continue to add more qualified platforms as demanded by our customers.