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Using ViPR controller in ECS to manage other commodity hardwares
Hi everyone,
We are going to buy ECS. I took some time to study about the appliance. I wonder if ECS's ViPR Controller component can be used to manage other commodity hardwares or not.
Could you share us some knowledge or experience about this question?
eghamilton
28 Posts
1
May 18th, 2015 09:00
Remove ViPR Controller from your question. It's not relevant. The newest version of the ECS software no longer requires ViPR Controller. There is no ViPR Controller with ECS. ECS has its own element management and cloud software. ECS can be deployed as a software-only solution or as an integrated appliance (ECS Appliance). A customer can have both the software-only on certified 3rd party JBOD and ECS Appliance in the same environment. It's the same software.
For customers that are also using ViPR Controller to manage file and block arrays, we will make a plug-in available for ECS so you can manage ECS from ViPR Controller just as you would any other array. The benefit is a single pane of glass. But ECS does not require ViPR Controller.
Hen2
11 Posts
1
May 18th, 2015 08:00
Coming version of ECS does not require external ViPR Controller instance. Management functionality is implemented inside ECS.
Later this year special plugin will be available to integrate ECS with an existing ViPR Controller. You will be able to orchestrate ECS all other products supported natively or via OpenStack.
longchu
20 Posts
0
May 18th, 2015 09:00
Hi Vasily Pantyukhin,
Thanks for your information. That's really good to hear that ViPR Controller will be bundled in the future.
Back to my original question, do you have any info about if ViPR Controller in ECS can also manage other commodity hardware or not? Let's say: if we buy some new commodity hardware, to build new storage system, will we have to deploy new ViPR Controller? (not mention to licensing here, we just want to ask about product feature).
Thanks
longchu
20 Posts
0
May 18th, 2015 09:00
If it's possible, could you share some info about the roadmap, or news that EMC publish about implementing ViPR inside ECS, Vasily Pantyukhin?
We found this piece of information in ECS document:
"Question: Can I use the ViPR Controller software that's packaged with ECS Appliance to manage other arrays?
Answer: At GA, the ViPR Controller for ECS Appliance will only be managing itself. ECS Appliance is a self-contained appliance powered by the ViPR software. A customer would need an additional ViPR Controller instance to manage other arrays or third-party commodity."
Is that true?
Hen2
11 Posts
1
May 18th, 2015 23:00
What is your task? Are you speaking about block or file/object/HDFS access?
If you are thinking about block solution based on commodity - ViPR Controller with ScaleIO is your choice. ScaleIO is a commodity based product by design.
ViPR itself supports other commodity back-end block storages via OpenStack Cinder. I expect to see a great expansion of commodity list during this year. CoprHD (open source ViPR Controller) seems very promising in that perspective.
If your thoughts around object and HDFS - your choice is ECS Software.
ECS Appliance (not Software) now supports only one model of HP servers. I expect ECS SW will be more flexible in the perspective of commodity support. ECS SW should be released during the next several months.
"Question: Can I use the ViPR Controller software that's packaged with ECS Appliance to manage other arrays?
Answer: At GA, the ViPR Controller for ECS Appliance will only be managing itself. ECS Appliance is a self-contained appliance powered by the ViPR software. A customer would need an additional ViPR Controller instance to manage other arrays or third-party commodity." Is that true?
Yes, that is true. One of the reasons is the current version of ECS appliance requires low footprint version of 2+1 ViPR Controller. So it just not scalable for production orchestration of other storages. Technically it will work, just not formally supported by EMC.
However, as it was mentioned, the coming (very shortly) version 1.2 of ECS Appliance does not require separate ViPR Controller instance. So that limitation is not applicable anymore.
longchu
20 Posts
0
May 19th, 2015 02:00
George : Your information is really new to me. Do you have the specific name and references for "element management and cloud software" of new ECS?
Vasily Pantyukhin: We plan to use ECS mainly for object. As I understand about your explaination, if I want to increase system capacity of object, we can not use our existing block & file storage. Is that true?
I also found this piece of infomation: Re: ECS Appliance-ViPR Management and Reporting
Will ViPR Management and Reporting be included in coming version 1.2 of ECS? Or ECS's management cloud software that is mentioned above will have similar feature?
Hen2
11 Posts
1
May 19th, 2015 23:00
It doesn't matter what is the name of "element management and cloud software" of the new ECS. The point here - ECS Appliance v1.2 has its own management tool (GUI and CLI) developed from scratch. It is somewhere inside ECS Appliance and can be used with ECS only.
That was done to remove dependency from external ViPR Controller. Many customers don't like the idea to install additional components in their ESX or Hyper-V environment. With the new version of ECS Appliance that is not needed. You just get your ECS Appliance and everything already inside the box.
The idea of ECS Appliance is - EMC provides and supports both hardware and software. So you are right, you can not use any existing storages to increase the capacity. Additional ECS appliance bricks or cabinets supported by EMC are needed.
But if consider ECS Software (do you see the difference between Appliance and Software?), you'll have possibility to increase solution's capacity using existing storages. Let's wait for ECS Software GA release (coming soon) to discuss more details.
Monitoring & Reporting capabilities will be included into the new version 1.2 of ECS Appliance.
Not sure when SRM solution Pack will be available.
Hope that helps to clarify the situation.
Regards
Vasily
longchu
20 Posts
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May 21st, 2015 19:00
Hi people,
Do you have any infor about when EMC plan to release ECS1.2. Any clear roadmap?
Thanks,
Long Chu
Hen2
11 Posts
0
May 23rd, 2015 10:00
Not sure if I can formally provide you the roadmap info.
Let's say, ECS Appliance 1.2 will be available during 2 weeks time frame.
Nikschen
179 Posts
0
May 24th, 2015 19:00
Hi Longch,
we are not permitted to release product roadmap information on the community. If you wish to find out more about a specific EMC product, please reach out to your account representatives to connect you to the product management team via email or call.
thank you
Niki
longchu
20 Posts
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June 10th, 2015 00:00
Hi all,
I don't wanna bring up another thread so I decide to ask here.
I found the following post that ECS 1.2 might be released in May 20th.
EMC’s Software-Defined Storage Portfolio Helps Customers Meet Next Generation Demands
The date might not exact, but based on some new specsheet & document that have been published recently, I think that ECS has been released.
Unfortunately, local team refused to help us find document to study
. Could anyone give me links to study more about ECS 1.2 management software, like its feature, architecture, etc...?
Thanks in advance!
SALAMN
64 Posts
1
June 10th, 2015 06:00
ECS 1.2 is now called ECS 2.0. There are a host of new features, and yes ECS 2.0 is controller-less and does not require an instance of ViPR Controller to be installed. Here's the list:
EMC is extending its object storage leadership with ECS 2.0. ECS 2.0 is a major update to the ECS software and introduces new features and functionality:
o New user experience, rapid installation and deployment – ECS features an entirely new user experience with an updated GUI and simple, intuitive workflows and element management. The installation runs from a single ECS node and no longer relies on a separate ViPR Controller for element management and provisioning. Bare metal installation is now supported.
o Improved geo-capabilities – ECS features automatic failover in the event of a temporary site outage, maintains access to buckets and objects during a temporary site outage, and automatically synchronizes sites when all zones are re-connected. ECS can quickly recover from network outages at scale.
o Improved multi-site performance – ECS integrates geo-caching at the array level to improve data access from a secondary site. The benefit is reduced latency.
o Simple multi-tenancy, metering and quota management – ECS 2.0 features simple, secure multi-tenancy with improved Tenant and Bucket views, which provide snapshots of current capacity and granular details such as total size, ingress, egress, number of objects created/deleted, and bandwidth in/out, and more. ECS 2.0 also includes quota management. Systems administrators can easily add and remove quotas, set thresholds and receive notifications and block further writes. Enterprises and service providers can deliver cloud storage services on Day 1.
o New monitoring & diagnostics - ECS 2.0 now includes key storage engine and geo replication metrics including reporting over a 7 day interval, monitoring and diagnostics available through the REST API and ECS user interface, and drill down graphics and trend lines charts. This increases system visibility to measure usage and provide reports to tenants – whether internal or external customers.
o ECS 2.0 is available for free and frictionless download on Docker Hub and EMC.com on June 22nd. This container-ized download is available for test/dev environments and is full featured with no time limits.
longchu
20 Posts
0
June 10th, 2015 18:00
Thank Neil Salamack,
Has any document site of ECS 2.0 been available up to now? For example, EMC ECS Appliance Product Documentation Index with ViPR 2.1
Anonymous
5 Practitioner
5 Practitioner
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274.2K Posts
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June 11th, 2015 06:00
The ECS 2.0 Product Documentation Index is available at: https://community.emc.com/docs/DOC-45012
SALAMN
64 Posts
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June 11th, 2015 08:00
Yes and after today alot more content is going to be publically available.