As a flexible, API-driven platform, FileCloud can be integrated directly with Dell ECS to serve as a secure gateway to structured or unstructured data. With this integration, users can leverage FileCloud’s powerful features and functionalities to organize, secure, and collaborate on files within Dell ECS.

FileCloud is a self-hosted, Enterprise File Access, Sharing, and Sync solution that can be deployed on-premises, on the cloud, or as a hybrid solution. Functioning as an overlay with Dell ECS, FileCloud creates a hyper-secure platform where end users can access object-based data, regardless of the underlying storage protocol. This access supports enterprise requirements centered on leveraging object storage for primary storage use cases. FileCloud can act as a file gateway for files stored in ECS or you can use ECS as an alternate file storage layer for FileCloud.

Dell ECS, the world’s most cyber-secure object storage[1], gives you unmatched scalability, performance, resilience, and cost efficiency. ECS delivers rich S3-compatibility on a globally distributed architecture, empowering organizations to support enterprise workloads such as AI, analytics, and archiving at scale. ECS customers are reducing TCO by up to 76% over the public cloud.[2]

This document is intended for persons interested in the technical details of Dell ECS with FileCloud Enterprise Server. This guide assumes a basic level of technical knowledge of the devices and technologies described.

Dell Technologies and the authors of this document welcome your feedback on this document. Contact the Dell Technologies team by email.

Author: Rich Paulson, Dell Technologies

Contributors: Katie Gerhardt, FileCloud

Note: For links to other documentation for this topic, see the ECS Info Hub.

The following figure illustrates the logical layout of the architecture used for the validation.

Figure 1.   Dell ECS and FileCloud Enterprise Server logical architecture

This section outlines the steps to configure ECS with FileCloud Enterprise Server to serve as the cloud storage platform. For up-to-date information about setting up FileCloud Managed Storage, see the FileCloud documentation listed in the References section.

Load balancers are required in ECS deployments to distribute data loads evenly across all service nodes. Although customers are responsible for implementing and configuring their deployed load balancers, Dell does provide recommendations and suggestions on how to configure some of them with ECS workflows. For details, see the ECS General Best Practices guide.

The S3 object service communicates on different ports, depending on the data access method.

Note: For best performance, terminate SSL connections at the load balancer, passing traffic unencrypted to the ECS nodes. This offloads the encryption from ECS to the load balancer.

S3 credentials are required prior to configuring FileCloud Enterprise Server to use ECS.  ECS currently supports two different types of object users. (For detailed information about these different types, see the ECS Administration Guide on the Dell Technologies ECS Info Hub.)

Object users

You can create object users and configure them to use the supported object access protocols (that is, S3). You can edit an object user configuration by adding or removing access to an object protocol, or by creating a new secret key for the object user.

IAM (Identity and Access Management) users

IAM is a service that provides more granular access to ECS resources. Note that IAM is accessible using the S3 protocol only.

The examples in this document use an object user with FileCloud Enterprise Server.

Amazon S3 must be enabled in FileCloud as the backend server to use ECS S3 for Cloud Storage.

Note: In Windows, WWWROOT is typically ‘c:\xampp\htdocs’; in Linux, it is ‘/var/www/html’.

Step 1: Edit the file WWWROOT/config/cloudconfig.php and change the line:

define("TONIDOCLOUD_STORAGE_IMPLEMENTATION", "local");

to read as:

define("TONIDOCLOUD_STORAGE_IMPLEMENTATION", "amazons3");

Step 2: Rename the file WWWROOT/config/amazons3storageconfig-sample.php to WWWROOT/config/amazons3storageconfig.php.

Note: Nothing typically needs to be added or edited in amazons3storageconfig.php.

Step 3: Log in to the FileCloud Admin Portal and select Settings > Storage.  Enter the S3 Object User or IAM credentials, which were created in ECS, as well as the ECS S3 endpoint. The following figure shows information from Dell ECS to use in the FileCloud Admin Portal when configuring S3 Storage.

Figure 2.   Configure FileCloud Storage to use Dell ECS

Table 1.        FileCloud S3 Storage field definitions

Step 4:  Save the storage settings. Click OK to acknowledge that the bucket must be empty and only managed by FileCloud.

Figure 3.   Save the FileCloud storage settings

If the SUCCESS dialog appears, then FileCloud can communicate with ECS.

Figure 4.   FileCloud can communicate with Dell ECS

Users can upload, download, delete, and share their files from any browser using the FileCloud User Portal. In this example, a user named ‘User One’ is logged into the User Portal to manage their files.

User One would like to upload a file from their system to FileCloud, so they click the Upload Files link after logging into the User Portal.

Figure 5.   Upload Files from the User Portal

Then User One selects the file to upload from their local file system. Here we can see that the file was successfully uploaded.

Figure 6.   File successfully uploaded to FileCloud

When we list the files in the ECS bucket, we see that an object now exists, which is 32 bytes in size.

aws --profile filecloud --endpoint-url https://s3.example.com s3 ls s3://filecloud

2023-11-09 10:57:14         32 654d2b79957c0801641753

User One would like to view the content of a file they stored in FileCloud, so they navigate to the file they want to view and either click the filename or click the eye icon to preview it.  This performs a GET REST API call to ECS to retrieve the file.

Figure 7.   Preview a file from the FileCloud User Portal

User One could also download the file locally from this web page.

User One would like to delete a file from their system from FileCloud, so they click the folder (in this case My Files) and can either click the trashcan icon or click the ellipsis and select Delete.

Figure 8.   Delete a file from FileCloud

Click Delete from the dialog to delete the selected item.

File Operations (as well as Activity) show that the file has been deleted and no longer exists in the folder. Note that by default the file will still be accessible until permanently deleted. We can verify this by listing the ECS bucket:

aws –profile filecloud –endpoint-url https://s3.example.com s3 ls s3://filecloud

2023-11-09 10:57:14         32 654d2b79957c0801641753

The user can permanently delete the file (if they have that permission) by selecting Delete Files in the left pane of the User Portal, hovering over the deleted file, and clicking the trashcan.

FileCloud will ask if you are sure you want to delete the file.

Figure 9.   Confirm deletion of the file

Clicking Delete permanently deletes the file from ECS.

We can verify that it was deleted from the ECS bucket by listing the objects. No objects will be returned.

aws --profile filecloud --endpoint-url https://s3.example.com s3 ls s3://filecloud

FileCloud Drive is a client application that allows you to access your FileCloud server files as you would normally access any other file on a Windows, Mac, and Linux systems.

FileCloud Sync will automatically sync selective files/folders, network folders, or backup folders to Cloud Storage. The following example configures a folder to be backed up to ECS.

FileCloud Drive allows users to mount ECS on Windows and Mac to manage files in the Cloud as easily as you manage files directly on the local filesystem.

Create a tmp folder under the My Files folder that FileCloud Drive created. Copy 199 test files, each with a size of 1MB to the tmp folder.

Activity shows that all 199 files have been successfully uploaded to ECS.

Figure 10.    FileCloud Drive Activity

When we list the size and number of files in the ECS bucket, we can see that the size of the files in the bucket coincides with the size of the files that were uploaded.

aws --profile filecloud --recursive --endpoint-url https://s3.example.com s3 ls s3://filecloud | awk 'BEGIN {total=0}{total+=$3}END{print total/1024/1024" MB"}'

199 MB

FileCloud Sync automatically syncs selective files and folders to the Cloud.

Note: The Endpoint Backup Settings ‘Click to enable user to backup files using CloudSync client application’ must be enabled to configure backups.

Add a backup folder by clicking Settings > Backup folders from the Sync client and add a folder to be backed up to ECS.

Figure 11.    Add a backup folder to FileCloud Sync

You can configure the schedule for how often to back up files. Next, drop a file in D:\MyStuff, then click the Sync now button on the Sync client.

Check the Activity to verify that the backup ran and is successful.

Figure 12.    Verify FileCloud synchronized the backup folder to ECS

When we list the bucket on ECS, we see that our file was indeed uploaded.

aws --profile filecloud --endpoint-url https://s3.example.com s3 ls s3://filecloud

2023-11-09 14:35:38         32 654d5eaacef49218198586

The following best practices are recommended when configuring FileCloud Enterprise Server with Dell ECS.

By integrating FileCloud with Dell ECS, businesses can access a holistic solution for efficient storage and management of extensive data. This integrated approach ensures secure file-sharing and collaboration, where ECS serves as the primary data storage platform, and FileCloud enhances capabilities for secure collaboration and data governance. Employing this synergy can lead to increased productivity, cost reduction, and heightened levels of data security and control for businesses.

The following Dell Technologies documentation provides other information related to this document. Access to these documents depends on your login credentials. If you do not have access to a document, contact your Dell Technologies representative.

• Dell ECS Best Practices
• Dell ECS Administration Guide
• Dell ECS High Availability Design

The following FileCloud documentation provides additional information related to this document.

• FileCloud Managed Storage