PowerScale OneFS 9.8.0.0 Web Administration Guide

APEX File Storage for Azure features

APEX File Storage for Azure includes the following PowerScale OneFS features.

The Azure virtual cluster has the same user interface as a PowerScale OneFS on-premises cluster and supports the OneFS CLI and APIs as well as the following features:

IPv4 networking
HDFS, HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, SWIFT, SCP, and SFTP protocols
NDMP-based backup
Large file support
SmartPools
SmartQoS and Partitioned Performance
STIG Hardening
SmartLock (Compliance and Enterprise modes)

Unsupported features

The following features are not supported in APEX File Storage for Azure:

IPv6 networking
Link aggregation
VLAN tagging
RDMA over Converted Ethernet (RoCE)

Local instance drive for the software journal

The following features are unique to PowerScale OneFS on Azure:

PowerScale OneFS nodes on Azure use the temporary drive for the software journal. The software journal is on a host-local instance store that is located with the physical host. It is saved during an orderly shutdown and restored from a saved copy on the following boot. This is the same mechanism as PowerScale OneFS nodes on premises.

Networking

Table 1. Networking componentsThe following table describes the networking components of APEX File Storage for Azure.
Networking component	Description
IP management of internal and external subnets	Each Virtual Network Interface Card (NIC) can belong to only one subnet (groupnet0.subnet0. All network pools must belong to groupnet0.subnet0. You cannot modify cloud-managed pool0. This pool contains the primary IP address of the network interface, which is immutable and owned by Azure. You can create secondary IP pools and use a new Azure library for assigning and managing IP addresses. Azure network interfaces are assigned to a subnet, and a second or third IP pool must be part of the same subnet as pool0. When you create your subnet for external connections, ensure that it has enough IP addresses in the CIDR for the node and the reserved addresses that Azure requires. The first four IP addresses in subnet CIDR are reserved by Azure for the network address, default gateway, DNS (2x), and broadcast address. One IP is used for groupnet0.subnet0.pool0 on each node. The remaining IPs can be used after cluster deployment for creating additional pools. Azure "owns" the IP address assignments for each network interface. One IP address per NIC is the primary address, and it cannot be deleted, changed, or reassigned. groupnet0.subnet0.pool0 contains this primary IP. groupnet0.subnet0.pool0 cannot be a dynamic pool and cannot be made dynamic. CAUTION:Mishandling of pool0 or any of the IP addresses in it can render the cluster inaccessible.
IP failover	To use network failover, an additional dynamic pool must be created from remaining addresses in the external subnet after deployment. IPs in dynamic pools cannot be changed by the running instance without authorization through Azure. An Identity and Access Management (IAM) role and policy allows the role to unassign and assign IP addresses and describe network interfaces. This role is provided to the cluster at the time of deployment.. The following Azure credentials for managed identity are required: Microsoft.Network/networkInterfaces/read Microsoft.Network/networkInterfaces/write Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/subnets/join/action Microsoft.Network/networkSecurityGroups/join/action The required cloud calls that are triggered during a normal IP failover are processed through the isi_cloud_net library. NOTE:An IP failover can take 30-40 seconds on Azure.
DNS	The PowerScale SmartConnect DNS feature depends on the ability of the DNS server to perform delegation as follows: The default DNS server in Azure does not support DNS delegation. Azure supports delegation through Azure Private DNS Resolver. A dedicated subnet in the front end VNet is required if you want to use Azure-supported DNS. You can set up DNS in other ways as an alternative to the Azure Private DNS Resolver. You can configure the Private DNS Resolver endpoint and then delegate the DNS request to the PowerScale SmartConnect service.

Disk subsystem and bay mapping

All drives that are supported in Azure are SCSI types, which are detected as HDD or SSD.
Boot drives are P6 managed disks (64 GB Premium SSD LRS drives).
Data drives are managed disks in the S/E/P series. All data drives in the cluster must be the same type and size.
Temporary drive is used for the software journal (8 GB) and Bay 0 is used for this device. The device name may change depending on the FreeBSD driver ordering.

Node proximity placement groups

Placement groups physically locate nodes within a data center to improve performance for PowerScale OneFS and are defined as follows:

Proximity placement groups: Proximity placement groups are logical groupings of VMs that are physically located close to each other. This placement ensures that low latency requirements are met and that VMs do not span physical data centers. Node VM placement groups prevent overlapping fault domains on underlying hardware.

Availability sets: Availability sets are logical groupings of VMs placed in separate fault domains to reduce the chance of correlated failures. VMs are still susceptible to shared infrastructure failures such as network failures. Availability sets consist of update domains and fault domains in which each VM is assigned. A maximum of three fault domains and 20 update domains are allowed.

Update domains: Update domains are groups of VMs that can be rebooted at one time. Twenty update domains allow up to 20 nodes per cluster (18 nodes with two spares).

Fault domains: Fault domains are VMs that share a common power source and network switch. Azure managed disks that are attached to a VM are within the same fault domain.

To learn more about availability sets and proximity placement groups, see the following Azure documentation:

Maintenance events and diagnostics

Azure sends out events to all impacted nodes. There are three types of events that PowerScale OneFS monitors: Freeze, Reboot, and Redeploy. The isi_hwmon -a process monitors the Azure IMDS service for scheduled or started maintenance events as follows:

Table 2. Maintenance events and diagnosticsThe following table shows the maintenance events and diagnostics.
Event	Effect	Response
Freeze	The Virtual Machine is scheduled to pause for a few seconds. CPU and network connectivity may be suspended, but there is no impact on memory or open files.	The node freezes and resumes when the event is over.
Reboot	The Virtual Machine is scheduled for reboot, and nonpersistent memory is lost. In rare cases, a Virtual Machine is scheduled for the EventType "Reboot" and may experience a freeze event instead of a reboot.	The node reboots and sends a signal to Azure to start. The node waits during the boot until the event is complete before mounting IFS.
Redeploy	The Virtual Machine is scheduled to move to another node, and the ephemeral disks are lost.	The node shuts down. It may require SmartFailing depending on if the software journal can be flushed to the boot drive

APEX File Storage for Azure licensing

APEX File Storage for Azure software must be licensed through Dell Technologies Software Licensing Central (SLC). Your license and optional PowerScale software module licenses are contained in the license file on your cluster. For more information about optional software modules, contact your Dell Technologies sales representative.

All PowerScale features are unlocked with a valid license file. Licensing is performed on the cluster using the following command:

isi license add --path=/ifs/data/license.xml

You can view the license information by running the isi license list command on the cluster. You can also view your licensing information in the WebUI as follows:

Click Cluster Management > Licensing to view the status and expiration date in the PowerScale OneFS cluster license overview page.

You are notified through CELOG alerts when a license expires or if the maximum licensed storage capacity is exceeded. You can view active alerts that are related to your license by clicking Alerts about licenses in the upper corner of the Cluster Management > Licensing page.

For more information about licensing, see the Licensing chapter in this guide.

Telemetry data

Azure cloud-specific data and secured telemetry communications between Microsoft Azure and Dell Technologies are provided through the Dell Technologies Secure Connect Gateway (SCG). For more information about telemetry data and SCG, see the SupportAssist chapter in this guide. If you need more information, contact your Dell Technologies Support Services representative.

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