PowerScale OneFS 9.8.0.0 Web Administration Guide

Prerequisites

The APEX File Storage for Azure unified software solution supports centralized administration through PowerScale OneFS cluster administration and Azure administration.

You should be familiar with Azure Virtual Machine (VM) deployment, configuration procedures and the following:

• Using the Azure portal and Azure CLI
• Creating, scaling, replacing, and terminating Azure virtual machines using the Azure CLI or Azure portal
• Managing Azure services, such as network security groups (NSG)
• Managing Azure network interfaces

Dell Technologies APEX File Storage for Azure administrators manage:

• A cluster that runs a distributed file system
• Cluster nodes (VMs) that add capacity and performance
• Flexible data protection and high availability

As a APEX File Storage for Azure storage administrator or application owner, you can perform self-service cluster data management tasks, such as:

• Managing folders and the file hierarchy structure
• Monitoring SMB shares and NFS exports
• Managing storage pools policies
• Monitoring quotas
• Monitoring snapshots
• Viewing reports
• Managing users

You must have the following OneFS permissions to form a OneFS cluster on Azure:

• ISI_PRIV_LOGIN_SSH
• ISI_PRIV_DEVICES
• ISI_PRIV_NETWORK
• ISI_PRIV_STATISTICS

Planning your APEX File Storage for Azure deployment

Cluster performance is generally correlated to your cluster size. The more cluster nodes (up to a maximum of 18), the higher the throughput and IOPS. Therefore, before creating a cluster in Azure, consider the capacity of storage and the number of nodes that you need for your business workflow.

Administrators deploy PowerScale OneFS clusters through the resources available on the Microsoft Azure Cloud infrastructure. Adding nodes and replacing failed nodes or drives requires working with both PowerScale OneFS and Microsoft Azure.

More documentation

This guide is intended as a supplement to the Virtual machines in Azure Microsoft documentation and the Dell Technologies APEX File Storage for Azure Deployment Guide. Step-by-step deployment instructions for configuration of OneFS as a virtual machine in Azure are on the Cloud | Dell Technologies InfoHub.