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Dell Storage Manager 2020 R1 Administrator's Guide

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Add NAS Appliances to a FluidFS Cluster

You can add a NAS appliance (two NAS controllers) to a FluidFS cluster to increase processing power. Adding a NAS appliance allows additional client connections and evenly redistributes client connections and FluidFS cluster operations among more NAS controllers contributing their resources.

Prerequisites

  • The additional NAS appliance is mounted in a rack and cabled, and the NAS controllers are in standby mode and powered on. A NAS controller is on and in standby mode if the power LED is flashing green at around two flashes per second.
  • NAS appliance service tags are recorded.
  • New client VIP IP addresses are available to be added to the new NAS appliance. To ensure effective load balancing, use the following recommendations to determine the number of client VIPs to define:
    • If client access to the FluidFS cluster is not through a router (in other words, a flat network), define one client VIP per FluidFS cluster.
    • If clients access the FluidFS cluster through a router, define a client VIP for each client interface port per NAS controller.
  • New NAS controller IP addresses are available to be added to the new NAS appliance. Verify that there are two additional IP addresses available per NAS appliance.

About this task

For high availability reasons, you must add NAS appliances as NAS controller pairs. You cannot add a single NAS controller. Only one NAS appliance can be added at a time up to a maximum of four NAS appliances (eight NAS controllers).

Adding a NAS appliance is a seamless operation that does not interrupt current FluidFS cluster operations. After the NAS appliance is successfully added, new client connections are automatically distributed to all NAS controllers, ensuring that there is efficient load balancing between all NAS controllers.

NOTE:Due to the complexity and precise timing required, schedule a maintenance window to add the NAS appliance(s).

Steps

  1. (Directly cabled internal network only) If the FluidFS cluster contains a single NAS appliance, with a direct connection on the internal network, re-cable the internal network as follows.
    1. Cable the new NAS appliance(s) to the internal switch.
    2. Remove just one of the internal cables from the original NAS appliance.
    3. Connect a cable from each NAS controller port vacated in Step b to the internal switch.
    4. Remove the second internal cable from the original NAS appliance.
    5. Connect a cable from each NAS controller port vacated in Step d to the internal switch.
  2. In the Storage view, select a FluidFS cluster.
  3. Click the Hardware tab.
  4. In the Hardware tab navigation pane, select Appliances.
  5. In the right pane, click Add Appliances. The Add Appliances wizard appears and displays the Select Appliances to Add page.
  6. Select the NAS appliance to add to the FluidFS cluster.
    1. In the top pane, select the NAS appliance.
    2. Click Add Appliance. The selected NAS appliance is moved to the bottom pane.
    3. ClickNext.
  7. (iSCSI only) Complete the Configure IP Addresses for NAS Controller iSCSI HBAs page to configure the IP addresses for SAN / eth30.
    1. Select a NAS controller and click Edit Settings. The Edit Controller IP Address dialog box appears.
    2. In the IP Address field, type an IP address for the NAS controller.
    3. Click OK. Repeat the preceding steps for each NAS controller.
    4. To specify a VLAN tag, type a VLAN tag in the VLAN Tag field. When a VLAN spans multiple switches, the VLAN tag is used to specify to which ports and interfaces to send broadcast packets.
    5. Click Next.
  8. (iSCSI only) Complete the Configure IP Addresses for NAS Controller iSCSI HBAs page to configure the IP addresses for SANb / eth31.
    1. Select a NAS controller and click Edit Settings. The Edit Controller IP Address dialog box appears.
    2. In the IP Address field, type an IP address for the NAS controller.
    3. Click OK. Repeat the preceding steps for each NAS controller.
    4. To specify a VLAN tag, type a VLAN tag in the VLAN Tag field. When a VLAN spans multiple switches, the VLAN tag is used to specify to which ports and interfaces to send broadcast packets.
    5. Click Next. The Configure Client Network page displays.
  9. If needed, add additional client VIPs through which the clients will access SMB shares and NFS exports.
    1. In the Virtual IP Addresses area, click Add. The Add Client IP Address dialog box appears.
    2. In the IP Address field, type a client VIP IP address.
    3. Click OK.
  10. Add an IP address for each new NAS controller. Repeat the following steps for each NAS controller.
    1. Select a NAS controller and click Edit Settings. The Edit Controller IP Address dialog box appears.
    2. In the IP Address field, type an IP address for the NAS controller.
    3. Click OK.
  11. (Optional) Configure the remaining client network attributes as needed.
    • To change the netmask of the client network, type a new netmask in the Netmask field.
    • To specify a VLAN tag, type a VLAN tag in the VLAN Tag field.
  12. Click Next. After you are finished configuring each client network, the Connectivity Report page displays.
    NOTE: Adding the appliance to the cluster can take approximately 15 minutes.
  13. Use the Connectivity Report page to verify connectivity between the FluidFS cluster and the Storage Center. The NAS controller ports must show the status Up before you can complete the wizard. If you click Finish and the NAS controller ports do not have the status Up, an error will be displayed.
    • For iSCSI NAS appliances, when the Connectivity Report initially appears, iSCSI logins might still be occurring in the background, causing some or all of the FluidFS cluster iSCSI initiators to show the status Not Found/Disconnected. If this happens, wait 30 seconds, then click Refresh to update the Connectivity Report. When the iSCSI logins are complete and the Connectivity Report has been refreshed, the status for each FluidFS cluster iSCSI initiator shows Up.
    • For Fibre Channel NAS appliances, when the Connectivity Report initially appears, the FluidFS cluster HBAs show the status Not Found/Disconnected. You must record the WWNs and manually update fabric zoning on the Fibre Channel switch. Then, click Refresh to update the Connectivity Report. When the zoning is configured correctly and the Connectivity Report has been refreshed, the status for each FluidFS cluster HBA shows Up.
  14. Click Finish.

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