Certain external network services need to be reachable by the ECS system which includes:
- Authentication Providers (optional): System and namespace administrative users can be authenticated using Active Directory and LDAP. Swift object users can be authenticated using Keystone. Authentication providers are not required for ECS. ECS has local user management built- in. Local users on ECS are not replicated between VDCs.
- DNS Server (required): Domain Name server or forwarder.
- NTP Server (required): Network Time Protocol server. See NTP best practices for guidance on optimum configuration.
- SMTP Server (optional): Simple Mail Transfer Protocol Server is used for sending alerts and reporting from the ECS rack.
- DHCP server (optional): Only necessary if assigning IP addresses through DHCP.
- Load Balancer (optional but highly recommended): Evenly distributes client and application load across all available ECS nodes.
Also, the data switch uplinks would need to reside in the same network or accessible by the ECS system.
The ECS General Best Practices white paper provides additional information about these network services. Also available are white papers that exemplify on how to deploy ECS with vendor-specific load balancers: