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The CloudPools feature of OneFS allows tiering cold or infrequently accessed data to lower-cost cloud storage. It is built on the PowerScale SmartPools file pool policy framework, which provides granular control of file placement on a PowerScale cluster.
CloudPools extends the PowerScale namespace to the public cloud, Alibaba Cloud, as illustrated in Figure 1. It allows applications and users to seamlessly retain access to data through the same network path and protocols regardless of where the file data physically resides.
Note: A SmartPools license and a CloudPools license are required on each node of the PowerScale cluster. A minimum of Dell Isilon OneFS version 8.0.0 is required for CloudPools 1.0, and Dell Isilon OneFS version 8.2.0 for CloudPools 2.0.
Policies are defined on the PowerScale cluster and drive the tiering of data. Clients can access the archived data through various protocols including SMB, NFS, HDFS, and S3.