Exploring the Latest Advancements in Dell ObjectScale 1.2.0
Wed, 28 Jun 2023 13:22:49 -0000
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Dell ObjectScale is an object storage solution that represents the evolution of Dell Technologies' commitment to delivering enterprise-class, reliable, and high-performance storage. With its software-defined and containerized architecture, ObjectScale operates seamlessly within Kubernetes, empowering organizations to become more agile and responsive to ever-changing business requirements.
ObjectScale adheres to a set of core design principles that define its exceptional capabilities:
- Global namespace with eventual consistency
- Scale-out capabilities
- Secure multitenancy
- Optimum performance for small, medium, and large objects
In this blog post, we delve into the exciting new features introduced in the Dell ObjectScale 1.2.0 release.
Feature enhancements
This new code release introduces a range of feature enhancements, including:
- Simpler deployment options and enhanced user experience: The latest release of ObjectScale brings forth a range of improvements to simplify the deployment process and enhance user experience. Key updates include:
- New deployment option: A faster deployment option, known as the “Software Bundle,” enables the installation of ObjectScale and Kubernetes on a cluster of nodes with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP4. This option streamlines the setup process and accelerates the journey toward efficient object storage.
- Support for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform: ObjectScale continues to offer the "As an Application" deployment option, providing seamless integration with Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.12. This compatibility ensures that users can leverage the power of ObjectScale within their existing OpenShift environments.
- Streamlined user interface: The ObjectScale Portal boasts a redesigned user interface, offering an intuitive and streamlined workflow for bucket provisioning and management. This enhancement simplifies object storage administration, making it more accessible to users.
- Enhanced performance and efficiency: ObjectScale 1.2.0 introduces several notable performance improvements to optimize efficiency across various use cases:
- Increased write performance: Users can now enjoy write performance of up to 2 GB/s per node, which enables faster data ingestion and storage.
- Support for larger objects: ObjectScale now supports objects as large as 30 TB, including replication of these huge objects. This six-fold increase in the maximum object size surpasses the limits set by Amazon S3, making ObjectScale an ideal choice for large-scale projects such as HPC, analytics, AI, and their associated backup requirements.
- Flexible erasure coding: The latest release includes more flexible erasure coding options, including support for a minimum of four nodes with a 12+4 EC policy. This enables greater data protection and fault tolerance.
- Logical capacity usage reporting: ObjectScale now provides reporting of logical capacity usage for Dell APEX, facilitating better resource management and planning.
- Expanded Zero Trust features: ObjectScale 1.2.0 strengthens ObjectScale security and access control capabilities. Highlights include:
- Active Directory and LDAP support: System users can now benefit from Active Directory and LDAP support, which enables seamless integration with existing user management systems. This simplifies user administration and enhances security.
- Comprehensive IAM model: ObjectScale introduces an improved Identity and Access Management (IAM) model, accommodating local or management users, external authentication providers, configurable login workflows, user persona roles, password policies, and account lockout configurations. These advancements offer enhanced flexibility and control over access management.
- Improved reliability and supportability: The latest ObjectScale release focuses on enhancing reliability and supportability:
- Enhanced maintenance mode handling: ObjectScale now allows up to two nodes to be simultaneously placed in maintenance mode, simplifying maintenance operations and minimizing downtime.
- Remote Connect Assist: The integration of Pluggable Authentication Module (PAM) enables Remote Connect Assist, empowering remote support technicians to securely access the system using remote secure credentials tokens. This facilitates efficient troubleshooting and support.
Conclusion
Dell ObjectScale 1.2.0 introduces improved deployment options and feature enhancements, solidifying its position as a leading software-defined, containerized object storage platform. For more in-depth information, we encourage you to explore the Dell ObjectScale: Overview and Architecture white paper and the ObjectScale and ECS Info Hub. Embrace these advancements and unlock the full potential of Dell ObjectScale for your organization's evolving storage needs.
Author: Cris Banson
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Dell Container Storage Modules 1.5 Release
Thu, 12 Jan 2023 19:27:23 -0000
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Made available on December 20th, 2022, the 1.5 release of our flagship cloud-native storage management products, Dell CSI Drivers and Dell Container Storage Modules (CSM), is here!
See the official changelog in the CHANGELOG directory of the CSM repository.
First, this release extends support for Red Hat OpenShift 4.11 and Kubernetes 1.25 to every CSI Driver and Container Storage Module.
Featured in the previous CSM release (1.4), avid customers may recall a few new additions to the portfolio made available in tech preview. Primarily:
- CSM Application Mobility: Enables the movement of Kubernetes resources and data from one cluster to another no matter the source and destination (on-prem, co-location, cloud) and any type of backend storage (Dell or non-Dell)
- CSM Secure: Allows for on-the-fly encryption of PV data
- CSM Operator: Manages CSI and CSM as a single stack
Building on these three new modules, Dell Technologies is adding deeper capabilities and major improvements as part of today’s 1.5 release for CSM, including:
- CSM Application Mobility: Users can now schedule backups
- CSM Secure: Users can now “rekey” an encrypted PV
- CSM Operator: Support added for Dell’s PowerFlex CSI Driver, the Authorization Proxy Server, and the CSM Observability module for Dell PowerFlex and Dell PowerScale
For the platform updates included in today’s 1.5 release, the major new features are:
- It is now possible to set the Quality of Service of a Dell PowerFlex persistent volume. Two new parameters can be set in the StorageClass (bandwidthLimitInKbps and iopsLimit) to limit the consumption of a volume. Watch this short video to learn how it works.
- For Dell PowerScale, when a Kubernetes node is decommissioned from the cluster, the NFS export created by the driver will “Ignore the Unresolvable Hosts” and clean them later.
- Last but not least, when you have a Kubernetes cluster that runs on top of Virtual Machines backed by VMware, the CSI driver can mount FiberChannel attached LUNs.
This feature is named “Auto RDM over FC” in the CSI/CSM documentation.
The concept is that the CSI driver will connect to both Unisphere and vSphere API to create the respective objects.
When deployed with “Auto-RDM” the driver can only function in that mode. It is not possible to combine iSCSI and FC access within the same driver installation.
The same limitation applies for RDM usage. You can learn more about it at RDM Considerations and Limitations on the VMware website.
That’s all for CSM 1.5! Feel free to share feedback or send questions to the Dell team on Slack: https://dell-csm.slack.com.
Author: Florian Coulombel
Introducing ObjectScale 1.4.0: Elevating Enterprise Object Storage
Wed, 17 Apr 2024 14:00:00 -0000
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Dell Technologies is excited to unveil the latest iteration of its object storage solution, Dell ObjectScale 1.4.0. Engineered to cater to the rigorous requirements of enterprise-level storage, Dell ObjectScale 1.4.0 boasts a software-defined and containerized architecture. This advanced design ensures exceptional reliability, performance, and scalability, further solidifying Dell Technologies' dedication to delivering superior storage solutions.
Dell ObjectScale offers diverse deployment options that cater to a plethora of infrastructural needs, providing flexibility and efficiency in management and scaling enterprise object storage.
New features in Dell ObjectScale 1.4.0
Dell ObjectScale 1.4.0 introduces a host of new features and enhancements aimed at improving serviceability, security, and manageability:
Monitoring and reporting enhancements
The enhanced management API offers comprehensive monitoring capabilities, allowing for better visibility into cluster status, node-based inventory details, and component health. Additionally, new audit messages for cluster user set password events and new alerts for successful and failed jobs have been introduced. Users can now access various functions through the ObjectScale portal or a REST client, enhancing serviceability and oversight. This enhancement benefits administrators by enabling proactive maintenance and troubleshooting and ensuring optimal performance.
Dell ObjectScale portal improvements
The portal now provides a complete inventory of all nodes, disks, pods, and PVCs, coupled with enhanced Grafana UI dashboards for in-depth data visualization and performance monitoring. This improvement aids in efficient resource management and planning, allowing administrators to make informed decisions and optimize cluster performance.
S3 bucket deletion
A new API facilitates the deletion of buckets containing data, streamlining the process and offering better monitoring capabilities. Previously, a standard S3 bucket could only be deleted if it was empty. The new feature allows for the deletion of non-empty buckets through a background task with configurable speed and resource consumption. This feature is particularly beneficial for use cases requiring frequent updates or deletions of stored data as it simplifies operations and enhances flexibility.
ObjectScale replication – improved performance
Enhancements to the replication framework deliver improved throughput for both small and large objects. These enhancements mitigate the growth of replication backlogs and optimize resource utilization, thereby ensuring data protection without adversely affecting customer applications.
Upgrade and installation enhancements
The refined deployment and installation process, including a reduced package size and streamlined upgrade process, improves the customer experience. The appliance and software bundle deployments provide a 1-click upgrade feature for the application layer, simplifying upgrades and reducing operational complexity and downtime.
ObjectScale ‘As An Application’ improvements
Version 1.4 provides management IAM support for deployments on Red Hat OpenShift, offering a simplified management user experience and a common IAM model across all ObjectScale deployment models. This enhancement is beneficial for organizations using OpenShift as it provides consistent and simplified management across different deployment environments.
Storage reclamation process improvements
The garbage collection (GC) process reclaims space from discarded full chunks or chunks containing a mixture of deleted and non-deleted object fragments no longer referenced. Enhancements to the GC process and verification scanner improve the efficiency of the storage reclamation process. This benefit is crucial for long-term data retention and storage optimization as it ensures efficient use of storage resources and reduces costs.
Security: cipher security update
ObjectScale has upgraded its cryptographic module to BSAFE Crypto-J 6.3, ensuring FIPS 140-2 compliance for Data-at-Rest Encryption. This enhancement is essential for maintaining stringent security measures, providing robust encryption and enhancing data protection.
Platform latest version support
Dell ObjectScale 1.4 now supports the latest versions of Red Hat OpenShift (4.14) and Kubernetes (v1.27), allowing for platform upgrades to the most current releases. This benefit ensures compatibility with and access to the latest features and improvements, enhancing overall system performance and security.
Conclusion
Dell ObjectScale 1.4.0 offers a sophisticated, enterprise-grade object storage solution that is flexible, scalable, and secure. With its robust architecture and integration with Kubernetes, it provides a compelling option for organizations seeking to optimize their object storage infrastructure.
Author: Cris Banson