CloudLink 7.1: Simplifying datacenter security
Fri, 23 Apr 2021 12:10:59 -0000
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Are you feeling safe about the security of your data center’s infrastructure? Chances are, you aren’t. According to a recent poll1, 74% of customers report experiencing some form of cyber attack in the last twelve months, and 86% were concerned about potential cyberattacks. Clearly, data center security is a topic than can no longer be ignored - and most of our customers are taking steps to ensure their data is safe. Yet even though it’s necessary, adopting data center security can be confusing, complex, and difficult to implement.
Dell EMC CloudLink aides our customers in this effort by being reliable, flexible, and easy to use. Our 7.1 release adds new tools to our toolbox including shallow rekey for our Container based encryption, support for vVols encryption and IPv6 only environments, and the new Secure Configuration Summary page designed to make security audits of CloudLink a breeze.
Every security related framework published discusses the need for regular monitoring and assessment of implemented security controls to ensure that the products and deployment are meeting relevant industry standards. Such activities usually include the dreaded yearly security audit. Datacenter administrators view this effort with disfavor because it takes time out of their already busy schedule to walk through the deployment with the auditor to prove compliance.
In the past we’ve heard from our customers that the CloudLink GUI is easy enough to navigate that security audit reviews weren’t too painful, but they occasionally expressed that it would be nice to make them a little bit easier. Well we heard their requests loud and clear and have obliged with the Secure Configuration Summary. We’ve gathered the information commonly requested during security audits onto one page so when the security administrator and auditor go to CloudLink for a review, it’s a one stop shop.
With audits though, simply viewing configuration settings isn’t enough as most auditors require tangible proof to attach to their reports. Screen shots work but we offer something better – the ability to export the configuration settings provided on the summary page. As with most of our GUI pages, you can export the Secure Configuration Summary to a handy-dandy spreadsheet which can be presented directly to the auditor. A one click audit review – can it get any easier than that?
Of course, not all audits are the same and some requirements are more extensive than others. To accommodate this eventuality, our summary page provides direct links to the configuration pages for each setting. If an auditor needs more information on a particular configuration, simply jump to the relevant page, review, and download an export if needed.
Encryption is hard and it can be a challenge to understand, implement, and maintain. We understand that most of our customers are not in the datacenter security business. CloudLink strives to make data encryption in the datacenter a simple, set it and forget it task, so that our customers can focus on their core business, not on trying to figure out how to keep their data safe – that’s our job.
If you would like to know more about CloudLink and our latest release please visit our website and reach out to your Dell Technologies sales team to ask how we can make data encryption easy for you too.
1 Source: statista.com
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PowerFlex and CloudStack, an Amazing IaaS match!
Sat, 18 Nov 2023 14:13:00 -0000
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Have you heard about Apache CloudStack? Did you know it runs amazingly on Dell PowerFlex? And what does it all have to do with infrastructure as a service (IaaS)? Interested in learning more? If so, then you should probably keep reading!
The PowerFlex team and ShapeBlue have been collaborating to bring ease and simplicity to CloudStack on PowerFlex. They have been doing this for quite a while. As new versions are released, the teams work together to ensure it continues to be amazing for customers. The deep integration with PowerFlex makes it an ideal choice for organizations building CloudStack environments.
Both Dell and ShapeBlue are gearing up for the CloudStack Collaboration Conference (CCC) in Paris on November 23 and 24th. The CloudStack Collaboration Conference is the biggest get-together for the Apache CloudStack Community, bringing vendors, users, and developers to one place to discuss the future of open-source technologies, the benefits of CloudStack, new integrations, and capabilities.
CloudStack is open-source software designed to deploy and manage large networks of virtual machines as a highly available, highly scalable Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud computing platform. CloudStack is used by hundreds of service providers around the world to offer public cloud services and by many companies to provide an on-premises (private) cloud offering or as part of a hybrid cloud solution.
Users can manage their cloud with an easy to use Web interface, command line tools, and/or a full-featured RESTful API. In addition, CloudStack provides an API that is compatible with AWS EC2 and S3 for organizations that want to deploy hybrid clouds.
CloudStack can leverage the extensive PowerFlex REST APIs to enhance functionality. This facilitates streamlined provisioning, effective data management, robust snapshot management, comprehensive data protection, and seamless scalability, making the combination of PowerFlex storage and CloudStack a robust choice for modern IaaS environments.
You can see this in the following diagram. CloudStack and PowerFlex communicate with each other using APIs to coordinate operations for VMs. This makes it easier to administer larger environments, enabling organizations to have a true IaaS environment.
Figure 1. Cloud Stack on PowerFlex Architecture
Let's talk about IaaS for a moment. It is a fantastic concept that can be compared with ordering off a menu at a restaurant. The restaurant has unrelated dishes on the menu until you start looking at their components. For example, you can get three different base sauces (red, pink, and white) with just a red sauce and a white sauce. With a small variety of pasta and proteins, the options are excellent. This is the same for IaaS. Have a few base options, sprinkle on some API know-how, and you get a fantastic menu to satisfy workload needs without having a detailed knowledge of the infrastructure.
That makes it easier for the IT organization to become more efficient and shift the focus toward aspirational initiatives. This is especially true when CloudStack and PowerFlex work together. The hungry IT consumers can get what they want with less IT interaction.
Other significant benefits that come from integrating CloudStack with PowerFlex include the following:
- Seamless Data Management: Efficient provision, backup, and data management across infrastructure, ensuring data integrity and accessibility.
- Enhanced Performance: Provides low-latency access to data, optimizing I/O, and reducing bottlenecks. This, in turn, leads to improved application and workload performance.
- Reliability and Data Availability: Benefit from advanced redundancy and failover mechanisms and data replication, reducing the risk of data loss and ensuring continuous service availability.
- Scalability: Scalable storage solutions allow organizations to expand their storage resources in tandem with their growing needs. This flexibility ensures that they can adapt to changing workloads and resource requirements.
- Simplified Management: Ability to use a single interface to handle provisioning, monitoring, troubleshooting, and streamlining administrative tasks.
- Enhanced Data Protection: Data protection features, such as snapshots, backups, and disaster recovery solutions. This ensures that an organization's data remains secure and can be quickly restored in case of unexpected incidents.
These are tremendous benefits for organizations, especially the data protection aspects. It is often said that it is no longer a question of if an organization will be impacted by an incident. It is a question of when they will be impacted. The IaaS capabilities of CloudStack and PowerFlex play a crucial role in protecting an organization's data. That protection can be automated as part of the IaaS design. That way, when a VM or VMs are requested, they can be assigned to a data protection policy as part of the creation process.
Simply put, that means that VM can be protected from the moment of creation. No more having to remember to add a VM to a backup, and no more "oh no" when someone realizes they forgot. That is amazing!
If you are at the CloudStack Collaboration Conference and are interested in discovering more, talk with Shashi and Florian. They will also present how CloudStack and PowerFlex create an outstanding IaaS solution.
Register for the CloudStack Collaboration Conference here to join virtually if you are unable to attend in person.
If you want to learn more about how PowerFlex and CloudStack can benefit your organization, reach out to your Dell representative for more details on this amazing solution.
Resources
Authors
Tony Foster
Twitter: @wonder_nerd
LinkedIn
Punitha HS
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PowerFlex: CloudIQ Enhancements
Thu, 16 Nov 2023 22:07:06 -0000
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Have you checked out the All Features and Updates dialog in CloudIQ recently? If not, then let’s take a look together!
Figure 1. All Features and Updates dialog in CloudIQ
The first enhancement happened early this year with the addition of PowerFlex alerts. The alerts can be viewed through the System Alerts tile on the Home page, shown in figure 2, or by selecting Alerts under the Monitor menu. The System Alerts tile provides an alert count by severity level for all systems monitored by CloudIQ. Selecting the severity icon in the System Alerts tile redirects you to the Alerts page with a filter applied based on the selected severity.
Figure 2. System Alerts tile within CloudIQ Home page
Once on the Alerts page, you can apply additional filters. The Alerts page has a simple table layout and displays information such as severity, system name, and model alert description, as well as the date and time when the alert occurred. Details of an alert can be viewed by selecting the details icon, as highlighted in figure 3.
Figure 3. Details expanded for CloudIQ alert
In August, the PowerFlex/CloudIQ engineering team was busy releasing a bunch of exciting updates.
CloudIQ now supports Secure Connect Gateways (SCG) for PowerFlex systems. You can view the SCG information at a system level by visiting the PowerFlex system details page and clicking the GATEWAYS tab, highlighted in figure 3. The GATEWAYS tab consists of the gateway serial number, site information, location, gateway version, connectivity status, and heartbeat status.
Figure 4. GATEWAYS tab for Finance DC PowerFlex system
The SCG serial number links to the SCG details page shown in figure 5. All systems connected to the specific SCG are listed on the SCG details page. From here, you can launch the SCG UI by clicking the link at the upper right corner of the page, providing a seamless workflow when working with the gateway from CloudIQ.
Figure 5. SCG details page highlighting connected systems and the SCG UI launch
A Gateway column was added to the Admin>Connectivity page. The most recently active gateway for the PowerFlex system is listed in this column and contains a link to the gateway details page.
Figure 6. Gateway column on the Connectivity page
The next update is the Entitlements and System Licenses page, which you can find in the Admin section under Licenses. Here, you can check on the entitlements and licenses for all your PowerFlex systems. For more on this update, refer to the blog, Managing Dell PowerFlex Licensing and Being Way Less Sad.
Figure 7. Entitlements and System Licenses page
A new Entitlements tile is now available on the CloudIQ Home page, providing a summary of entitlement status. The Entitlements tile lets you quickly view the number of PowerFlex systems with entitlements and licenses that are expired, expiring withing 30 days, and expiring within 90 days.
Figure 8. Entitlement Expiration tile on CloudIQ Home page
Another location for entitlement and contract status is on the PowerFlex Systems tiles. An entitlement that is in good standing is marked with a green checkmark, soon to expire with a yellow icon, and expired with a red “x.”
Figure 9. Three entitlement and contract statuses in PowerFlex Systems tile
MDM cluster information was added to CloudIQ in July of this year. To view the MDM information, go to the system details page for the PowerFlex system and select the RESOURCES tab, shown in figure 10. You can view a list of the MDMs, MDM role, ID, management IP addresses, and software version.
Figure 10. PowerFlex system details page highlighting the RESOURCES tab under Inventory and the PowerFlex Manager launch
Another addition to the system details page is a link to PowerFlex Manager, making it convenient to launch the PowerFlex Manager UI for the specified system. A BLOCK tab provides details on PowerFlex components, including protection domains, fault sets, SDSs, devices, storage pools, volumes, and hosts. The views may feel familiar to you because they are based on the Block menu in PowerFlex Manager.
Figure 11. BLOCK tab within PowerFlex system details page
Planning on adopting APEX Block Storage for Public Cloud as part of your Multicloud strategy? CloudIQ has you covered on-prem and in the cloud.
Figure 12. CloudIQ Monitoring overview
Onboarding your APEX Block Storage for Public Cloud into CloudIQ brings visibility into the cloud infrastructure.
Figure 13. Inventory page for APEX Block Storage for AWS
The last enhancement that I will highlight is the addition of PowerFlex in custom reports. This update provides three report types, including anomaly charts, line charts, and table reports.
Figure 14. Three report types in a custom report for PowerFlex
The anomaly chart consists of a single performance metric overlaid on the gray historic seasonality value boundaries. The upper and lower bounds establish the normal behavior for the specific metric. The bounds are based on an analysis of the prior three-week history. Historical values that exceed the upper or lower bounds are shaded in light blue to highlight that the value of the metric during this time was outside the historical range. Anomaly charts, at most, display the last 24 hours of data. The line chart allows you to display more than one metric from one or more systems. The example in figure 14 shows system latency from three PowerFlex systems. The table displays metrics and properties, such as system name and code version.
The next time you are working with CloudIQ, keep an eye out for the latest enhancements. If you have not onboarded your PowerFlex systems into CloudIQ, check out the PowerFlex CloudIQ onboarding article to get started.
Resources
Procedure to Onboard PowerFlex Systems to CloudIQ
Author: Roy Laverty, Principal Technical Marketing Engineer
Twitter: @RoyLaverty
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/roy-laverty