Dell APEX Data Storage Service (DSS) in Colocation
Wed, 19 Jan 2022 21:03:40 -0000
|Read Time: 0 minutes
With the December 2021 update for APEX DSS, Dell Technologies has now an option to provide a colocation capability for APEX DSS customers. This article will walk you through this new feature in the following aspects:
- APEX DSS in Colocation: Overview
- APEX DSS in Colocation: Architecture
- APEX DSS in Colocation: Shared responsibility model
APEX DSS in Colocation: Overview
Dell Technologies APEX Data Storage Services is an as-a-Service portfolio of scalable and elastic, outcome-based storage resources delivered so that customers only pay for what they use with the ability to scale up and down, delivered to the service level they need with infrastructure that is owned and maintained by Dell Technologies.
APEX Data Storage Services in colocation are storage services hosted at Dell Technologies’ partners that provide colocation data centers for customers and the deployment is in Dell-managed colocation facilities. Dell Technologies offers leading storage solution services for file, block, and object storage, backed by proven, best-in-class Dell storage technologies. File and Object storage are provided with Dell PowerScale appliances; Block storage is provided with Dell PowerStore appliances.
Storage Services includes a core set of infrastructure management capabilities, from deployment to ongoing monitoring, operations, optimization, and support, plus a clearly defined process for renewals and decommission at the end of service. A self-service portal console, the APEX Console, allows customers to identify, configure, deploy, monitor, and expand the solutions quickly. As non-colo APEX deployment, you can file a service ticket for advanced operations.
APEX DSS in Colocation: Architecture
The following figure shows the overall architecture of the APEX DSS in Colocation.
Dell Technologies data centers host the APEX Console and APEX backend systems. APEX Console is a secure portal for customers to manage and monitor their storage in the APEX Data Storage Services in colocation.
The Management Zone in the colocation is used for managing the service components in the management and customer zones, including availability management, patch management, and logging and monitoring.
The Customer Zone is where the storage appliances reside, and where customer data is stored. Customers have three options for accessing the customer zone and its data:
- (A) From the customer’s own colocation environment
- Data access to customer’s own colocation environment. Direct connection from a customer provided instance like a bare-metal server or virtual machine in same colocation provider/partner (same provider/partner that Dell Technologies is using); connects with dedicated fabric port and VLAN.
- (B) Through the customer’s cloud service provider (CSP)
- Data access to customer’s cloud service provider (CSP) – Direct connection from a Cloud (hyperscaler or other cloud connection available in same colocation (same provider that Dell Technologies is using); connects with dedicated fabric port and VLAN.
- (C) From the customer’s on-premises data center
- Data access to customer’s on-premises data center – on-premises replication over MPLS or Direct Internet; connects into Dell Technologies colocation partner fabric with a dedicated crossconnect.
APEX DSS in Colocation: Shared responsibility model
The security of APEX Data Storage Services in colocation is a shared responsibility between Dell Technologies and the customer:
- Dell Technologies is responsible for securing the data storage service and protecting the infrastructure that runs the service. This infrastructure is composed of hardware, software, networking, and facilities.
- The customer is responsible for securing their data within the storage service. Ensuring data security and maintaining security controls for accessing the data are always the responsibility of the customer.
The following figure shows the areas of responsibility between Dell Technologies and customers.
The overall security of this storage service is achieved through the shared responsibilities of Dell Technologies and customers.
Conclusion
To recap, for customer-owned storage inside a customer’s on-premises datacenter, the whole stack is owned, maintained, and paid for the customer.
The difference is that when consuming Dell APEX Data Services in colocation, many responsibilities are shifted from you to Dell Technologies, relieving you from worrying about the operational burdens of securing your infrastructure.
Author: Vincent Shen
Related Blog Posts
Alert in IIQ 5.0.0 – Part I
Wed, 13 Dec 2023 17:40:06 -0000
|Read Time: 0 minutes
Alert is a new feature introduced with the release of IIQ 5.0.0. It provides the capability and flexibility to configure alerts based on the KPI threshold.
This blog will walk you through the following aspects of this feature:
- Introduction to Alert
- How to configure alerts using Alert
Let’s get started:
Introduction
IIQ 5.0.0 can send email alerts based on your defined KPI and threshold. The supported KPIs are listed in the following table:
KPI Name | Description | Scope |
Protocol Latency SMB | Average latency within last 10 minutes required for the various operations for the SMB protocol | Across all nodes and clients per cluster. |
Protocol Latency NFS | Average latency within last 10 minutes required for the various operations for the NFS protocol. | Across all nodes and clients per cluster. |
Active Clients NFS | The current number of active clients using NFS. The client is active when it is transmitting or receiving data. | Across all nodes per cluster. |
Active Clients SMB 1 | The current number of active clients using SMB 1. The client is active when it is transmitting or receiving data. | Across all nodes per cluster. |
Active Clients SMB 2 | The current number of active clients using SMB 2. The client is active when it is transmitting or receiving data. | Across all nodes per cluster. |
Connected Clients NFS | The current number of connected clients using NFS. The client is connected when it has an open TCP connection to the cluster. It can transmit or receive data or it can be in an idle state. | Across all nodes per cluster. |
Connected Clients SMB | The current number of connected clients using SMB. The client is connected when it has an open TCP connection to the cluster. It can transmit or receive data or it can be in an idle state. | Across all nodes per cluster. |
Pending Disk Operation Count | The average pending disk operation count within the last 10 minutes. It is the number of I/O operations that are pending at the file system level and waiting to be issued to an individual drive. | Across all disks per cluster. |
CPU Usage | The average usage of CPU cores including the physical cores and hyperthreaded core within last 10 minutes. | Across all nodes per cluster. |
Cluster Capacity | The current used capacity for the cluster. | N/A |
Nodepool Capacity | The current used capacity for the node pool in a cluster. | N/A |
Drive Capacity | The current used capacity for a drive in a cluster. | N/A |
Node Capacity | The current used capacity for a node in a cluster. | N/A |
Network Throughput Equivalency | Checks whether the network throughput for each node within the last 10 minutes is within the specified threshold percentage of the average network throughput of all nodes in the node pool for the same time. | Across all nodes per node pool. |
Each KPI requires a threshold and a severity level, together forming an alert rule. You can customize the alert rules to align with specific business use cases.
Here is an example of an alert rule:
If CPU usage (KPI) is greater than or equal to 96% (threshold), a critical alert (severity) will be triggered.
The supported severities are:
- Emergency
- Critical
- Warning
- Information
You can combine multiple alert rules into a single alert policy for easy management purposes.
If you take a look at the chart above, you will find a new concept called Notification Rule. This is used to define the recipients' Email address and from what severity they will receive an Email:
An example of a notification rule is like this: for user A (user_a@lled.com) and user B (user_b@lled.com), they both will receive Email alerts from all severity.
If you combine the above two examples and put them into the view of alert policy, you will get:
At this point, you should understand the big picture of the alert feature in IIQ 5.0.0. In my next post, I will walk you through the details of how to configure it.
How to Create Object Storage in Dell APEX Data Storage Services (DSS)
Wed, 19 Jan 2022 21:18:36 -0000
|Read Time: 0 minutes
As of the December 2021 release of APEX DSS, Dell now supports creating object storage! APEX File Services provides multi-protocol data access and includes support for the S3 (Simple Storage Service) Object protocol.
During activation of APEX File deployments (or subsequently, in response to a Service Request), Dell Services will enable the specific data access protocols (SMB, NFS, and S3) as requested by the customer.
Object capabilities are a good fit for file users who are leveraging complex application designs that demand File and Object access to the same data, thus expanding file storage to include cloud-native workloads without the need to make a data set copy.
Here is a walkthrough of how to create S3 object storage in APEX DSS:
- Launch the OneFS web UI. Make sure the S3 object service is enabled by clicking Protocols > Object storage (S3) > Global settings:
2. Create the secret key for the end-user. In this case, I will create the key for the user vince. Under the Key management tab in the Object storage (S3) panel, click Select user. Select the user vince and click the button Create a key. Note the Access id and the corresponding secret key for future use. In my case they are:
Access id: 1_vince_accid
Secret key: yHVUjcEJR1u1wq3glGJleAqXyVh6
3. To create the S3 bucket, select the Buckets tab under the Object storage (S3) panel. Click the button Create bucket. In my example, I will create a bucket using the following parameters:
Bucket name: vince
Owner: vince
Path: /ifs/vince
4. Test your S3 object storage. You can use any S3 client tools for this purpose. In my case, I am using CloudBerry Explorer to set up the connection:
Note: by default, it will use an SSL certificate to encrypt the connection. The default port for HTTPS is 9021 which you can configure in the OneFS web UI under Global settings.
Conclusion
Using APEX DSS, you can easily deploy your S3 object storage in minutes. With this capability, clients can access APEX DSS file-based data as objects efficiently. OneFS S3 in APEX DSS is designed as a first-class protocol including features for bucket and object operations, security implementation, and management interface.
In our next blog, we will go through the colocation feature in APEX DSS for file.
Author: Vincent Shen