Supported features of cloudkit

Know the different public clouds, operating system versions, IBM Storage Scale features, and cloudkit commands that are supported.

Prerequisites
  • Access to Red Hat base repository, a repository created using the local ISO image.
  • Ability to read/write into the user home directory.
Table 1. Supported public clouds

Public cloud

Support

Limitations

Description
AWS Yes

Red Hat Enterprise Linux® only

Limited stock options of RHEL versions are available via the cloudkit.

Custom images containing any RHEL version supported by base Scale can be pointed via the cloudkit.

GCP Yes

Red Hat Enterprise Linux only

Limited stock options of RHEL versions are available via the cloudkit.

Custom images containing any RHEL version supported by base Scale can be pointed via the cloudkit.
IBM Cloud No   Under consideration for future release.
Azure No   Under consideration for future release.
Note: IBM's statements regarding its plans, directions, and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice at IBM's sole discretion. Information provided is intended to outline our general product direction and it should not be relied on in making a purchasing decision.
Table 2. Operating systems that are supported by cloudkit installer nodes
Supported OS Version Limitations Additional Information
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8.6, 8.8, 9.0, 9.1, and 9.2 N/A On-premise physical host or VM only.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9.2 N/A Cloud VM only.
Table 3. IBM Storage Scale features
IBM Storage Scale function Automatic configuration through cloudkit Manual operation after cloudkit usage
Storage cluster creation option, compute cluster creation option, combined storage and compute cluster creation option Yes -
Remote mount storage cluster to client cluster Yes -
Remote mount from CNSA to cloudkit created cluster Prerequisites configured automatically Yes through CNSA installation
Remote mount from Fusion to cloudkit created storage cluster Prerequisites configured automatically Yes through Fusion installation
Data Management Edition license application Yes -
Data Access Edition license application Yes -
Erasure Code Edition license application No (cloudkit not available for ECE) Not supported
Call home Not supported Yes through install toolkit or mm command CLI, if desired
Performance Data collection Yes -
Storage cluster encryption Yes (Encryption at Rest) Yes through mm command CLI and manually created key server supported by IBM Storage Scale
Quotas - Yes through mm command CLI
ACLs - Yes through mm command CLI
ILM No (single pool configured) Not supported as only a single pool is configured
File clones - Yes through mm command CLI
Snapshots - Yes through mm command CLI
CSI volume snapshot - Yes through CSI
GUI Yes -
REST-API server Yes (as part of GUI) -
CSI - Yes, with manual setup through CSI documentation, prerequisites of vanilla K8s (EKS is not supported), prerequisites of Scale CSI, and understanding of CSI networking requirements.
File Audit Logging - Yes through mm command CLI
Clustered watch folder - Yes through mm command CLI
CES protocols No Not supported
AFM No Not supported
AFM-COS Yes -
AFM-DR No Not supported
GCP - Technical Preview
Compression - Not supported
GPU Direct storage - Not supported
Scale up (nodes) No Not supported
Scale up CNSA compute cluster - Supported through CNSA independent of storage cluster and cloudkit
Scale up (file system capacity No Not supported
Scale down (nodes) No Not supported
Scale down (file system capacity) No Not supported
Scale out (adding new roles) Yes -
Table 4. Feature matrix for cloudkit
Usage Feature Support Limitations Additional information
cloudkit create repository Creates a AWS s3 bucket/GCP Artifact Registory with scale/zimon rpm(s) static web-hosting Yes Repository scope is limited to the target region  
cloudkit create image Creates a scale image using repository Yes   Can be stock or custom AMI/GCP OS images as base image.
cloudkit create cluster Creates IBM Storage Scalecluster Yes   Can create storage only cluster, compute only cluster, and combined storage and compute cluster.
cloudkit grant filesystem Remote mount filesystem from storage to compute cluster Yes   One remote mount relation per compute.
cloudkit edit cluster Scale out IBM Storage Scale Cloud Cluster Yes    
cloudkit upgrade cluster Updates IBM Storage Scale cluster Yes   Only AWS is supported.