IBM Storage Scale: Cloudkit now supports AFM-COS on Azure as a technology preview feature in 5.2.1.0

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Description:

AFM (Active File Management) to COS (Cloud Object Storage) enables placement of files or objects in an IBM Storage Scale cluster to an Azure Blob Storage. Refer to Introduction to AFM to cloud object storage for detailed explanation and planning of AFM-COS.

IBM Storage Scale cluster on Azure created via the Cloudkit CLI now provides infrastructure to enable AFM-COS (for example, provisioning gateway nodes, configuring AFM to use storage account endpoint) by using the best recommended practices of security. For more information, see Configuring an AFM to cloud object storage fileset with Microsoft Azure Blob.

Requirements:

Refer to Planning for IBM Storage Scale on public clouds, which has the requirements for planning and getting started with Cloudkit on Azure:

Getting started:

1.  Create an IBM Storage Scale “Storage-only“ cluster on Azure, using the following command:

./cloudkit create cluster --deployment-mode "Storage-only"

2.  Create a caching relationship from Azure blob storage to the IBM Storage Scale cluster on Azure, using the following command:

You can use this command to specify the number of gateway nodes that will be used to configure AFM.

./cloudkit setup caching

Note: Use `cloudkit edit cluster` to expand the gateway nodes.

3.  When you are ready to delete the storage cluster, use the following command:

./cloudkit delete cluster

Limitations:

1. The application read/write is required to initiate the AFM transfer based on the configured AFM mode.

2. Parallel read data transfer (for example, configuring AFM to cloud object storage relationship with fileset by using multiple gateway nodes) needs to be configured manually.

3. “Manual-Update” mode needs to be configured manually based on the use case.

4. A smaller gateway node profile can lead to poor performance or a relationship becoming “InActive”. An appropriate gateway profile/configuration needs to be selected based on the use case.

5. Target Azure Blob Storage account, container must exist in the same resource group and region as of the target cluster.

Note:

We welcome your feedback. If you have any comments, suggestions, or questions regarding any of the information provided here, send us an email to scale@us.ibm.com.