Administering support for IBM Spectrum Scale

IBM Spectrum Scale product rebranded to IBM Storage Scale

The IBM Spectrum Scale product is rebranded to IBM Storage Scale from Version 5.1.8.0. Therefore, starting from IBM Cloud Pak System 2.3.3.6 interim fix 1, IBM Spectrum Scale is referenced as IBM Storage Scale. This release supports IBM Storage Scale pattern type 1.2.22.0 on IBM Storage Scale Version 5.1.8.0. For more information, see IBM Storage product branding.

Overview

IBM Spectrum Scale is a high performance shared-disk file management solution that provides fast, reliable access to data from multiple nodes in a cluster environment. Applications can readily access files using standard file system interfaces, and the same file can be accessed concurrently from multiple nodes. IBM Spectrum Scale is designed to provide high availability through advanced clustering technologies, dynamic file system management, and data replication. IBM Spectrum Scale can continue to provide data access even when the cluster experiences storage or node malfunctions.

Using the IBM Pattern for IBM Spectrum Scale, your system administrator can deploy a IBM Spectrum Scale cluster, providing high-performance, highly-available storage to the middleware and applications that are deployed in your environment.

The system administrator deploys the IBM Spectrum Scale Server pattern, attaches storage, and defines file systems.The administrator then deploys a shared service used by the deploying IBM Spectrum Scale Clients, which directs the clients to the appropriate IBM Spectrum Scale Server. Starting with IBM Pattern for IBM Spectrum Scale V1.2.15.0, the clients can directly provide the IBM Spectrum Scale Server information at deployment time, eliminating the requirement to deploy the IBM Spectrum Scale shared service. The clients can also connect to a different IBM Spectrum Scale Server, after deployment, by using the Connect to server operation. Using this feature that is available with IBM Spectrum Scale Pattern V1.2.15.0 and later, you can deploy clients that point to different IBM Spectrum Scale Servers in the same environment profile. This deployment scenario is not possible when you use the IBM shared service for IBM Spectrum Scale since only one IBM Spectrum Scale shared service instance can be deployed in an environment profile. When the IBM Spectrum Scale shared service instance is used to provide IBM Spectrum Scale Server connection information, all clients deployed in the same environment profile with the IBM Spectrum Scale shared service instance will connect to the same IBM Spectrum Scale Server, specified by the IBM Spectrum Scale shared service instance.

As a result, multiple shared file systems can be deployed for different uses, and applications are directed to the specific server as determined by the administrator.