Storage

This section answers questions that are related to storage in IBM Storage Fusion HCI System.

  1. Does IBM Storage Fusion HCI System (with IBM Storage Scale) support block and object storage?
    Support is available for object storage and RWO & RWX storage. IBM Storage Fusion HCI System does not support block. Most container workloads use RWO and do not actually need block. Many people conflate block and RWO.

  2. In IBM Storage Fusion HCI System, the IBM Storage Scale ECE filesystem is considered as container-native or container-ready?
    IBM Storage Scale Fusion deploys containerized ECE filesystem, which works together with IBM Storage Scale Container Storage Interface (CSI) plug-in to provide persistent storage service for applications. From technical perspective, applications can use ECE filesystem almost the same way as ODF/NFS to define PVC and get storage service from ECE with CSI. You need to use different storage class and other properties for configuration.

  3. FlashSystems can provide persistent storage for containers on block storage. Why is block storage not mentioned within the context of IBM Storage Fusion HCI System?
    IBM Storage Fusion HCI System is hyperconverged infrastructure that includes compute, storage, and network. It currently does not support accessing external block storage.

    For the IBM Storage Fusion variant (SDS), OpenShift® can use any storage supported via CSI drivers, including IBM FlashSystems and other 3rd party systems. Also, note that when a container uses "block Storage", it is internally formatted with a filesystem.

  4. Is it supported to setup Advanced File Management (AFM) DR manually between two IBM Storage Fusion HCI System without integration with Fusion Data Foundation and the operators?
    No. The proposed disaster recovery solutions are as follows:
    • Metro DR
    • AFM cache to external storage array and do DR on external storage.

  5. Does IBM Storage Fusion HCI System support OpenShift?
    Yes, the IBM Storage Fusion HCI System supports OpenShift.

  6. Is Fusion Data Foundation available as a service?
    Yes, Fusion Data Foundation is available as a service from IBM Storage Fusion HCI System 2.8.1.

  7. Can and how does IBM Storage Fusion HCI System connect to external storage?
    Yes. The IBM Storage Fusion HCI System supports AFM cache capabilities, which means that you can configure IBM Storage Fusion HCI System to connect to popular NFS filers and S3 compliant object stores. Data residing in these external storage can be cached locally on the IBM Storage Fusion HCI System for performance.

  8. Can IBM Storage Fusion HCI System connect to external object storage?
    Yes, IBM Storage Fusion HCI System can connect to external S3 object stores. This requires the AFM compute nodes 9155-F01.

  9. Does IBM Storage Fusion HCI System support S3 compliant object storage?
    Yes

  10. Can IBM Storage Fusion HCI System connect to external Scale/ESS storage?
    For this requirement, the IBM Storage Fusion HCI System must have AFM nodes. The AFM nodes can be either 9155-F01 servers or 32-core compute-only servers (9155-C00 or 9155-C10) that have been configured to provide AFM features.

  11. Can IBM Storage Fusion HCI System connect to external NFS storage?
    Yes. Leverage the AFM cache capabilities provided by IBM Storage Scale ECE. This requires the AFM compute nodes 9155-F01.

  12. Is it possible to integrate with 3rd party storage?
    Yes, IBM Storage Fusion HCI System utilizes IBM Storage Scale AFM capabilities to access data from any vendor's NAS.

  13. Is the IBM Storage Fusion HCI System storage presented as NFS? Can it be accessed via NFS?
    No.

  14. Does IBM Storage Fusion HCI System deliver a curated Kubernetes and container native storage solution?
    IBM Storage Fusion HCI System provides OpenShift cluster, and best practices-based compute, storage and network infrastructure stack. It is a highly available enterprise-ready OpenShift platform.

  15. Does IBM Storage Fusion HCI System support the access of object storage from applications that run on OpenShift?

    To access object storage from applications that run on OpenShift, use standard S3 interfaces. IBM Storage Fusion HCI System itself provides a S3-compatible object store.

  16. Does IBM Storage Fusion HCI System support encrypted S3?

    Fusion does not provide S3 protocol support such as providing S3 protocol access to data for container native applications or applications outside IBM Storage Fusion HCI System.

  17. Does the 3rd party file system manage the data and write to IBM Storage Fusion HCI System as if it is a storage resource?
    IBM Storage Fusion HCI Systemdoes not provide storage to 3rd party file systems. IBM Storage Fusion HCI System itself includes a file system (via IBM Storage Scale). It can also consume storage from external 3rd party file systems using the AFM technology of IBM Storage Scale.

  18. Is IBM Storage Fusion Data Foundation support included with Cloud Pak for Data (CP4D)?
    Depending on the CP4D version, you might have limitations on what OpenShift Container Platform and IBM Storage Fusion Data Foundation version you can use.

    From an ODF perspective, the version is linked to the OCP version you have deployed CP4D on. For example, OCP 4.8.x allows you to run ODF 4.8 only (except when doing an upgrade of OCP where you can have a mismatch between the 2 versions). ODF scalability will depend on the amount of CPU and RAM you have on each node where ODF is deployed but Red Hat lifted limits on the number of OSDs per node (although 9 is still the recommended number to limit the failure domain size). The last limit published is 2000 nodes for ODF. Check here https://access.redhat.com/articles/5001441

    Based on this it gives you 2000x9x4TB = 24PB theoretical limit. One thing to consider for ODF vs IBM Storage Fusion HCI System is the data services you need as IBM Storage Fusion HCI System offers more features than ODF.

  19. What is the version of IBM Storage Scale ECE that will be deployed in IBM Storage Fusion HCI System?
    For the supported version of IBM Storage Scale ECE, see https://supportcontent.ibm.com/support/pages/node/6824743.

  20. With IBM Storage Fusion HCI System and encryption, what policy is defined or is there a scope to define the policy? Is the encryption/policy user defined or is it fixed?
    It is for the whole filesystem.

  21. Does it allow for different key per worker nodes? Can workload on the node "A" decrypt data from worker "B" or it is per HCI cluster?
    No. It is per IBM Storage Fusion HCI System cluster (two racks are using same key for Metro sync DR scenarios)

  22. Is IBM Storage Fusion HCI System license required for persistence storage on Infrastructure nodes?
    You do not need to license Fusion on infra nodes when you only host the persistent storage offered by Fusion. The deployment of Fusion services other than storage on the infra nodes (for example, catalog or backup) are called application-level services. It means the infra nodes require OCP and Fusion licensing like a worker node. When infra nodes need to be licensed, they use the same model as normal worker nodes; you can use Bare Metal licensing for x86 Bare Metal nodes, or else you can use VPC licensing.

  23. Does IBM Storage Fusion HCI System support Ceph now?
    Yes, IBM Storage Fusion HCI System supports IBM Ceph Storage.

  24. Does Fusion Data Foundation support encryption?
    No, encryption is not supported for Fusion Data Foundation storage type in IBM Storage Fusion HCI System.

  25. Does applications using remote Global Data Platform storage applicable for Backup & Restore?
    No

  26. Does applications using remote Global Data Platform storage applicable for disaster recovery?
    No
  27. Where to check node drain or MCP rollout logs?
    Run the following command to get the node drain or MCP rollout logs.
    oc logs -n openshift-machine-config-operator machine-config-controller-xxxxx -c
      machine-config-controller
    for details