Configuring Global Data Platform local storage

Configure Global Data Platform as your storage, then configure storage nodes, and finally set its encryption.

1. Go to Storage > Local storage.
2. Wait for the discovery of compute nodes to complete.
   After the discovery process completes, the Configure storage button is enabled.
3. Click Configure.
4. Optional: In the Configure local storage page, you can decide to select Set up Disaster Recovery or not.
   A disaster recovery configuration provides data replication between two HCI clusters by connecting the storage networks used by the clusters. The default is always disabled.
   If you selected the Set up Disaster Recovery option in the previous step, then the configuration section is displayed with Metro and Regional options. If you did not select the Set up Disaster Recovery option, then skip step 5 and 6.
5. Select Metro or Regional tile.

   Option	Description
   Metro	Select whether you want this rack to be your First site or Second site of the disaster recovery pair. First site Select First site tile. Go to step 6. Second site Select Second site tile. In the Connect to the first site section, paste the connection snippet of the first site. For the procedure to get the snippet, see Metro-DR for IBM Storage Fusion HCI System. Select whether you want to enable Jumbo frames or not. Jumbo frames improve the performance of the storage network between the two IBM Storage Fusion HCI System clusters in a disaster recovery pair. To know more about Jumbo frames and its prerequisites, see the Jumbo frames section of General Metro-DR prerequisites topic. Click Configure. The storage configuration of site 2 is same as the site 1 so the wizard closes after you click Configure, and the configuration of Global Data Platform service starts for the second site. Go to step 10 to view the details of the configured Global Data Platform.
   Regional	Proceed with step 6. For asynchronous disaster recovery set up, go to Disaster recovery page after you install the Global Data Platform service.

6. Click Next.
7. In the Storage option wizard page, click Stronger data resiliency tile or Better storage efficiency tile.

   The Storage option wizard page provides storage capabilities of IBM Storage Fusion HCI System with two storage configurations, Stronger data resiliency and Better storage efficiency. If there are eleven or more storage nodes in the appliance, you can choose between Stronger data resiliency and Better storage efficiency building block configurations. If there are less than eleven storage nodes in the appliance, the Stronger data resiliency building block configuration is only available.

   Note: The storage setting is predetermined to 4+3P erasure coding for a high availability cluster.

   A Stronger data resiliency option is an optimal set of (4+2P) building blocks based on the number of nodes in the rack. If enough nodes exist for the two building blocks, then IBM Storage Fusion creates a two-building block configuration. This configuration increases the number of simultaneous node failures, which the appliance can withstand. For example, if you set up a rack and choose a (4+2P) building block configuration, then for every six nodes, you get two nodes or disk failure tolerance. If the number of nodes are less for two building block configuration, a Strong data resiliency option appears with one (4+2P) building block configuration. For example, if you set up a rack and choose a (4+2P) building block configuration, then for every six nodes, you get one node or disk failure tolerance.

   The Better storage efficiency option uses a single building block configuration, consisting of a minimum of eleven storage nodes. The building block resiliency is achieved by using (8+3p) erasure coding. It means that the cluster can withstand a maximum of three storage node failures, with the data recovered from other nodes in the building block.

   Note:

   • The building block configuration that you choose applies to all storage nodes that you add in the future when you expand the rack. For example, if you start with a single (4+2p) Stronger data resiliency building block and later add six additional storage nodes, then those new nodes are used to create a second (4+2p) Stronger data resiliency building block.
   • You do not have to configure the Global data platform for site 2 in a Metro-DR setup because IBM Storage Fusion HCI System automatically applies the configuration of the primary rack or site 1 to site 2.

   Important: You cannot change the building block configuration post the installation.
8. Expand Advanced and select Block size.

   An advanced setting is available that allows you to customize the Block size for IBM Storage Fusion HCI System’s Global data platform. As OpenShift clusters run a mix of workloads with different I/O characteristics, it is recommended that you use the default 4 MiB block size that is optimized for mixed workloads.

   If the applications that get deployed to the OpenShift cluster are specifically workloads that drive large or small IOs, you can customize the block size for better performance.

   For single rack, the available block sizes for Stronger data resiliency or (4+2p) erasure code are 1 MiB and 4 MiB.

   For high-availability cluster, the available block sizes for Stronger data resiliency or (4+3p) erasure code are 1 MiB and 4 MiB.

   The available block sizes for Better storage efficiency or (8+3p) erasure code are 1 MiB, 4 MiB, and 16 MiB.

   Note: Considerations before you choose a block size:

   1. For general workloads, it is recommended to choose 4 MiB block size.
   2. If the cluster primarily deals with many small files, it is recommended to choose a small block size such as 1 MiB.
   3. For large files or streaming workloads, it is recommended to choose 16 MiB block size.

   For more information about block size, see Block size.

9. Click Configure.
10. Go to the Global Data Platform page in the IBM Storage Fusion user interface.
    The Local storage page now includes Usable capacity, Health, and Nodes sections. Here, the Usable capacity is configuring storage and the Health is initializing.

    Note: Sometimes, it can take up to five minutes to show the summary of Usable capacity and Health sections.

    Usable capacity

    The amount of capacity that is available for storing data on a system after the RAID or mirroring technology is applied. Usable capacity is represented in a line graph.

    Health

    It includes the health of the following:

    • Storage cluster
    • Global Data Platform service

    The status gets displayed only after the provisioning is complete.

    Nodes

    It includes a list of all nodes that you used in your local storage configuration. The node details listed in the table are Name, Storage status, Type, Disk count, Disk size (TiB), CPU core, and Memory (GiB).

    In the Nodes section, the initial Storage status is Installing storage software. After the initial status, it can have the following statuses:

    Normal

    The component or the service that is hosted on the node is working as expected, and no active error events exist.

    Critical

    The component or the service that is hosted on the node failed because of the failure of some of its critical components.

    Degraded

    The node or the service that is hosted on the node is not working as expected. A problem occurred with the component, but it is not a complete failure.

    Unknown

    The status of the component or the service that is hosted on the node is not known.

    You can use the search option to filter and search for nodes. You can add nodes to scale up.

11. To enable encryption, click Configure encryption.
    If the encryption is already set up, then the Connection settings is displayed.

    For the procedure to configure encryption, see Configuring encryption for Global Data Platform storage.