Infrastructure architecture

IBM Storage Scale DAS on dedicated Red Hat OpenShift clusters requires three x86_64 based bare metal servers. Each server is configured as a Data Access Node (DAN) running Red Hat OpenShift, IBM Storage Scale container native, IBM Storage Scale CSI, and IBM Storage Scale DAS.

The three DANs must be configured as compact Red Hat OpenShift cluster. A compact cluster is a three-node cluster where each Red Hat OpenShift node acts as a combined master and worker node. For more information, see the following Red Hat OpenShift documentation resources:

Example infrastructure architecture for DAS deployment — Figure 1. Example infrastructure architecture for IBM Storage Scale DAS deployment

The IBM Storage Scale storage cluster owns the IBM Storage Scale file system that is used to store S3 data. IBM Storage Scale DAS limits storage options to IBM Elastic Storage System (ESS) only. All ESS models are supported. The storage cluster includes one IBM ESS Management Server (EMS) and one or more IBM Elastic Storage System (ESS).

The IBM Storage Scale DAS cluster, or more precisely the IBM Storage Scale container native cluster running on the IBM Storage Scale DAS cluster, remotely mounts an IBM Storage Scale file system provided by the IBM Storage Scale storage cluster.

Each DAN exposes one IP address for S3 access. To provide scalable S3 performance, IBM Storage Scale DAS supports configuring high-speed Ethernet networks in addition to the default network for the Red Hat OpenShift cluster. To provide good S3 performance, it is required to connect the S3 clients through a well-controlled data center network, for example, the same layer 2 network. A dedicated data network must be provided to connect all IBM Storage Scale nodes that are not connected to any shared data network, such as a data center network, a campus network, or the Internet.

IBM Storage Scale DAS supports all bare metal Ethernet configurations which are supported by IBM Storage Scale container native and Red Hat OpenShift: