Summary of changes

This topic summarizes changes to the IBM Spectrum Scale™ licensed program and the IBM Spectrum Scale library. Within each information unit in the library, a vertical line (|) to the left of text and illustrations indicates technical changes or additions that are made to the previous edition of the information.Within each topic, these markers (Start of change End of change ) surrounding text or illustrations indicate technical changes or additions that are made to the previous edition of the information.

Summary of changes
for IBM Spectrum Scale version 5.0.1
as updated, September 2018

This release of the IBM Spectrum Scale licensed program and the IBM Spectrum Scale library includes the following improvements. All improvements are available after an upgrade, unless otherwise specified.
IBM Spectrum Scale on AWS
IBM Spectrum Scale can now be deployed on AWS. For more information, see IBM Spectrum Scale on AWS.

AFM and AFM DR-related changes

Authentication-related changes
The mmuserauth command can use passwords saved in a Stanza file.

Big data and analytics changes
For information on changes in IBM Spectrum Scale Big Data and Analytics support, see Big data and analytics - summary of changes.

Cloud services changes
Cloud services has the following updates:
  • Support for backup and restore using SOBAR. For more information, see Scale out backup and restore (SOBAR) for Cloud services.
  • Support for automated Cloud services maintenance service for the following operations:
    • Background removal of deleted files from the object storage
    • Backing up the Cloud services full database to the cloud
    • Reconciling the Cloud services database
  • Support for setting up a customized maintenance window, overriding the default values
  • Support for multi-threading within a file in a single node to improve large file recall latency.

File audit logging updates
File audit logging has the following updates:
  • If a file system with file audit logging is unmounted and then remounted, the producer reacquires the password. In addition, if a node mounts a file system after file audit logging has already been enabled, the producer on that node acquires the password. Previously, in both cases, the GPFS™ daemon would have to be restarted for the producer to acquire the new password.
  • File audit logging authentication is changed from SASL PLAINTEXT to SASL SCRAM for improved security.
  • If the Object protocol is enabled, no file system activity occurring within the primary object fileset is audited.
  • Added Services > File Auditing page in the management GUI to enable monitoring file auditing through GUI.

File system core improvements
File systems: Integration with systemd is broader
You can now use systemd to manage IBM Spectrum Scale systemd services on configured systems. IBM Spectrum Scale automatically installs and configures GPFS as a suite of systemd services on systems that have systemd version 219 or later installed. Support for the IBM Spectrum Scale Cluster Configuration Repository (CCR) is included. For more information, see Planning for systemd.

File systems: Traditional NSD nodes and servers can use checksums
NSD clients and servers that are configured with IBM Spectrum Scale can use checksums to verify data integrity and detect network corruption of file data that the client reads from or writes to the NSD server. For more information, see the nsdCksumTraditional and nsdDumpBuffersOnCksumError attributes in the topic mmchconfig command.

File systems: Concurrent updates to small shared directories are faster
Fine-grained directory locking significantly improves the performance of concurrent updates to small directories that are accessed by more than one node. "Concurrent" updates means updates by multiple nodes within a 10-second interval. A "small" directory is one with fewer than 8 KiB entries.

File systems: NSD disk discovery on Linux now detects NVMe devices
The default script for NSD disk discovery on Linux, /usr/lpp/mmfs/bin/mmdevdiscover, now automatically detects NVM Express (NVMe) devices. It is no longer necessary to create an nsddevices user exit script to detect NVMe devices on a node. For more information, see NSD disk discovery and nsddevices user exit.

mmapplypolicy command: New default values are available for the parameters -N (helper nodes) and -g (global work directory)
  • If the -N parameter is not specified and the defaultHelperNodes attribute is not set, then the list of helper nodes defaults to the managerNodes node class. The target file system must be at format version 5.0.1 (format number 19.01) or later.
  • If the -g parameter is not specified, then the global work directory defaults to the path (absolute or relative) that is stored in the new sharedTmpDir attribute. The target file system can be at any supported format version.
For more information, see mmapplypolicy command and mmchconfig command.

mmbackup command: A new default value is available for the -g (global work directory) parameter
If the -g parameter is not specified, then the global work directory defaults to the path (absolute or relative) that is stored in the new sharedTmpDir attribute. The target file system can be at any supported format version. For more information, see mmbackup command and mmchconfig command.

mmcachectl command: You can list the file and directory entries in the local page pool
You can display the number of bytes of file data that are stored in the local page pool for each file in a set of files, along with related information. You can display information for a single file, for the files in a fileset, for all the files in a file system, or for all the file systems that are mounted by the node. For more information, see mmcachectl command.

IBM Spectrum Scale functionality to support GDPR requirements
To understand the requirements of EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance that are applicable to unstructured data storage and how IBM Spectrum Scale helps to address them, see the IBM Spectrum Scale functionality to support GDPR requirements technote.

IBM Spectrum Scale management API changes
Added the following API commands:
  • GET /nodes/{name}/services
  • GET /nodes/{name}/services/{serviceName}
  • PUT /nodes/{name}/services/{serviceName}
  • POST /filesystems/{filesystemName}/filesets/{filesetName}/afmctl
  • GET /filesystems/{filesystemName}/policies
  • PUT /filesystems/{filesystemName}/policies
  • GET /perfmon/sensors
  • GET /perfmon/sensors/{sensorName}
  • PUT /perfmon/sensors/{sensorName}
  • GET /cliauditlog

For more information on the API commands, see IBM Spectrum Scale management API commands. You can also access the documentation corresponding to each API command from the GUI itself. The API documentation is available in the GUI at: https://<IP address or host name of API server>:<port>/ibm/api/explorer/. For example: https://scalegui.ibm.com:443/ibm/api/explorer.

IBM Spectrum Scale GUI changes
The following changes are made to the GUI:
  • Added a new Services page that provides options to monitor, configure, and manage various services that are available in the IBM Spectrum Scale system. You can monitor and manage the following services from the Services page:
    • GPFS daemon
    • GUI
    • CES
    • CES network
    • Hadoop connector
    • Performance monitoring
    • NFS
    • SMB
    • Object
    • File auditing
    • Message queue
    • File authentication
    • Object authentication
  • Added a new Access > Command Audit Log page that lists the various actions that are performed through the CLI. This page helps the system administrator to audit the commands and tasks the users and administrators are performing. These logs can also be used to troubleshoot issues that are reported in the system.
  • Moved the NFS Service, SMB Service, Object Service, and Object Administrator pages from the Settings menu to the newly created Services page.
  • Removed GUI Preferences page and moved the options in that page to the GUI section of the Services page.
  • New option is added in the GUI section of Services page to define session timeout for the GUI users.
  • Support for creating and installing a self-signed or CA-certified SSL certificates is added in the GUI section of the Services page.
  • Remote cluster monitoring capabilities are added. You can now create customized performance charts in the Monitoring > Statistics page and use them in the Monitoring > Dashboard page. If a file system is mounted on the remote cluster node, the performance of the remote node can be monitored through the detailed view of file systems in Files > File Systems page.
  • Modified the Files > Transparent Cloud Tiering page to display details of the container pairs and cloud account.
  • Added support for creating and modifying encryption rules in the Files > Information Lifecycle page. You can now create and manage the following types of encryption rules as well:
    • Encryption
    • Encryption specification
    • Encryption exclude
  • Added ILM policy run settings in the Files > Information Lifecycle page.
  • Added the Provide Feedback option in the user menu that is available at the upper right corner of the GUI.
  • In the Monitoring > Events page, the events that are occurred multiple times are now grouped under the newly introduced Event Groups tab and the number of occurrences of the events are indicated in the Occurrences column. The Individual Events tab lists all the events irrespective of the multiple occurrences.
  • Added a report for fileset growth and size distribution in the Files > Filesets page.
  • Added the GPFSFilesystemAPI-sensor based performance monitoring in the File Systems and Nodes pages.
  • NFS performance monitoring metrics are added in the detailed view of the Files > Active File Management page.

Installation toolkit changes
  • The installation toolkit supports the installation and the deployment of IBM Spectrum Scale on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.5 on x86_64, PPC64, and PPC64LE.
  • The installation toolkit supports the installation and the deployment of IBM Spectrum Scale on Ubuntu 16.04.4 and 18.04 (x86_64).
  • The installation toolkit config populate option now supports call home and file audit logging.
  • The installation toolkit performance monitoring configuration for protocols sensors has been improved.

mmhealth command: Enhancements
New options have been added to the mmhealth node show and mmhealth cluster show commands. For more information, see mmhealth command.
Object changes
  • In Cluster Export Services (CES), the Pike release of OpenStack is used for Swift, Keystone, and their dependent packages.
NFS changes
  • NFS Daemon rename - improved compatibility with Red Hat Selinux environment.
  • CES NFS logs its crash stack trace, in case of an abnormal termination.
SMB changes
The following enhancements are done:
  • winbind queuing improvements under high load
  • winbind enhancements to re-establish domain controller connection on reboot
  • Support for hardware encryption on Power®
  • Enhanced debug messages
  • Enhanced share mode handling with Microsoft Excel temporary files
  • IBM Spectrum Scale by default does no longer allow anonymous access via SMB. With this change, it is no longer possible to enumerate local users without credentials. If this change causes issues with customer application requiring anonymous access, the original behavior can be restored by issuing the mmsmb config change --option "restrict anonymous = 0" command.

System Health changes
  • Improved configuration options for performance monitoring tools
  • Enhanced checking of Infiniband port state: monitoring of port speed and width
  • Upgrade: better shutdown/unmount orchestration to avoid upgrade problems
  • Recovery: Automatic restart of nfs-ganesha
  • Added performance data to call home package
  • CES improvements
  • Network monitoring for CES IPs when using node affinity
  • Identification of unassigned CES IPs
  • Improve error messages for easier problem determination
  • Enhanced reporting for CES IP moves and rebalancing
Introduction of global group for call home
Call home now uses a global group as a default group that contains the global values that are applied to all groups. For more information on this group and its uses, see Understanding call home.
Automatic single node assignment for performance monitoring
A single node is automatically selected by the system to run certain sensors. If the selected node becomes unresponsive, the system reconfigures a healthy node to act as the singleton sensor node. For more information on assigning single node sensors, see Automatic assignment of single node sensors.
Upgrades to call home configuration
Upgrading call home to a higher version requires specific steps. For more information, see Upgrading call home.
New options to monitor node health
The CESIP option can be used to monitor a cluster manager node. Fore more information, see Monitoring the health of a node.
Documented commands, structures, and subroutines
The following section lists the modifications to the documented commands, structures, and subroutines:
New commands
The following command is new in this release:
  • mmcachectl
New structures
There are no new structures.
New subroutines
There are no new subroutines.
Changed commands
The following commands were changed:
  • mmapplypolicy
  • mmbackup
  • mmces
  • mmcallhome
  • mmchconfig
  • mmchfileset
  • mmcloudgateway
  • mmfsck
  • mmhealth
  • mmlsqos
  • mmlssnapshot
  • mmnfs
  • mmsmb
  • mmuserauth
  • spectrumscale
Changed structures
There are no changed structures.
Changed subroutines
There are no changed subroutines.
Deleted commands
There are no deleted commands.
Deleted structures
There are no deleted structures.
Deleted subroutines
There are no deleted subroutines.
Messages
The following are the new, changed, and deleted messages:
New messages
6027-307, 6027-2402, 6027-2403, 6027-2404, 6027-2405, 6027-2406, 6027-2407, and 6027-3932.
Changed messages
None.
Deleted messages
None.
Changes in documentation
List of documentation changes in product guides and respective Knowledge Center sections

The following is a list of documentation changes including changes in topic titles, changes in placement of topics, and deleted topics:

Table 1. List of changes in documentation
Guide Knowledge center section List of changes
Concepts, Planning, and Installation Guide Installing
Upgrading
Administration Guide Administering
Problem Determination Guide Monitoring Threshold monitoring use cases is now placed as a sub-page of System health monitoring use cases.