Administering a multi-region object deployment environment

Use the following information to administer a multi-region object deployment environment.

A multi-region environment consists of several independent storage clusters that are linked together to provide unified object access. Configuration changes in one cluster that affect the multi-region environment are not automatically distributed to all clusters.

The cluster that makes the configuration change must export the relevant multi-region data. Then, the other regions must import that data to synchronize the multi-region configuration. Changes that affect multi-region are:

Changes to the CES IP pool, such as adding or deleting addresses, which affect the ring layout.
Changes to the object services ports used for the account, container, and object servers (ports 6200-6202).
Creation, deletion, or modification of storage policies.
Changes to the swift.conf configuration file.

Use the following commands to manage the configuration of the multi-region environment:

To export the data for the current region so that it can be integrated into other regions, use the following command. The RegionData file that is created can be used to update other regions:
```
mmobj multiregion export --region-file RegionData
```
The RegionData file is created and it contains the updated multi-region information.
To import the multi-region data to synchronize the configuration, use the following command. The RegionData must be the file that is created from the mmobj multiregion export command:
```
mmobj multiregion import --region-file RegionData
```

As part of the export or import commands, a region checksum is printed. This checksum can be used to ensure that the regions are synchronized. If the checksums values match, then the multi-region configuration of the clusters match. In some cases, the checksums do not match after import. The checksums do not match because the cluster that imports have local configuration changes that are synchronized with the other regions. For example, a storage policy was created but the multi-region configuration was not synchronized with the other regions. If that happens, the import command prints a message that the regions are not fully synchronized because of the local configuration and that the region data must be exported and imported to the other regions. After all regions have matching checksums, the multi-region environment is synchronized.

An existing region can be removed from the multi-region environment. This action permanently removes the region configuration, and the associated cluster cannot rejoin the multi-region environment.

The cluster of the removed region needs to disable object services because it is usable as a standalone object deployment.

To remove a previously-defined region from the configuration, run the following command from a different region than the one being removed:
```
mmobj multiregion remove --remove-region-number RegionNumber
```
The cluster that is associated with the removed region must clean up object services with the mmces service disable OBJ -a command to uninstall object services.
Run the following command to display the current multi-region information:
```
mmobj multiregion list
```