S3 protocol over remote cluster mounts

IBM Storage Scale allows you to create S3 buckets on remotely mounted file systems.

The following figure shows the high-level flow of this feature:
Figure 1. High-level flow of protocols on remotely mounted file systems
High-level flow of protocols on remotely mounted file systems

This allows you to separate the tasks performed by each cluster. The IBM Storage Scale cluster owns the file systems and the storage. Protocol clusters contain the protocol node that provides access to the remotely mounted file system through S3. In this configuration, each cluster is managed independently. For more information, see Important information about remote access.

Here, the resource cluster owns a file system and the protocol cluster remotely mounts the file system. The protocol nodes (CES nodes) in the protocol cluster make the file system available via S3 buckets.

You can define one set of protocol nodes per cluster, using multiple independent protocol clusters, which remotely mount file systems. Protocol clusters can share access to a resource cluster but not to a file system. Each protocol cluster requires a dedicated file system. Another benefit is the ability to access existing IBM Storage Scale System-based file systems through S3 without adding nodes to the IBM Storage Scale System cluster.