First steps

This chapter contains step-by-step instructions to create a NextGen Object Storage instance and then to configure its storage properties from the Zadara’s Provisioning Portal.

Register a Zadara Account

To register for a new Zadara account, go to https://manage.zadarastorage.com/register/ and complete the registration form. In case you wish to provision your new Object Storage instance in a private location please use the URL provided by Zadara for the local Provisioning Portal instance.

Creating a NextGen Object Storage

  1. Log on to your Zadara Provisioning Portal at https://manage.zadarastorage.com, or at your private cloud, using your username/email & password.

    Important

    It is recommended to enable MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication) in order to add an additional layer of security to your account.

  2. Click Create New Service button

  3. Select the service - Next Gen Object Storage

  4. Select the location of for deployment by selecting the cloud provider from the dropdown list.

  5. Provide a display name and a description for the new Object Storage

  6. Select the redundancy level for the storage policy

  7. Provide a display name. This name will be used for display purposes in Zadara Provisioning Portal console and in the Object Storage management interface. If you are planning on having multiple NextGen Object Storage configurations, you might want to give it meaningful name.

    Note

    Name should contain only letters, numbers, and underscores, and cannot contain spaces.

  8. Provide a description - free text description (i.e. Object Storage - Staging US East).

  9. In the step Capacity and Data Protection phase, select the following:

    • Redundancy Level for Default Storage Policy

      • Erasure-Coding 4+2 (using 3 Fault Domains) (default)

      • 2-Way Protection

      Please refer to Object Storage data policies for additional information and requirements regarding Object Storage data policies.

    • Drive Quantities - select the type and number of Drives that you would like to allocated to your new NextGen Object Storage. The number of drives that can be selected depends on the protection level required.

      • For 2-way protection, an even number of drives must be selected.

      • For Erasure Coding protection the number of drives must be in multiple of 6 drives (i.e. 6,12,18,24 etc.)

  10. In the Confirmation step, you can review the summary for your new service creation. To change anything, click Back and return to the desires step and correct as needed. Once you are ready click Create

  11. The requested Object Storage, will appear in the “Awaiting Approval” list until approved by a Zadara Cloud admin.

  12. Once approved, the new system only takes a few minutes to launch. During that time the Object Storage status will be changes to “Launching”.

  13. You’ll receive an email with a temporary password to the registered email address once the object storage is ready for use.

  14. The NextGen Object Storage web management interface is accessible using the Management URL displayed in the portal.

    Note

    By default, the object storage interfaces are accessible to the storage front-end network only. If you wish to access it using a public IP please refer to the Assigning Public IPs section in this guide.

  15. Use your registered username or email address, and the temporary password, to enter the management interface. You will be immediately prompted to set a new password for your NextGen Object Storage Admin account.

    Note

    It is recommended to enable MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication) in order to add an additional layer of security to your account.

Congratulations! You have successfully created and provisioned a new NextGen Object Storage.

The newly created NextGen Object Storage already has a single account named “zios_admin”, and you are the only user defined “admin” with the role of “NextGen Object Storage Admin”. You are now able to start using your your NextGen Object Storage - create containers and start uploading objects, or create additional accounts and users for others to use.

Please take a look at the Management interface section to familiarize yourself with the object storage administrator capabilities.

Except provisioning Zadara’s Provisioning Portal allows you to perform multiple management operations on an existing object storage service, such as:

  1. Change your instance display name and description

  2. Add capacity (drives) to the data policy

  3. Assign/detach a Public IP to allow external connectivity

  4. Request an additional Proxy Virtual Controller (VC)

  5. Add a virtual network interface

  6. Hibernate the instance (shutdown data services)

  7. Delete your object storage

Adding drives

To add drives to your NextGen Object Storage, open the Zadara Provisioning Portal, select the NextGen Object Storage, click on the Actions button and then press the Add Drives.

  • Select the number of Drives of the relevant type you wish to add to your NextGen Object Storage, and press Add. The number of drives added to the “Storage Policy” should match its characteristics, as described in the previous section of this guide.

  • This operation requires the approval of a Zadara Storage Cloud Admin. Once approved, you’ll see the number of Drives in the Provisioning portal updated according to the request. The new drives will be automatically assigned to your object storage’s data policy.

Assigning Public IPs

For security and privacy reasons, by default you cannot access the Object Storage from a public network (i.e. internet). The Front-End IP address, used for management (via GUI and REST API) and for data IO workload (S3/Swift API), is allocated on the Zadara Storage Cloud “Front-End” network 10/40/100 GbE which is routable only from the Cloud Servers network. As this is an internal IP address, servers outside of your cloud network will not be able to reach this IP address. This means you cannot access your Object Storage from the Internet or any network with no routing to the Front-End network.

To assign a Public IP address to your Object Storage, for internet inbound connectivity, open the Provisioning Portal, select the Object Storage, and click the Actions button and then the Allocate Public IP option. This operation requires Zadara cloud admin approval. Once approved, the IP address will be added to the NextGen Object Storage characteristics. And In the NextGen Object Storage web management interface, under Settings > General > Public IP

To remove it, simply click the Deallocate Public IP

Adding Proxy Virtual Controllers

The object Storage REST API is exposed through the Proxy virtual controllers. For each request, it will look up the location of the account, container, or object and route the request accordingly. Failures are also handled in the Proxy. For example, if an object server is unavailable for an object PUT request, it will find an alternate route there instead.

On top of the Proxy VCs that are provided out of the box, it is possible to add additional Proxy VC in order to improve performance.

Note

Please note that the inclusion of additional controllers will result in additional costs

To assign additional Proxy VC’s, go to the Zadara Provisioning Portal, select the NextGen Object Storage system, and press the Add Proxy Virtual Controllers button. Similarly to adding drives, this operation requires the approval of a Zadara cloud admin.

Upon approval, the Proxy VC will be added automatically to the array and will start handling clients workloads.

In case the additional proxies are no longer needed - it can be removed directly and immediately (without administrator approval) from the Object Storage management interface by the Object Storage administrator or from the Object Storage management RestAPI.

Add a virtual network interface

The object storage can support up to 10 additional network interfaces (on subnets/VLANs) in order to allow client connectivity coming from different networks for with different use-case or network topology.

The system will create a fully-qualified domain name matches to the new interface dynamically that matches the default domain name in order to allow seamless connectivity to the object storage endpoint.

The operation of adding an additional network interface can be handled directly from the provisioning portal and so as network management (VLAN allocation and network creation)

Note

The network interfaces assigned to the object storage instance must be on different subnet/VLAN (i.e. network 192.168.0.0/24 cannot be used in two different interfaces regardless of the network VLAN)

Hibernate

Zadara cloud allows you to “hibernate” your object storage instance and by doing so you are gracefully shutting down its data services and management interfaces. It is extremely helpful in cases a complete hardware maintenance is underway like complete site relocation, networking gear replacement where all appliances needs to be replaced in parallel etc.

Important

There’s no need to hibernate your instance during standard Zadara’s software upgrades or expansions, the system is designed for seamless upgrades/maintenance.

Unlike the VPSA Storage Array/Flash Array, the Virtual Controllers will not be removed once the instance is hibernated. There will be no impact on billing once the object storage is hibernated.

Deleting your Object Storage

Warning

Please note that deleting the Object Storage is a significant action and should be done with caution. Ensure that you have backed up any critical data and that you are certain you want to proceed with the deletion

The Object Storage owner can delete their instance using Zadara’s Provisioning Portal in case it is no longer needed. The delete operation will delete all underlying entities such as data-policy,accounts,users,containers and objects.

In order to delete the Object Storage select the Delete action from the Actions dropdown menu in Zadara’s Provisioning Portal. The delete operation will require an additional authentication confirmation.

Due to the sensitive nature of the delete operation, when the owner initiates a delete operation, it will generate a delete request that necessitates approval from a cloud administrator. Once approved, the Object Storage will be permanently deleted.

Note

While the delete request is still pending, the Object Storage will continue to operate normally and will continue to report its consumption to the cloud’s billing services

System notifications

Object Storage notifications, both informational and critical, necessitating user action, will be communicated via email to the service owner and other designated users set to receive notifications.

System notifications are categorized based on the following priorities:

  • Urgent

  • High

  • Normal

  • Low

Urgent priority notification

An alert that requires an immediate Object Storage administrator action to ensure the storage service health or to restore the Object Storage to normal operation, for example:

  • Data Policy free capacity state

  • System is pending for Master Encryption key from the administrator

High priority notification

An alert that requires awareness of the Object Storage administrator to ensure the storage service health or other service issues that are currently being handled by Zadara’s support team. In some cases VPSA administrator action is required.

Example for high priority notifications:

  • Custom (customer provided) TLS certificate expired

  • Duplicate Front-End IP discovery

  • Account reached it’s quota usage

Normal priority notification

An alert that requires the administrator’s attention, yet does not necessarily have an immediate impact on the service. For example:

  • New user account creation

Low priority notification

A low-priority message with no impact on service health. While the message may require attention or action from administrators, its lower priority status indicates that it poses minimal or no threat to the current state of the service and can be addressed at the convenience of the administrators without causing service disruptions.