First steps

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

Important

Zadara’s web applications allow only TLS 1.2 and higher, which is the recommended TLS level by industry standards. The TLS (Transport Layer Security) protocol secures transmission of data over the internet using standard encryption technology.

Register a Zadara Account

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

Creating a VPSA

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

    The Create Zadara Service dialog opens.

    Select:

    • Storage Array to create a hybrid VPSA Storage Array.

    • Flash Array to create a performance-optimized VPSA Flash Array with built-in inline data reduction support.

    Click Next to progress to your selection.

Note

VPSA Object Storage creation is described in the VPSA Object Storage User Guide.


Creating a VPSA Storage Array

Scope: VPSA Storage Array

The Create Storage Array definitions dialog opens after selecting Storage Array in the Provisioning Portal’s Create Zadara Service dialog.

  1. Select Provider and Define Name dialog:

    Note

    From the public cloud Provisioning Portal you can provision and manage all of your VPSAs, even if they are connected to different cloud provider groups and provider sites.

    Enter the following fields:

    1. Provider Group - Select the cloud provider group for your deployment.

    2. Provider - Select the provider site for your deployment.

    3. VPSA Name – Give the VPSA a name. This is how it will appear in the Cloud Console and in the VPSA GUI. If you plan on having multiple VPSAs, you might want to give it as detailed a name as possible.

    4. VPSA Description (Optional) – Give the VPSA a description.

    Click Next to continue to the Select Engine Type and Drives configuration.

  2. Select Engine Type and Drives dialog:

    Enter the following fields:

    1. Engine Type – The Zadara IO engine type defines the compute characteristics of your VPSA’s Virtual Controllers (VCs). Each engine type defines the following characteristics:

      • Number of CPUs that are assigned to your VPSA’s VCs.

      • Amount of RAM that is assigned to your VPSA’s VCs.

      • Default size of protected SSD Cache.

      When selecting the IO engine, take into account the capacity planned for this VPSA. Each engine has a limit to the number of drives it can support, and to the total raw capacity of the VPSA.

      You can change the Zadara engine type (upgrade or downgrade) at any time throughout the lifetime of your VPSA according to your application’s needs, on condition that you stay within the maximum limits of the engine type you are moving to.

      Note

      The compute resources (CPU, RAM and Cache) are dedicated to your VPSA, which ensures consistent performance and isolation from other tenants’ workloads and behavior.

    2. Flash Cache - (for VPSA Storage Array engines larger than 200) - From the dropdown, select the amount of flash cache to allocate to the VPSA. Note that each VPSA engine is provided with a minimum amount of cache memory. The extended cache is allocated in 200GB increments.

    3. Drive Quantities – Select the type and number of drives that you would like allocated to your VPSA.

      • The Zadara Cloud Orchestrator allocates dedicated drives.

      • Drives are allocated from as many different SNs as possible to provide maximum redundancy for your VPSA’s RAID groups.

      • There is a limit to the number of drives per Zadara IO engine type. The larger the engine is, the more drives you can add. There is also a limit to the total raw capacity of all drives. Make sure that the total capacity of all selected drives is within the limit.

      The following table lists the maximum drives per VPSA Storage Array engine type:

      IO Engine Type

      Maximum # of Pools

      Maximum # of Drives

      Maximum Raw Capacity

      200

      3

      5

      24 TB

      400

      3

      10

      70 TB

      600

      3

      20

      140 TB

      800

      3

      30

      180 TB

      1000

      3

      40

      240 TB

      1200

      3

      60

      300 TB

      1600

      3

      80

      400 TB

      2400

      3

      80

      800 TB

      3600

      3

      80

      1000 TB

      Note

      While it is technically possible to create a VPSA using the 200 engine to fulfill basic storage needs, it is important to note that such a setup may not be suitable for demanding production workloads. A smaller storage solution typically lacks the necessary scalability and performance capabilities required to handle the rigorous demands of a production environment. In scenarios where data growth, high-volume transactions, or complex data processing are involved, it is strongly advised to start with a larger engine that can ensure optimal performance and reliable storage management. Prioritizing a well-designed storage infrastructure can prevent potential bottlenecks and other issues that may hinder the smooth operation of critical business applications.

    4. Create RAID-10 – By default, at VPSA creation time RAID-10 pools are automatically created, one pool per type of selected drive. The pool includes all the selected drives of each type. If you want to create different pools settings, uncheck this checkbox, and manually create your RAID groups and pools as described in Creating RAID Group, Pools, and Volumes.

    Click Next to continue to the Advanced Services configuration.

  3. Advanced Services dialog:

    Enter the following fields:

    1. Container Services Engine – The Zadara Container Services (ZCS) Engine defines the compute resources of the VPSA’s Virtual Controllers that are allocated for Docker containers within this VPSA. Refer to Containers for details about Zadara Container Services.

    2. File Lifecycle Management - Enable file lifecycle management and analytics.

      Note

      File lifecycle management indexing consumes some VPSA compute and memory resources.

      • A dedicated indexing repository is created in the VPSA, for file lifecycle management.

      • Additional SSD volumes are allocated from the VPSA’s existing resources to support file lifecycle management.

    3. Fibre Channel Support – Check this checkbox if you will be connecting hosts to this VPSA over FC SAN.

    Click Next to continue to review and confirm your selections.

  4. Review and Confirm dialog:

    1. After selecting the VPSA characteristics, review the displayed summary.

      You can click Back to return to previous dialog screens to modify your previous selections.

    2. Press the Create button to confirm the VPSA creation request.

      • The requested VPSA will appear in the Provisioning Portal’s Service Inventory list, with the Awaiting Approval status.

      • Completing the VPSA creation requires the approval of a Zadara Storage Cloud admin. Once approved, the new VPSA takes only a few minutes to launch. During that time you’ll see your VPSA with the Launching status and spinner, until launched.

  5. VPSA First Access:

    1. When the VPSA is ready, you’ll receive an email with a temporary passcode at your registered email address.

    2. To access the VPSA GUI, in the Provisioning Portal select the VPSA and under Properties, click the Management Console link.

      Note

      By default, the VPSA interfaces are accessible to the storage front-end network only.

      If you want to access it using a public IP, refer to the Assigning Public IPs section in this guide.

    3. Use your registered username or email address and the temporary passcode to enter the VPSA GUI. You will be immediately prompted to set a new password for your VPSA user account.

Creating a VPSA Flash Array

Scope:VPSA Flash Array

The Create Flash Array definitions dialog opens after selecting Flash Array in the Provisioning Portal’s Create Zadara Service dialog.

  1. Select Provider and Define Name dialog:

    Note

    From the public cloud Provisioning Portal you can provision and manage all of your VPSAs, even if they are connected to different cloud provider groups and provider sites.

    Enter the following fields:

    1. Provider Group - Select the cloud provider group for your deployment.

    2. Provider - Select the provider site for your deployment.

    3. VPSA Name – Give the VPSA a name. This is how it will appear in the Cloud Console and in the VPSA GUI. If you plan on having multiple VPSAs, you might want to give it as detailed a name as possible.

    4. VPSA Description (Optional) – Give the VPSA a description.

    Click Next to continue to the Select Engine Type and Drives configuration.

  2. Select Engine Type and Drives dialog:

    Enter the following fields in the VPSA Flash Array’s Select Engine Type and Drives dialog:

    1. Engine Type – The Zadara IO engine type defines the compute characteristics of your VPSA’s Virtual Controllers (VCs). Each engine type defines the following characteristics:

      • Number of CPUs that are assigned to your VPSA’s VCs.

      • Amount of RAM that is assigned to your VPSA’s VCs.

      When selecting the IO engine, take into account the capacity planned for this VPSA. Each engine has a limit to the number of drives it can support, and to the total raw capacity of the VPSA.

      You can change the Zadara engine type (upgrade or downgrade) at any time throughout the lifetime of your VPSA according to your application’s needs, on condition that you stay within the maximum limits of the engine type you are moving to.

      Note

      The compute resources (CPU, RAM and Cache) are dedicated to your VPSA, which ensures consistent performance and isolation from other tenants’ workloads and behavior.

    2. Drive Quantities – Select the type and number of drives that you would like allocated to your VPSA.

      • The Zadara Cloud Orchestrator allocates dedicated drives.

      • Drives are allocated from as many different SNs as possible to provide maximum redundancy for your VPSA’s RAID groups.

      • There is a limit to the number of drives per Zadara IO engine type. The larger the engine is, the more drives you can add. There is also a limit to the total raw capacity of all drives. Make sure that the total capacity of all selected drives is within the limit.

      The following table lists the maximum drives and capacity per VPSA Flash Array Engine type:

      Note

      Due to VPSA Flash Array data reduction, the capacity limit per engine depends on both the physical capacity of the drives and the customer virtual capacity (as seen by the hosts), before any data reduction.

      More about VPSA Flash Array capacities: Understanding Pool’s Capacity

      IO Engine Type

      Maximum # of Pools

      Maximum # of Drives

      Maximum Raw Capacity

      Maximum Provisioned Capacity

      H100

      1

      60

      280 TB

      140 TB

      H200

      2

      80

      440 TB

      220 TB

      H300

      2

      120

      800 TB

      400 TB

      H400

      2

      140

      1000 TB

      500 TB

      The high tier (also known as tier 0) is the more performant tier of the VPSA, and comprises in-array SSD/NVME drives.

      The low tier (also known as tier 1) is the capacity-oriented tier of the VPSA.

      It can be implemented via in-array SATA/NLSAS drives, or by connectivity to a remote object storage container.

      • SSD Storage Class: The number of SSD type drives for Tier 0 (high tier).

      • HDD Storage Class: The number of HDD type drives for Tier 1 (low tier).

      For more information on tiers see Tiers in Understanding Storage Pools.

      Note

      The above capacities depend on the type of the pool(s) used.

      The numbers shown are the limits of the aggregated size of all pools of type Throughput-Optimized.

      See Creating a Pool for details

    3. Create RAID-10 – By default, at VPSA creation time RAID-10 pools are automatically created, one pool per type of selected drive. The pool includes all the selected drives of each type. If you want to create different pools settings, uncheck this checkbox, and manually create your RAID groups and pools as described in Creating RAID Group, Pools, and Volumes.

    Click Next to continue to the Advanced Services configuration.

  3. Advanced Services dialog:

    Enter the following fields:

    1. Container Services Engine – The Zadara Container Services (ZCS) Engine defines the compute resources of the VPSA’s Virtual Controllers that are allocated for Docker containers within this VPSA. Refer to Containers for details about Zadara Container Services.

    1. File Lifecycle Management - Enable file lifecycle management and analytics.

      Note

      File lifecycle management indexing consumes some VPSA compute and memory resources.

      • A dedicated indexing repository is created in the VPSA, for file lifecycle management.

      • Additional SSD volumes are allocated from the VPSA’s existing resources to support file lifecycle management.

      • Usage of the File Lifecycle Management service incurs additional charges.

    2. Data Reduction Bundle - Enable support for:

      • Inline data compression

      • Inline data deduplication

      Note

      Usage of the Data Reduction service incurs additional charges.

    Click Next to continue to review and confirm your selections.

  4. Review and Confirm dialog:

    1. After selecting the VPSA characteristics, review the displayed summary.

      You can click Back to return to previous dialog screens to modify your previous selections.

    2. Press the Create button to confirm the VPSA creation request.

      • The requested VPSA will appear in the Provisioning Portal’s Service Inventory list, with the Awaiting Approval status.

      • Completing the VPSA creation requires the approval of a Zadara Storage Cloud admin. Once approved, the new VPSA takes only a few minutes to launch. During that time you’ll see your VPSA with the Launching status and spinner, until launched.

  5. VPSA First Access:

    1. When the VPSA is ready, you’ll receive an email with a temporary passcode at your registered email address.

    2. To access the VPSA GUI, in the Provisioning Portal select the VPSA and under Properties, click the Management Console link.

      Note

      By default, the VPSA interfaces are accessible to the storage front-end network only.

      If you want to access it using a public IP, refer to the Assigning Public IPs section in this guide.

    3. Use your registered username or email address and the temporary passcode to enter the VPSA GUI. You will be immediately prompted to set a new password for your VPSA user account.


Creating RAID Group, Pools, and Volumes

By default a new VPSA is created with all its drives configured in RAID Groups, and a Pool per each drives type. If the automatic pools satisfy your needs, go directly to the volumes creation below.

Otherwise follow the RAID Group and Pool creation instruction:

  1. Create a RAID Group to define the level of data protection needed.

    For more details, see Creating a RAID Group.

  2. Create a storage pool by using aggregated capacity from one or more RAID Groups.

    For more details, see Creating a Pool.

  3. Create an iSCSI / FC / NFS / SMB Thin Provisioned Volume to be used by your servers.

    For more details, see Creating and Deleting a Volume.

  4. Add a server. The server object represents the host using the storage volume.

    Follow the instructions depending on the OS and connectivity of your server: Adding a Server

  5. Attach the Volume to a Server.

    For more details, see Attaching & detaching Volumes to Servers

Congratulations! You have a new VPSA provisioned and ready to use.

The following sections describe the various capabilities and services of your VPSA in detail.

Managing your VPSA’s resources

You create, add, change, delete and manage the resources comprising your VPSAs via the Zadara Provisioning Portal.

This section describes the operations available in the Provisioning Portal (https://manage.zadarastorage.com).

Adding and removing Disk Drives

To add drives to your VPSA go to the Provisioning Portal, select the VPSA, and from the Actions dropdown select Add Drives.

  • Select the number of drives from each available drive type you wish to add to your VPSA, and press Add. Keep in mind the RAID Groups you are going to build.

  • This operation requires the approval of a Zadara Storage Cloud Admin. Once approved, you’ll see the number of drives in the Provisioning Portal update accordingly. If you then refresh the Drives page in the VPSA GUI, the new drives will be displayed.

You can remove unused drives (indicated by the Available status) from within the VPSA.

In the VPSA GUI, go to the Drives page, select the drive you wish to remove and press Remove.

If you wish to remove a drive that is part of a RAID Group, you first need to replace it with another drive as described in Replacing a Drive.

Managing Zadara Engines

The Zadara IO Engine type defines the following characteristics of your VPSA’s Storage Controllers:

  • Dedicated CPU and memory resources - These are dedicated solely to your VPSA. These resources are not shared with any other VPSA or tenant within the Zadara Storage Cloud.

  • Flash Cache Size (VPSA Storage Array only) - Each VPSA is provisioned with a Flash Cache partition to be used for both metadata and read/write caching. The SSD cache partition is protected using RAID-1, where each mirror copy resides on a different SN, thus ensuring cache resilience to SN failure. Each Engine type is provided with a base SSD cache partition size. You can request additional flash capacity for caching. For more details see Adjusting Flash Cache (VPSA Storage Array).

  • Maximum number of drives – The maximum number of drives that can be allocated to each VPSA engine type.

The following Zadara IO Engines are available for VPSA Storage Array:

IO Engine Type

Dedicated Compute Resources

Base Flash Cache

Max # of Drives

Max Raw Capacity

200

2 CPU, 6 GB RAM

20 GB

5

24 TB

400

4 CPU, 12 GB RAM

20 GB

10

70 TB

600

6 CPU, 20 GB RAM

40 GB

20

140 TB

800

8 CPU, 28 GB RAM

60 GB

30

180 TB

1000

10 CPU, 36 GB RAM

80 GB

40

240 TB

1200

12 CPU, 52 GB RAM

100 GB

60

300 TB

1600

16 CPU, 68 GB RAM

120 GB

80

400 TB

2400

24 CPU, 100 GB RAM

180 GB

80

800 TB

3600

36 CPU, 144 GB RAM

240 GB

80

1000 TB

The following Zadara IO Engines are available for VPSA Flash Array:

IO Engine Type

Dedicated Compute Resources

Maximum # of Drives

Maximum Raw Capacity

Maximum Provisioned Capacity

H100

12 CPU, 72 GB RAM

60

280

140 TB

H200

24 CPU, 116 GB RAM

80

440

220 TB

H300

36 CPU, 176 GB RAM

120

800

400 TB

H400

48 CPU, 236 GB RAM

140

1000

500 TB

Note

  • Due to data reduction in a VPSA Flash Array, the capacity limit per engine depends on both the physical capacity of the drives and the provisioned capacity, before any data reduction.

  • The above capacities depend on the type of the pool used. The numbers shown are the limits of the aggregated size of all pools of type Throughput-Optimized. See Creating a Pool for details.

More about VPSA Flash Array capacities: Understanding Pool’s Capacity


The following Zadara Container Services Engines (see: Containers) are available:

Zadara ZCS Engine Type

Dedicated compute resources

01

2 CPU, 512 MB RAM

02

2 CPU, 1 GB RAM

04

4 CPU, 2 GB RAM

06

6 CPU, 4 GB RAM

08

8 CPU, 8 GB RAM

To change both types of Zadara Engines, in the Provisioning Portal select the VPSA, and from the Actions dropdown select Change Engine Type.

When selecting any engine larger than 200 you can also select the required flash cache size for that engine. For Flash Cache limits see Adjusting Flash Cache (VPSA Storage Array).

Completing this operation requires the approval of the Zadara Storage Cloud Admin.

The Zadara Engine upgrade/downgrade process may take a few minutes. During that time, the VPSA status will change to Upgrade Pending.

When the process completes, the VPSA status will change back to Ready.


Managing Virtual Networks

The Zadara cloud provides a flexible and dynamic virtual networking infrastructure that can be tailored to meet multiple storage architecture and use cases.

Each cloud tennant is allocated with one or more “Virutal Networks” which is a set of available IP addresses within a specific network segment. Virtual networks are allocated for a specific cloud tenneant and within a specific avilable cloud VLAN.

The below diagram depicts the relationship between cloud tenants, virtual networks and VLANs:

image100


In case a VPSA serves as storage for servers on different networks, the VPSA can be plugged on multiple “Virtual Networks”. Both block volumes and NAS shares can simultaneously be exposed through one or more Virtual Networks.

Each VPSA is created with a primary network for its front end (hosts connectivity). This network is routable and is mandatory.

You can manage your virtual networks from the Zadara Provisioning Portal. In the Provisioning Portal, click your account at the top right, and in the dropdown, click Network Management.

To create another virtual network press Next, and fill in the requested parameters such as: CIDR, Gateway, IP Range, and whether IPv4 or IPv6 should be used.

You can add and remove secondary networks to the VPSA. The VPSA internally maintains a “Virtual Networks Interface” (VNI) that connects into each virtual networks.

To add a Virtual Network Interface, in the Provisioning Portal select the VPSA, and from the Actions dropdown select Add Virtual Network Interface.

To remove a Virtual Network Interface, in the Provisioning Portal select the VPSA, and from the Actions dropdown select Remove Virtual Network Interface.

Note

  • Number of VNIs per VPSA is limited to 5.

  • VPSA REST API/GUI is accessible through any VNI.

  • Only Primary VN IP is registered in DNSimple

  • VPSA can’t have two VNI with the same VLAN.

Note

  • Only “Primary Virtual Network” is a routable network. Remaining virtual networks are not routable. There are some limitations on the remaining virtual networks:

  • Active Directory can be joined only through “primary virtual network”.

  • Backup (B2OS), Mirror, Remote Clone through FE network are only allowed via the “primary virtual network”.

  • ZCS container services exposed through FE network can be done only on “primary virtual network”.

  • “iSER” host connectivity is available only on the “Primary Virtual Network”.


Assigning Public IPs

By default you cannot access the VPSA from the public Internet for security and privacy reasons. The VPSA Front-End IP address which is used for VPSA management (via GUI and REST API) and for data IO workload (host connectivity via iSCSI/NFS/SMB protocols), is allocated on the Zadara Storage Cloud “Front-End” network 10GbE interface which is routable only from the Cloud Servers network. Servers outside of your Cloud Servers network cannot reach this IP address. This means you cannot access your VPSA GUI from the Internet.

A typical use case requiring Public IP addresses is when you’re running Asynchronous Remote Mirroring between two VPSAs in different regions, between on premise and cloud deployments or even between different Cloud Providers for Disaster Recovery (DR). Communication between the VPSAs is done via an authenticated and encrypted channel over the public Internet, thus requiring Public IPs.

To assign a Public IP address to your VPSA, go to the Provisioning Portal and press the Assign Public IP link. You can see the assigned IP address in your VPSA details in the Provisioning Portal and in the VPSA GUI, under Settings > General > Public IP. To remove it, click Remove Public IP in the Provisioning Portal.

Note

Access to the VPSA GUI and API is blocked through the Public IP for security reasons.

Note

NAT’d server IP connections are not supported for iSCSI, NFS, and SMB protocols over the Public IP.


Adjusting Flash Cache (VPSA Storage Array)

Scope: VPSA Storage Array

Each VPSA is provisioned with a base flash cache partition, which is utilized by the VPSA for both metadata and read/write caching. The initially assigned default SSD cache size is also the minimal cache size for a given Zadara Engine. The flash cache partition is protected using RAID-1, where each mirror copy resides on a different SN, thus ensuring cache resilience to multiple types of failure.

On top of the base flash cache described above, you can add an extended cache. The VPSA extended flash cache size is elastic, so you can increase or decrease the cache size according to the needs of your workload.

Each Engine type has a minimum (default) and maximum SSD Cache size, as shown in the table below:

Zadara Engine

Base Flash Cache

Default Extended Flash Cache Size

Max Extended Flash Cache Size

200

20 GB

0 GB

0 GB

400

20 GB

200 GB

400 GB

600

40 GB

400 GB

800 GB

800

60 GB

600 GB

1200 GB

1000

80 GB

800 GB

1600 GB

1200

100 GB

1200 GB

2400 GB

1600

120 GB

1600 GB

3200 GB

2400

180 GB

1600 GB

3200 GB

3600

240 GB

1600 GB

3200 GB

To change the Extended Flash Cache size for your VPSA, in the Provisioning Portal select the VPSA, and from the Actions dropdown select Change Flash Cache.


Enabling or Disabling Data Reduction Bundle

Scope: VPSA Flash Array

The Data Reduction Bundle provides the option to activate one, both or neither of inline compression and deduplication per Volume in a VPSA Flash Array.

A VPSA Flash Array’s Data Reduction Bundle can be enabled or disabled at any time.

Enabling Data Reduction Bundle

To enable the ability to configure a VPSA Flash Array’s Volumes’ inline compression and deduplication options:

  1. In Zadara’s Provisioning Portal, go to Console > Service Inventory and locate the VPSA in the inventory list.

  2. Click the VPSA to select it, and from its Actions dropdown select Enable Data Reduction Bundle.

  3. To activate inline compression and deduplication on the VPSA’s existing Volumes:

    1. In the VPSA’s UI, go to the Volumes page.

    2. Select the Volume from the Volumes list, and in the south pane’s Properties tab set the Compress and Dedupe properties to Enable.

    3. Repeat this procedure for all Volumes in the VPSA that should have inline compression and deduplication.

Disabling Data Reduction Bundle

To disable the ability to configure a VPSA Flash Array’s Volumes’ inline compression and deduplication options:

  1. In Zadara’s Provisioning Portal, go to Console > Service Inventory and locate the VPSA in the inventory list.

  2. Click the VPSA to select it, and from its Actions dropdown select Disable Data Reduction Bundle.

Upgrading your VPSA

From zStorage 23.09, the self-service VPSA software update process is available in Zadara’s Provisioning Portal. The self-service option streamlines and accelerates the VPSA update process. VPSA owners can now determine VPSA update schedules at their own convenience. The self-service software update can be run immediately, or scheduled to run in 30 minutes from the current time, up to 7 days from the current date and time.

Important

  • Per Zadara’s Software Lifecycle Policy, only VPSAs that are running software versions that have not entered the End of Support phase are eligible for self-service software updates.

  • The update takes up to 20 minutes on the standby controller, followed by the VPSA initiating a single failover, during which IOs are paused for several seconds and resume automatically.

In the Service Inventory list of the Provisioning Portal’s Console, the Update Available! badge displays next to the VPSA’s Service Type.

To update a VPSA:

  1. In the Provisioning Portal, in the Console’s Service Inventory list, either click the eligible VPSA’s Update Available! badge, or click the VPSA row to open the VPSA’s details pane on the right, and in the Actions dropdown menu, select VPSA Software Update.

    The update process runs checks to verify that the VPSA’s state allows an upgrade. For example, if the VPSA’s state is Degraded or the VPSA is running an older software version that cannot be upgraded directly, a relevant message is displayed directing users to contact Zadara Support.

    On successful verification of the VPSA for the self-service update, the VPSA Software Update dialog opens. The VPSA’s current running version is displayed, as well as the new zStorage software version that is available for update, together with the link to its release notes. This is followed by a brief description of the flow of the marked update process (Now or Schedule an update for later).

  2. Select the update schedule:

    • Now

      Important

      On confirmation, the VPSA software update process is executed immediately, and takes up to 20 minutes to complete.

      The standby controller is updated with the latest software version. This is followed by the VPSA initiating a single failover to complete the software update, during which IOs are paused for several seconds and resume automatically.

      1. Enter your Provisioning Portal login password, and click UPDATE.

        The Update software version started message is displayed.

      2. Click OK to close the dialog.

      Note

      On the next refresh of the Console’s Service Inventory list, the VPSA’s Status display changes to Upgrading Version.

      On completion of the update process, the VPSA’s Status display changes briefly to Reconfiguring, and then back to Created.

    • Schedule an update for later

      1. Enter a date and time, in the range of 30 minutes from the current time, up to 7 days from the current date and time.

        The default is one hour from the current time.

      2. Enter your Provisioning Portal login password, and click UPDATE.

      Important

      When scheduling an update for your VPSA software at a later time:

      1. The VPSA’s standby controller is updated immediately with the new software version, in preparation for the scheduled failover to the new version. The update takes about 20 minutes.

      2. Prior to a scheduled update, the system sends email reminders to the VPSA owner:

        • A notification 8 hours before the scheduled update time.

        • A final notification 10 minutes before the scheduled update time.

      3. At the scheduled time, the VPSA initiates a single failover to complete the software update during which IOs are paused for several seconds, and resume automatically.

      To reschedule a scheduled VPSA upgrade:

      1. Click the eligible VPSA’s Update Available! badge, or click the VPSA row to open the VPSA’s details pane on the right, and in the Actions dropdown menu, select VPSA Software Update.

      2. In the Reschedule VPSA Software Update dialog that opens, select one of:

        • Now

          The previously scheduled update had already updated the standby controller with the new software version, in preparation for its scheduled failover.

          Select Now to trigger an immediate failover to the standby controller to complete the update, during which IOs are paused for several seconds, and resume automatically.

        • Schedule an update for later

          The previously scheduled update had already updated the standby controller with the new software version, in preparation for its scheduled failover.

          Enter a new date and time to reschedule the failover to the updated standby controller, in the range of 30 minutes from the current time, up to 7 days from the current date and time.

      3. Enter your Provisioning Portal login password.

      4. Click Reschedule to apply the new schedule, or Cancel to remain with the original schedule.

The self-service update process:

  • Logs the self-service VPSA software update request in the Provisioning Portal’s access logs.

  • Sends an automatic email notification to VPSA owners on completion of the VPSA software update, advising them of the successful VPSA software update.

Hibernating your VPSA

You can hibernate your VPSA when it is not in use for some period of time in order to reduce its associated service cost. While the VPSA is in a hibernated state you will only be billed for the drives, not the engine. Hibernating a VPSA involves the process of deleting its Virtual Controllers (the VPSA) while maintaining the data drives and all the necessary metadata to resume its operation at a later stage. No data is lost! The hibernated VPSA is not accessible to any GUI or REST API commands, nor will it present any iSCSI or NFS / SMB volumes. Resuming a hibernated VPSA only takes a few minutes.

To change the Extended Flash Cache size for your VPSA, in the Provisioning Portal select the VPSA, and from the Actions dropdown select Hibernate.

To resume access to the VPSA, in the Provisioning Portal select the VPSA, and from the Actions dropdown select Restore.

Note

The Hibernate and Restore toggle depends on the current state of the VPSA

Deleting your VPSA

Warning

Please note that deleting a VPSA 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 VPSA owner can delete their VPSA using Zadara’s Provisioning Portal in case it is no longer needed. The delete operation will delete all VPSA entities such as volumes,pools,raid-groups,drives and server records.

In order to delete a VPSA 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 VPSA owner initiates a delete operation, it will generate a delete request that necessitates approval from a cloud administrator. Once approved, the VPSA will be permanently deleted.

Note

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

The VPSA Interface

Note

The VPSA management interface web application is supported in all modern browsers. We recommend using Google Chrome, Firefox or Microsoft Edge for an optimal user experience.

Understanding the VPSA Dashboard

VPSA Dashboard is the landing page, every time the GUI opens. It gives the overall state of the VPSA (Health, Capacity, Performance) at a glance. The Dashboard has the following components:

vpsa-flash-dashboard

  1. VPSA Info: General information of the VPSA such as its name, engine type and management IP address.

  2. System Health: Shows the inventory of the objects managed by the system, such as Pools, Volumes, Mirrors, and so on. If all objects of a component are in the normal state, there is a green indicator on the component’s tile. If there is situation that needs your attention a red indicator is shown on the component’s tile, with the number of objects requiring attention.

  3. CPU: Shows the CPU utilization of the active Controller of the VPSA, over time. This chart gives an indication of the load on the storage system.

  4. Capacity: Shows the capacity state of the VPSA. The display is different between VPSA Storage Array and VPSA Flash Array. For the latter, it shows the capacity reduction saving. See Understanding Pool’s Capacity for details.

    1. Current capacity state

    2. Capacity consumption over time during the last month

  5. Performance: These charts show the aggregated performance of all Volumes.

    1. Current IOPS (reads and writes) of all Volumes

    2. IOPS activity during the last hour

    3. Current throughput of all Volumes

    4. Throughput of all volumes during the last hour

    5. Current mirroring traffic of all mirrors (outbound and inbound)

    6. Mirroring activity of all mirrors during the last hour


Understanding the VPSA GUI

vpsa-flash-drives

The VPSA GUI provides full management and control of your VPSA. It contains the following main components (as numbered in the above screenshot):

  1. Main Navigation Left Panel – Traverse through the various VPSA entities. The selected entity is highlighted.

  2. The Center Pane – Displays a list of objects from the selected entity type (e.g. Drives in the above screenshot example) and for each object it displays the main properties.

  3. The South Pane – Displays detailed information regarding the selected object. All objects have at least 3 tabs:

    1. Properties – Detailed properties of the object.

    2. Metering – Typically IO workload metering info.

    3. Logs – List of event-log messages related to that object.

  4. Logged-in username – Displayed at the top right corner.

  5. Selected Language – Displayed on the top bar. You can use this drop down to change the displayed language.

System notifications

VPSA 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 VPSA administrator action to ensure the storage service health or to restore the VPSA to normal operation, for example:

  • Pool free capacity state

  • System is pending for Master Encryption key from the administrator

High priority notification

An alert that requires awareness of the VPSA 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:

  • Volume out of free space

  • Duplicate Front-End IP discovery

Normal priority notification

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

  • Temporary Active Directory domain controller connectivity issue

  • VPSA connectivity issue to a server that was set with connectivity test option

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.

For example:

  • Volume low capacity

  • Volume auto-expand confirmation