- Enterprise File Storage
- Fault-tolerant Cluster
- Scales from Tera to Peta
- Low Entry Costs
- Maximum Security
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Here we summarize the questions customers most frequently ask us about Dell PowerScale.
Dell PowerScale replaces Dell Isilon in naming. The underlying product remains the same. In mid-2020, the new hardware platforms F200 and F600 were launched with the new Dell EMC PowerScale branding. In the medium term, the Isilon brand will disappear and the solution will be sold as PowerScale.
The PEQ (Pre Engagement Questionnaire) is a questionnaire in Excel format used to capture and coordinate all project-relevant data. Besides address and data information, it also captures IP addresses for the nodes and network segmentation. Usually, the PEQ is filled out by the SA (Solution Architect).
Use a DB9 cable and the transfer rate of 115,200 bps (Bits per Second).
Settings
Transfer Rate: 115,200 bps
Data Bits: 8
Parity: None
Stop Bits: 1
Flow Control: Hardware
The PowerScale WebUI is published on port 8080 by default. Connect to your cluster management interface via https://IP:8080
man isi # opens the isi manual
isi config # shows the isi Configuration Console
isi status -a # shows the status of all nodes
isi get # shows set parameters
isi set # to change parameters
isi services # enable and disable services, e.g. «isi services nfs enable» or «isi nfs exports create /localfolder/ –zone marketing –read-write-clients 192.168.1.10
isi ntp servers # set ntp servers
isi ntp servers list
isi auth status # shows the configured LDAP providers
isi auth ldap # Configure a new LDAP provider
isi auth ads # Configure a new Active Directory provider
isi zone zones # Configure a «unique authentication zone» (e.g. for Marketing, Sales, GL etc.)
isi zone zones list # lists all zones
isi zone zones create sales /demo/sales –auth-providers ads:b1.lab –create-path # creates zone, zone path with AD
isi devices drive list # lists all drives
isi –help # shows the isi tool help
LDAP and Active Directory. Best Practice: First configure LDAP, then join an AD domain.
F: The F-series is optimized for highest performance and good storage density. All-flash nodes (SSD or NVMe) offer the highest available performance in the NAS environment and are suitable even for the most resource-intensive workloads. F900 nodes contain up to 24 NVMe drives per node and handle (with enough nodes) over 250,000 IOPS at up to 945 gigabytes/sec throughput.
Suitable for (examples):
H: Hybrid nodes – balance between performance and high storage capacity.
Suitable for:
A: Focus on cost-effective TB, not on performance, suitable for archives.
Suitable for:
Starting with OneFS 9.3, dedicated accelerator nodes are supported. These don’t provide usable storage space for the cluster, but instead support the cluster with their performance for resource-intensive tasks.
OneFS forms the core of the PowerScale (formerly Isilon) system. OneFS manages the entire cluster and offers the following advantages and features:
Dell PowerScale supports the following protocols. Thanks to protocol interoperability, clients can access the same data via different protocols:
PowerScale supports the following authentication providers:
Thanks to PowerScale’s connection to your existing auth providers, you can continue to manage permissions centrally.
PowerScale offers the following interfaces for management:
PowerScale enables performance optimization depending on workload, granular down to the folder level optimization. Prefetching settings can be configured per folder.
Optimizations are available for:
System administrators expect a fast system that also protects data from hardware failures. With Dell PowerScale, the following options are available:
Example: Folders with test data are only provided with standard N+1 protection, while folders with customer data receive maximum N+4 protection. This can be adjusted dynamically at any time.
PowerScale dynamically deduplicates data at the 8K block level for files over 32KB in size. This means each file is stored only once on the system and can be referenced any number of times. This saves substantial amounts of effectively used storage space while maintaining highest performance.
Important: This function requires the Smart Dedupe license
PowerScale supports the replication of data from one cluster to one or more other clusters.
Data can be protected from deletion. Two modes are available for this.
PowerScale was designed to provide large clusters. With PowerScale, a cluster of several thousand petabytes (exabytes) can be built, all in one cluster, one namespace in one large file system.
With PowerScale, small clusters can be created that then grow along with requirements from a few dozen terabytes to multiple exabytes by adding new nodes to the cluster. The system scales seamlessly.
PowerScale CloudPools enables the use of public clouds or private clouds as storage tiers. This is particularly advantageous for archive data, which can be outsourced to cloud-based long-term storage (in some cases cost-effective, but sometimes with high retrieval times).
Cloud tiering offers the following advantages:
Supported cloud providers as cloud tier:
During a write operation on PowerScale, the data is distributed across different nodes (striping).
A so-called Stripe Unit consists of 128 kilobytes of data, consisting of 16 * 8 kilobyte elements. If a file is larger than 128 kilobytes, the next 128 kilobytes are moved to the next node, then to the third node and so on. The FEC is calculated per stripe unit and distributed to additional nodes.