- 2. IBM Cloud Scale-out Block Storage Cluster
Key Features
QuantaStor’s scale-out block storage configurations provide highly-available iSCSI block storage suitable for a variety of use cases. Each appliance contains SSD to accelerate write performance and each cluster must contain a minimum of 3x appliances. QuantaStor’s web-based management interface, REST APIs and QS CLI make storage provisioning and automation easy.
QuantaStor Scale-out iSCSI Block Storage Features
- S3 & SWIFT Compatible REST API support
- Hybrid HDD + SSD configuration to boost write performance
- Easy web-based management of all appliances with built-in QuantaStor storage grid technology.
- Easy expansion by adding appliances and/or drives.
Performance
Adding appliances will boost performance as the configuration scales-out. Small 3x appliance configurations will deliver between 400MB/sec and 1.2GB/sec sequential throughput depending on block size and number of concurrent client connections. Erasure-coding is recommended for best write performance and replica mode is recommended for best read performance.
Reference Configurations
Scale-out iSCSI Block Storage Configuration Options
| Small Tier - Hybrid Block Storage – 16TB | Use Cases | System View |
| 2x E5-2650v4 or 4110, 64GB RAM, 8x 2TB SATA, QS Small Tier License, 1x 800GB SSDs (write log), 2x 1TB SATA (mirrored boot), 2x 10GbE Private Network ports |
Highly-available block storage for virtualization (VMware, Hyper-V, XenServer) Scale-out block storage with Cinder integration for KVM based OpenStack deployments Highly-available block storage for databases |
 |
| Medium Tier - Hybrid Block Storage – 48TB | Use Cases | System View |
| 2x E5-2620v4 or 4110, 128GB RAM, 8x 6TB, QS Medium Tier License, 1x 800GB SSDs (write log), 2x 1TB SATA (mirrored boot), 2x 10GbE Private Network ports |
Highly-available block storage for virtualization (VMware, Hyper-V, XenServer) Scale-out block storage with Cinder integration for KVM based OpenStack deployments Highly-available block storage for databases |
|
| Large Tier - Hybrid Block Storage – 128TB | Use Cases | System View |
| 2x E5-2620v4 or 4110, 128GB RAM, 16x 8TB SATA, QS Large Tier License, 2x 800GB SSDs (write log), 2x 1TB SATA (mirrored boot), 2x 10GbE Private Network ports |
Highly-available block storage for virtualization (VMware, Hyper-V, XenServer) Scale-out block storage with Cinder integration for KVM based OpenStack deployments Highly-available block storage for databases |
|
Quick Configurations Steps
Step One: Storage Management Tab → Create Grid → Click OK
Step Two: Storage Management Tab → Add Grid Node → Enter 2nd Appliance IP → Click OK
Step Three: Storage Management Tab → Add Grid Node → Enter 3nd Appliance IP → Click OK
Step Four: Storage Management Tab → Modify Storage System → Set Domain Suffix → Click OK (do this for each appliance)
Step Five: Storage Management Tab → Controllers & Enclosures → right-click Controller → Configure Pass-thru devices → Select all → Click OK (do this for each appliance)
Step Six: Scale-out Block & Object Storage Tab → Ceph Cluster → Create Ceph Cluster → Select all appliances → Click OK
Step Seven: Scale-out Block & Object Storage Tab → Ceph Cluster → Multi-Create OSDs → Select SSDs as journals, HDDs as OSDs → Click OK
Step Eight: Scale-out Block & Object Storage Tab → Storage Pools (Ceph) → Create Storage Pool → Select Erasure Coding Mode → Click OK
Step Nine: Cluster Resource Management → Create Site Cluster → Select All → Click OK
Step Ten: Cluster Resource Management → Add Site Interface → Enter IP address for iSCSI Access → Click OK
Step Eleven: Storage Management Tab → Hosts → Add Host → Enter host IQN → Click OK (do this for each host)
Step Twelve: Storage Management Tab → Storage Volumes → Create Storage Volume → Enter volume name, select a size, → Click OK
Step Thirteen: Storage Management Tab → Hosts → Right-click Host → Assign Volumes → Select volumes → Click OK