IBM Cloud Provisioning Guide

The QuantaStor Configuration Guide describes the steps needed to configure QuantaStor SDS for deployments in the IBM Cloud environment. Reference Configurations for SAN/NAS Appliances, and Scale-out Block & Object Storage are available as well as the IBM Cloud QuantaStor Solution Design tools here.

Selecting a QuantaStor Server Chassis

The best chassis options for QuantaStor use are the 12-bay and 36-bay server models. The 36-bay is recommended due to its greater configuration flexibility, cost-effectiveness, and expandability. The 12-bay chassis should only be chosen for small-scale or all-SSD/NVMe high-performance use-cases. When selecting the correct server chassis for a deployment, follow these general guidelines:

• If storage devices (not OS, not hot-spare) required is greater than 10, use the 36-bay chassis
• If usable capacity required is greater than 48 TB or is expected to grow, use the 36-bay chassis
• If its a scale-out block storage configuration (replica=2) the 12 bay units are typically adequate as a higher server count will be required to reach IOPS and performance goals.

Selecting RAM Quantity for Mixed or Read-heavy Workloads

• If deploying Ceph on this node, add 1 GB of RAM per physical disk (Ceph OSD)
• If deploying a ZFS pool on this node, add 1 GB of RAM per TB of capacity
• If deploying both, add the recommendations of both together
• While there is no maximum RAM limit, and ZFS will use any free RAM it is offered for its read cache, with a maximum of 36 drives the likely point of greatly diminishing returns is somewhere between 128 and 384 GB of RAM, dependant on use-case(s).

If the workload is entirely writes such as serving solely as a backup target, with only infrequent recovery operations and no reads/seeks during normal backup operations, without expectation of any useful cache being built up, the minimum recommended RAM is the greater of 16 GB -or- 1 GB per disk.

Selecting a CPU for Mixed or Read-heavy Workloads

• If deploying Ceph, try to achieve as close to or greater than 1:1 ratio of cores to disks as possible, with a floor of at least 500 MHz per disk
• Both Ceph and ZFS benefit from higher clock speeds and greater core counts, though 8 & 12-bay chassis only need a higher-end processor if also deploying an all-flash configuration
• If this will be an all-flash node, but also for all latency-sensitive, high-performance use-cases, opt for and focus on the highest clock speed available within budget
• QuantaStor does not recommend the use of quad processor configurations in any environment

Selecting a datacenter

Be sure to select the correct datacenter for your intended use-case, and then verify your desired server option is available there. Unless your intended use-case is similar to a DR/remote-replication/backup destination, it is most likely you will want to deploy the QuantaStor server in the same location as the most performance-demanding of your clients. If the clients are other IBM SoftLayer servers, put the QuantaStor in the same location as the majority of them. If the clients are across the internet, put the QuantaStor in the nearest datacenter to their geographic location. Network latency is a key factor in storage performance on nearly any protocol and intended use-case, thus geographic proximity is important.

Sizing the License

Be sure to choose a QuantaStor license of sufficient size to prevent problems during configuration. QuantaStor licenses are:

• Based on the amount of raw storage, not usable
• Count only disks actively used to hold data
• Does not count hot-spares
• Does not count boot devices
• Does not count unused/unallocated devices (cold spares)

Simply sum up all capacity for every data, journal and cache disk and choose the nearest license capacity available that is above that number.

Selecting and Configuring Boot System Drives

Create the OS RAID1 Array

• Step 1. Select "RAID1" under Type

• Step 2. Enter the quantity 2 under # Disks

• Step 3. Select SATA under Disk Media

• Step 4. Select 1 TB under Disk Size

Add Storage disks

• Step 5. Click on Add New +

• Step 6. Select JBOD under Type

• Step 7. Enter the quantity under # Disks

• Step 8. Select your desired Disk Media (QuantaStor supports all available IBM SoftLayer disk options)

• Step 9. Select your desired Disk Size

• Step 10. Repeat steps 5 through 9 as many times as necessary for each individual media/size you require, do not forget any read and write cache devices!

QuantaStor manages all production data storage devices and RAID/erasure-coding itself, only the first entry for the OS disks should say RAID1, all entries past that should be set to JBOD or Individual.

Network Configuration

While QuantaStor does support all IBM SoftLayer options for network configuration, in most use-cases where all or the bulk of client throughput will come from your other servers and VM's at IBM SoftLayer, OSNEXUS recommends opting for the *Private Network Only* set of choices in order to double up the available back-end bandwidth. Unless constant, low-latency accessibility to the storage via the whole public internet is a requirement, OSNEXUS' recommends *Private Network Only* still be used even when irregular internet access is required, and another server or VM be deployed (or turned online only as necessary) to provide gateway/VPN/intermediary access to the storage.

IBM Cloud/SoftLayer maintains an internal upgrade software repository accessible via their private network for all QuantaStor customers, which will be automatically pre-configured. You do not require a public network connection to receive software updates in IBM Cloud/SoftLayer.

Complete QuantaStor Server Configuration

You mean run into a situation where the Checkout button is not visible, in such cases, try scrolling horizontally to the right!

Server Login

Once deployment has been completed you should get a notification from IBM. Check your account for login credentials and IP information. The QuantaStor Web UI should be listening on every initially provisioned IP address, if you do not get the login prompt in your browser, verify you have VPN connectivity to your IBM Cloud backend network. You can find additional information on QuantaStor setup in the Getting Started Overview, as well as the Administrator's Guide