SolidFire Integration

OnApp is integrated with the SolidFire storage management system. With the Solid Fire integration it is possible to utilize the SF SAN directly within the OnApp cloud and manage the SolidFire cluster via the SolidFire API.

You can perform the following options with SolidFire:

• Allocate dedicated LUNs from the SF cluster per virtual server disk, when creating a VS. (LUN is created per each VS disk, with a separate lun per swap disk.)
• Manage SolidFire LUNs automatically via API.
• Create virtual servers without the swap disk.
• Implement backups / snapshots using SF CloneVolume method.

To be able to utilize SolidFire in the cloud, you need to install the SolidFire storage system first.

There is a disk dependency between OnApp and SolidFire - when a new disk is created on the OnApp side, a new LUN is created automatically on the SF side, using the CreateVolume API call.

As the SolidFire data store has two interfaces (OnApp and SolidFire) you have to specify two IP addresses when creating a SolidFire Data Store Zone.

To be able to use the SF volume, you have to enable export to this device (Compute resource or a data store). To do that, you need to send an account username and initiator password to the iscsi_ip address. You will be able to use this device after the authorization.

On this page:

• SolidFire Management
• SolidFire Quality of Service

See also:

• Configure Resource Allocation And Prices
• SolidFire Data Store Zone
• Create and Manage Data Stores

SolidFire Management

Gather statistics
Statistics gathering is performed by the OnApp Usage collection system using the GetVolumeStats API call.

Create data store 
You can create one SolidFire data store per cloud that will represent the space available at the SolidFire side. Use GetLimits/GetClusterCapacity API calls to view data store size availability.

Activate/deactivate disk 
All activation/deactivation operations should include automating the OpenISCSI Initiator on the Compute resource activation/deactivation for the specific Volume.

Remove disk 
The Disk/LUN is removed with the DeleteVolume API call.

Backup disk 
Using the CloneVolume API call, with readOnly option, a snapshot is created which you can then mount on the backup server for backup processing. The clone is then taken down after the backup using DeleteVolume API call.

Incremental backups
There is a possibility to create incremental backups of VSs associated with SolidFire data store. The procedure is the same as for LVM data stores.

For more details, refer to the SolidFire API documentation.

SolidFire Quality of Service

SolidFire provides a substantial QoS control for the efficient performance in a cloud environment.

SolidFire data store zone has the following parameters:

• Minimum IOPS (SF clusters with lower minimum IOPS will have lower priority when a system is overloaded)
• Maximum IOPS
• Burst IOPS

It is possible to configure the minimum IOPS resource properties as a minIOPS resource in the bucket. The maximum IOPS and burst IOPS are static values that can differ per zone, thus providing tiered functionality.

For details how to change minIOPS settings, refer to the Configure Resource Allocation and Prices section of this guide.

For more details on Solid Fire management, refer to SolidFire documentation.

SolidFire data store requires authorization for sending API requests from the CP to the SolidFire cluster (you will need to provide Cluster Admin authorization credentials when creating a SolidFire data store).