Considerations and requirements for using FabricPool

General considerations and requirements​

• You must be running ONTAP 9.5 at the minimum to use FabricPool.

• You must be running ONTAP 9.5 or later releases for the following FabricPool functionality:

  • The auto tiering policy

    Types of FabricPool tiering policies

  • Specifying the tiering minimum cooling period
  • Inactive data reporting
  • Using Microsoft Azure Blob Storage for the cloud as the cloud tier for FabricPool
  • Specifying the tiering fullness threshold
  • Using IBM Cloud Object Storage as the cloud tier for FabricPool
  • Lenovo Volume Encryption (LVE) of the cloud tier, enabled by default.
• You must be running ONTAP 9.6 or later releases for the following FabricPool functionality:
  • The all tiering policy
  • Inactive data reporting enabled manually on HDD aggregates

  • Inactive data reporting enabled automatically for SSD aggregates when you upgrade to ONTAP 9.6 and at time aggregate is created, except when WAFL-buffer-cache size is less than 3 GB.

    ONTAP monitors system load, and if the load remains high for 4 continuous minutes, IDR is disabled, and is not automatically enabled. You can reenable IDR manually, however, manually enabled IDR is not automatically disabled.

  • Using Alibaba Cloud Object Storage as the cloud tier for FabricPool
  • Using Google Cloud Platform as the cloud tier for FabricPool
  • Volume move without cloud tier data copy
• You must be running ONTAP 9.7 or later releases for the following FabricPool functionality:
  • Non transparent HTTP and HTTPS proxy to provide access to only whitelisted access points, and to provide auditing and reporting capabilities.
  • FabricPool mirroring to tier cold data to two object stores simultaneously
  • FabricPool mirrors on MetroCluster configurations
  • FabricPool on MetroCluster IP configurations beginning in ONTAP 9.7.
  • FabricPool on MetroCluster FC configurations beginning in ONTAP 9.7.
  • NDMP dump and restore enabled by default on FabricPool attached aggregates.
    Note

    If the backup application uses a protocol other than NDMP, such as NFS or CIFS, all data being backed up in the performance tier becomes hot and can affect tiering of that data to the cloud tier. Non-NDMP reads can cause data migration from the cloud tier back to the performance tier.
• You must be running ONTAP 9.8 or later for the following FabricPool functionality:
  • Cloud migration control to enable you to override the default tiering policy
  • Promoting data to the performance tier
  • FabricPool with SnapLock Enterprise
  • Minimum cooling period maximum of 183 days
  • Object tagging using user-created custom tags

  • FabricPools on HDD platforms and aggregates

    HDD FabricPools are supported with SAS and FSAS disks only on systems with 6 or more CPU cores, including the following models:

    • DM7100H
    • DM7000H
    • DM5000H
    • DM3000H
• FabricPool supports the following platforms and aggregate types:

  • On AFA systems, you can use only all flash (all SSD) aggregates for FabricPool.

    You cannot use Flash Pool aggregates (which contain both SSDs and HDDs).

  • On Hybrid systems, you can use either all flash (all SSD) or HDD aggregates for FabricPool.

  • On Cloud Volumes ONTAP , you can use either SSD or HDD aggregates for FabricPool.

    However, using SSD aggregates is recommended.

• FabricPool supports using the following object stores as the cloud tier:
  • Lenovo ONTAP S3 (ONTAP 9.8 and later)
  • Alibaba Cloud Object Storage
  • Amazon Web Services Simple Storage Service (AWS S3)
  • Google Cloud Storage
  • IBM Cloud Object Storage
  • Microsoft Azure Blob Storage for the cloud
• The object store bucket (container) you plan to use must have already been set up, must have at least 10 GB of storage space, and must not be renamed.
• HA pairs that use FabricPool require intercluster LIFs to communicate with the object store.
• You cannot detach an object store bucket from the FabricPool configuration after it is attached.

• If you use throughput floors (QoS Min), the tiering policy on the volumes must be set to none before the aggregate can be attached to FabricPool.

  Other tiering policies prevent the aggregate from being attached to FabricPool.

Additional considerations when using Cloud Volumes ONTAP​

Cloud Volumes ONTAP does not require a FabricPool license, regardless of the object store provider you are using.

Additional considerations for using Alibaba Cloud Object Storage with FabricPool​

• You need a FabricPool license.

  If you use Alibaba Cloud Object Storage on an AFA system or hybrid system, or if you are upgrading from an existing cluster, you need a FabricPool license.

• On AFA and hybrid systems , FabricPool supports the following Alibaba Object Storage Service classes:

  • Alibaba Object Storage Service Standard
  • Alibaba Object Storage Service Infrequent Access

  Alibaba Cloud: Introduction to storage classes

Contact your Lenovo sales representative for information about storage classes not listed.

Additional considerations for using AWS S3 with FabricPool​

• You need a FabricPool license.

  If you need additional capacity on an AFA system or hybrid system, if you use AWS S3 on a Hybrid system, or if you are upgrading from an existing cluster, you need a FabricPool license.

• The LIF that ONTAP uses to connect with the AWS S3 object server must be on a 10 Gbps port.
• On AFA and hybrid systems , FabricPool supports the following Amazon S3 storage classes:
  • Amazon S3 Standard
  • Amazon S3 Standard - Infrequent Access (Standard - IA)
  • Amazon S3 One Zone - Infrequent Access (One Zone - IA)
  • Amazon S3 Intelligent-Tiering
  • Amazon Commercial Cloud Services

  Amazon Web Services (AWS) Documentation: Amazon S3 Storage Classes

  Contact your sales representative for information about storage classes not listed.

• On Cloud Volumes ONTAP, FabricPool supports tiering from General Purpose SSD (gp2) and Throughput Optimized HDD (st1) volumes of Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS).

Additional considerations for using Google Cloud Storage with FabricPool​

• You need a FabricPool license.

  If you use Google Cloud Storage on an AFA system or hybrid system, or if you are upgrading from an existing cluster, you need a FabricPool license.

• The LIF that ONTAP uses to connect with the Google Cloud Storage object server must be on a 10 Gbps port.
• On AFA and Hybrid systems , FabricPool supports the following Google Cloud Object storage classes:
  • Google Cloud Multi-Regional
  • Google Cloud Regional
  • Google Cloud Nearline
  • Google Cloud Coldline

  Google Cloud: Storage Classes

Additional considerations for using IBM Cloud Object Storage with FabricPool​

• You need a FabricPool license.

  If you use IBM Cloud Object Storage on an AFA system or hybrid system, or if you are upgrading from an existing cluster, you need a FabricPool license.

• The LIF that ONTAP uses to connect with the IBM Cloud object server must be on a 10 Gbps port.

Additional considerations for using Microsoft Azure Blob Storage with FabricPool​

• You need a FabricPool license.

  If you use Azure Blob Storage on an AFA system or hybrid system, or if you are upgrading from an existing cluster, you need a FabricPool license.

• A FabricPool license is not required if you are using Azure Blob Storage with Cloud Volumes ONTAP.
• The LIF that ONTAP uses to connect with the Azure Blob Storage object server must be on a 10 Gbps port.
• FabricPool currently does not support Azure Stack, which is on-premises Azure services.

• At the account level in Microsoft Azure Blob Storage, FabricPool supports only hot and cool storage tiers.

  FabricPool does not support blob-level tiering. It also does not support tiering to Azure's archive storage tier.

Functionality or features not supported by FabricPool​

• Object stores with WORM enabled and object versioning enabled.

• Information lifecycle management (ILM) policies that are applied to object store buckets

  ILM typically includes various movement and deletion policies. These policies can be disruptive to the data in the cloud tier of FabricPool. Using FabricPool with ILM policies that are configured on object stores can result in data loss.

• RAID SyncMirror, except in a MetroCluster configuration
• SnapLock volumes
• Tape backup using SMTape
• The Auto Balance functionality

• Volumes using a space guarantee other than none

  FabricPool does not support attaching a cloud tier to an aggregate that contains volumes using a space guarantee other than none. For example, a volume using a space guarantee of volume (-space-guaranteevolume) is not supported.

• Clusters with DP_Optimized license
• Flash Pool aggregates