Skip to main content

Adding a cloud tier

You can use Storage Manager to add a cloud tier to an SSD aggregate or a virtual machine disk (VMDK) aggregate. Cloud tiers provide storage for infrequently used data.

Before you begin

  • You must have the access key ID and secret key to connect to the object store.

  • You must have created a bucket inside the object store.

  • Network connectivity must exist between the cluster and the cloud tier.

  • If communication between the cloud tier and the cluster is encrypted using SSL or TLS, the required certificates must be installed.

About this task

The following object stores can be used as cloud tiers:

  • StorageGRID

  • Alibaba Cloud (Starting with Storage Manager 9.6)

  • Amazon Web Services (AWS) Simple Storage Service (S3)

  • Amazon Web Services (AWS) Commercial Cloud Service (C2S)

  • Microsoft Azure Blob storage

  • IBM Cloud

  • Google Cloud

Note

  • Azure Stack, which is an on-premises Azure service, is not supported.

  • If you want to use any object store as a cloud tier, other than StorageGRID, you must have the FabricPool capacity license. You can add the license by clicking Add License.

  • If you want to use an IBM Cloud Object Storage environment (such as Cleversafe), with FabricPool, you should specify a certification authority (CA) certificate. You can specify the CA certificate by moving the Object Store Certificate toggle button and specifying the certificate credentials.

  1. Click Storage > Aggregates & Disks > Cloud Tier.
  2. Click Add.
    A dialog box appears that lists all supported object store providers.
  3. From the list, select the object store provider that you want to designate as the cloud tier.
    The Add Cloud Tier window is displayed.
  4. Select a region from the drop-down list in the Region field.
    Based on your selection, the Service Name (FQDN) field is automatically populated with the server endpoint.
  5. Specify the access key ID of the cloud tier, the secret key of the cloud tier, and the container name.

    If you have selected AWS Commercial Cloud Service (C2S) as the type, you must specify the CAP URL, server CA certificates, and client certificates.
  6. If you want to modify any of the following settings, then click the Advanced Options icon to display the Advanced Options dialog window where you can make the changes:

    • The port number used to access the cloud tier

    • Enable or disable the SSL option that lets you transfer data securely to the cloud tier

  7. Optional: If you want to add a cloud tier for StorageGRID or you want to use IBM Cloud Object Storage environment (such as Cleversafe) with FabricPool, you should specify a CA certificate. Specify the CA certificate by moving the Object Store Certificate toggle button and copying the contents of the certificate. Then paste the certificate contents in the signed certification.
  8. From the IPspace list, select the IPspace that is used to connect to the cloud tier.
  9. Click Save to save the cloud tier.
  10. Click Save and Attach Aggregates to save the cloud tier and to attach aggregates to the cloud tier.
Related concepts
Related tasks
Related reference