EMC World is less than 3 weeks away and this will be my first year attending!!  I wanted to do a short series on some of the recent announcements that most likely be covered at EMC World.   The first is ScaleIO 2.0

ScaleIO 2.0 – Enriched Security

• IPv6 Support
  • ScaleIO can be used with either IPv4 or IPv6
  • Supports all IPv6 addresses in the same cluster
  • Enabled for both internal and external components
• AD/LDAP and secured LDAP
  • Authenticate against Active directory
  • Mapped to ScaleIO roles
  • You can do Native Authentication, LDAP or both
  • Local users can be removed
• Software Component Validation
  • Certificates generate at deployment
  • Certificate based when adding – Trust established, when reconnecting challenge
  • Central Management
• Secure Connections (SSL)
  • MDM uses SSL certificate to communicate with all external components
  • Self-signed certificate
  • May be enabled and deployed automatically at install

ScaleIO 2.0 Enhanced Resiliency

• In-flight Checksum
  • Prevents invalid data from being written to the system
  • Calculate and validate checksum on application data
  • Checksum us calculated/validate when
    • IO enters or exits the SDC
    • IO is read or written to the SDS device
  • Protects against changes in transit
    • Disks maintain their own checksum
  • Enabled or disabled at Storage Pool Level
  • 16-bit per 512B block
• 5 Node MDM Cluster
  • 5 MDM cluster members
  • Three options
    • 5-node: 3 MDMs + 2 Tie Breakers
    • 3-Node: 2 MDMs + 1 Tie Breaker
    • 1-Node: Single Node
  • Option for multiple standby MDMs
  • MDMs now have a unique ID and Name
• Read Flash Cache
  • May be controlled by CLI or GUI
  • New type of SDS device added
  • New “Read Flash Cache” present in the backend view
  • Accelerate the reads of HDD devices by using PCI flash cards and SSDs for caching
• ESRS
  • Two-way remote connection enables remote monitoring and remote diagnosis/repair
  • ScaleIO remote support works with ERSR v3 only
  • ScaleIO is registered as a single product using the license SWID
• Instance Maintenance Mode
  • Supports SDS node reboot
• Non-disruptive Upgrade Orchestration
  • NDU from Major to Major and Minor to Minor
  • Rolling
  • Done by IM
  • Upgrade Order
    • IM/Plugin, LIA, MDM, SDS, SDC
  • New Functionality available after upgrading MDM and SDS
  • SDC upgrade
    • May be accessing 2 or more clusters
    • Forwards and backwards compatible
    • Requires a host reboot
    • May be postponed to planned maintenance

ScaleIO 2.0 Expanded Agility

• Enhanced GUI Storage Management
  • New “Frontend” tab
    • Volume operation: Add, Remove, Rename, Increase size, Enable and Disable, RAM Cache
    • Snapshots
    • SDC
  • Accessible based upon defined roles in ScaleIO or AD/LDAP