This document discusses NexentaStor storage software and its use as storage for CloudStack infrastructure. It begins with an overview of CloudStack primary and secondary storage and how NexentaStor fits into each role. It then provides details on NexentaStor concepts like volumes, vdevs, folders and zvols. It explains how to provision NexentaStor as CloudStack primary storage using NFS or iSCSI, and how the new Nexenta Object Storage will provide improved secondary storage capabilities to CloudStack.

1. Nexenta Powered
CloudStack Storage
Iliyas Shirol | BigData/Cloud Evangelist

2. whoami
# FOSS Evangelist Since 2004
# Founder of LOAD (Linux On A Desktop) Project
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# And yeah, I love to be on Cloud 
Nexenta Powered CloudStack Storage

3. Agenda
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CloudStack Infrastructure
Inside NexentaStor
NexentaStor Storage Concepts
Nexenta as CloudStack Storage
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4. CloudStack Infrastructure
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5. CloudStack Infrastructure – Primary Storage
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Associated with a cluster
Stores the disk volumes for all the VMs
running on hosts in a cluster
Shared storage is normally
recommended
• NFS
• iSCSI
• Fibre Channel
Use local storage
• Where high availability isn't needed
• Where greater disk I/O is needed

6. CloudStack Infrastructure – Secondary Storage
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Associated with a zone
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Stores:
• Templates - OS images used to
create VMs
• ISO Images - Images that can be
bootable or non-bootable
• Disk volume snapshots (saved copies
of VM data)
Available to all hosts in the zone
Must be NFS
• Or NFS + Swift
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7. Inside NexentaStor
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8. About Nexenta
• ZFS filesystem, based on OpenSolaris and Debian
• Linux open source code bases
(Moving to illumos)
• Software-only
• Platform, plugins, and adapters
• Compelling advantages over proprietary filesystems
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9. What is NexentaStor ?
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10. Open Source and NexentaStor
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11. NexentaStor
• Universal storage appliance software.
• Extensible plugin architecture
• Open APIs
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Perl
Python
Ruby
C
REST
• Plugin Marketplace
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12. NexentaStor Storage Appliance
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Simplicity of installation & management
Optimized base configuration for:
Easily reproduced configuration on a massive scale
Generalized storage skill set required to maintain
extensive infrastructure
• Little or no need for modification to achieve high
performance
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13. NexentaStor Storage Appliance
The NexentaStor appliance incorporates three software platforms to
allow for full operation and management
• NMS – Nexenta Management Server. The primary server software
that is responsible for processing commands and gathering data for
command outputs
• NMC – Nexenta Management Console. The interactive command line
interface software which enables appliance management through any
character based terminal connection
• NMV – Nexenta Management Viewer. The browser based graphical
interface which allows graphical administration of appliances
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14. NexentaStor Management
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15. NMV
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16. NexentaStor CDROM Installation
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If multiple disks are selected for syspool,
they will automatically be mirrored
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After the software is installed, remove the
CDROM before booting the new NexentaStor
O/S
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Enter the commercial or trial license key
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Reconfigure the management network with
DHCP or static IP (preferred)
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CDROM install is extremely easy
The remainder of the installation and
configuration can be done via NMV and
NMC.

17. Configuration via Wizard-1
Wizard 1 is used for
configuring basic appliance
settings like:
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Hostname
Domain name
NTP Server
root (Super user for NMC) and
admin (Super user for NMV)
passwords
• SMTP settings
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18. Configuration via Wizard-2
Wizard 2 is used for network
and storage settings like:
• Configuring NIC ports, Link
Aggregations, and IPMP groups
• Configuring iSCSI initiator and
target
• Viewing/scanning for disk drives
• Creating volumes
**All settings in Wizard 1 and 2 can also be
configured through NMV
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• Folders

19. Popular NMV Plugins
 Nexenta
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SCSItarget: COMSTAR Management Interface
Auto-sync: Manages ZFS send/receive service
Auto-tier: Manages rsync service
HA-Cluster: 2-node HA Cluster
VMDC: Virtual Machine Management support
 Others
• DataOn Storage Manager
• ntop: network top
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20. NexentaStor Storage
Concepts
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21. volumes
The NexentaStor appliance groups disk space into portable
objects called volumes
• Volumes can be imported to an appliance, enabling access
to the data in the volume
• Volumes can be exported from an appliance, preventing
access to the data in the volume
• In an HA-Cluster configuration, volumes are exported from
one cluster node and imported on the other cluster node
during a Cluster Volume failover
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22. vdevs
The most critical element to the performance of a volume is the
configuration of its underlying vdevs
• A higher number of vdevs allows for lower I/O latency but lower
capacity of the volume
• A lower number of vdevs allows for greater capacity but higher overall
I/O (especially read) latency
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23. Volumes and vdevs
volume
vdev-1
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vdev-2
vdev-3
vdev-4
vdev-5
vdev-6
A volume is a logical container of disk space constructed from underlying vdevs
vdevs can be thought of as virtual RAID disks or LUNs, constructed from physical disks
The volume distributes writes across the vdevs
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24. Volumes and vdevs
volume
vdev-1
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vdev-2
vdev-3
vdev-4
vdev-5
vdev-6
Mirrored vdevs result in the maximum number of vdevs for a given number of disks
which allows for maximum simultaneous operations and the lowest read/write latency
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Mirrored vdevs also have a relatively low data redundancy since the loss of two disks in
the same vdev will result in the loss of all data in the entire volume
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25. Viewing a Volume via NMC
NMC readily shows critical details about the configuration and condition of a volume
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26. Viewing a Volume via NMV
• NMV shows the same information about of a volume, plus offers maintenance options
on the same screen
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27. Folders and zvols
volume
Folder A
Folder A
Currently
Currently
80GB
90GB
100GB
• Folders are filesystem formatted datasets that automatically grow
and shrink as data is added and removed
• Folders support variable recordsize which optimizes storage space
and I/O for very small files while also allowing for higher
throughput for larger files. The maximum recordsize of 128KB
should be maintained unless performance testing dictates
otherwise
• A single folder can be shared via CIFS and NFS at the same time
(Mixed mode case sensitivity is required)
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28. Folders and zvols
volume
zvol B
recordsize=64K
size=80GB
zvol A
recordsize=8K
size=100GB
• A zvol is an unformatted dataset of a fixed recordsize and capacity
• Once shared to a client, the zvol operates like a standard disk
drive with volatile onboard cache
• If the NexentaStor crashes before a client sends a cache flush
command for a shared zvol, all data that is in NexentaStor
memory waiting to be written to the volume’s disks will be
lost
• “Writeback Cache” should be turned off on shared zvols to
ensure data is written synchronously to persistent storage
• A zvol can optionally be thin provisioned
• Allows more data space to be shared than is actually available
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29. NexentaStor as
CloudStack Storage
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30. Provisioning CloudStack Primary
Storage
• Expose a volume using NFS/iSCSI as per the
cluster requirement
• Add the respective volume as a ‘Primary Storage’
from the CloudStack portal
• CloudStack provisioning with NexentaStor can
now be automated using Enterprise Chef™
cookbooks, using the Knife API plug-ins
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31. Provisioning CloudStack Secondary
Storage (Object Storage)
• Today
• CloudStack does not offer native object storage
• Provisioned by OpenStack Swift object storage
• 2014
• NOST will be a superior option for providing object
storage to a CloudStack installation.
• Will get higher performance and greater scalability.
• NOST will operate under a common management
framework with NexentaStor to simplify storage
management operations
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32. Nexenta Object Storage (NOST)
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Unlimited Object Size
No effective limits on SCALE
Full S3 compatibility, including S3 ACLs
Distributed Deduplication
Effectively Local Storage
Local File System (LFS) Isolation – directly on ZFS
Optimized network replication using ZFS mirroring.
Unlimited distributed versioning.
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33. Nexenta Object Storage (NOST)
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34. Get Involved
Meetup: http://www.meetup.com/CloudStack-Bangalore-Group/
Web: http://cloudstack.apache.org/
Mailing Lists: cloudstack.apache.org/mailing-lists.html
IRC: irc.freenode.net: 6667 #cloudstack
Twitter: @cloudstack
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/groups/CloudStack-Users-Group-3144859
If it didn’t happen on the mailing list, it didn’t happen.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/cloudstack/
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35. Iliyas Shirol
Q&A
BigData/Cloud Evangelist
iliyas.shirol@inmobi.com
M 990.297.7800