SolidFire

The SolidFire Cluster is a high performance all SSD iSCSI storage device that provides massive scale out capability and extreme fault tolerance. A key feature of the SolidFire cluster is the ability to set and modify during operation specific QoS levels on a volume for volume basis. The SolidFire cluster offers this along with de-duplication, compression, and an architecture that takes full advantage of SSDs.

To configure the use of a SolidFire cluster with Block Storage, modify your cinder.conf file as follows:

volume_driver = cinder.volume.drivers.solidfire.SolidFireDriver
san_ip = 172.17.1.182         # the address of your MVIP
san_login = sfadmin           # your cluster admin login
san_password = sfpassword     # your cluster admin password
sf_account_prefix = ''        # prefix for tenant account creation on solidfire cluster

Warning

Older versions of the SolidFire driver (prior to Icehouse) created a unique account prefixed with $cinder-volume-service-hostname-$tenant-id on the SolidFire cluster for each tenant. Unfortunately, this account formation resulted in issues for High Availability (HA) installations and installations where the cinder-volume service can move to a new node. The current default implementation does not experience this issue as no prefix is used. For installations created on a prior release, the OLD default behavior can be configured by using the keyword hostname in sf_account_prefix.

Note

The SolidFire driver creates names for volumes on the back end using the format UUID-<cinder-id>. This works well, but there is a possibility of a UUID collision for users running multiple clouds against the same cluster. In Mitaka the ability was added to eliminate the possibility of collisions by introducing the sf_volume_prefix configuration variable. On the SolidFire cluster each volume will be labeled with the prefix, providing the ability to configure unique volume names for each cloud. The default prefix is ‘UUID-‘.

Changing the setting on an existing deployment will result in the existing volumes being inaccessible. To introduce this change to an existing deployment it is recommended to add the Cluster as if it were a second backend and disable new deployments to the current back end.

Description of SolidFire configuration options

Configuration option = Default value

Description

sf_account_prefix = None

(String) Create SolidFire accounts with this prefix. Any string can be used here, but the string “hostname” is special and will create a prefix using the cinder node hostname (previous default behavior). The default is NO prefix.

sf_allow_tenant_qos = False

(Boolean) Allow tenants to specify QOS on create

sf_api_port = 443

(Port(min=0, max=65535)) SolidFire API port. Useful if the device api is behind a proxy on a different port.

sf_api_request_timeout = 30

(Integer(min=30)) Sets time in seconds to wait for an api request to complete.

sf_cluster_pairing_timeout = 60

(Integer(min=3)) Sets time in seconds to wait for clusters to complete pairing.

sf_emulate_512 = True

(Boolean) Set 512 byte emulation on volume creation;

sf_enable_vag = False

(Boolean) Utilize volume access groups on a per-tenant basis.

sf_provisioning_calc = maxProvisionedSpace

(String(choices=[‘maxProvisionedSpace’, ‘usedSpace’])) Change how SolidFire reports used space and provisioning calculations. If this parameter is set to ‘usedSpace’, the driver will report correct values as expected by Cinder thin provisioning.

sf_svip = None

(String) Overrides default cluster SVIP with the one specified. This is required or deployments that have implemented the use of VLANs for iSCSI networks in their cloud.

sf_volume_clone_timeout = 600

(Integer(min=60)) Sets time in seconds to wait for a clone of a volume or snapshot to complete.

sf_volume_create_timeout = 60

(Integer(min=30)) Sets time in seconds to wait for a create volume operation to complete.

sf_volume_pairing_timeout = 3600

(Integer(min=30)) Sets time in seconds to wait for a migrating volume to complete pairing and sync.

sf_volume_prefix = UUID-

(String) Create SolidFire volumes with this prefix. Volume names are of the form <sf_volume_prefix><cinder-volume-id>. The default is to use a prefix of ‘UUID-‘.

Supported operations

  • Create, delete, attach, and detach volumes.

  • Create, list, and delete volume snapshots.

  • Create a volume from a snapshot.

  • Copy an image to a volume.

  • Copy a volume to an image.

  • Clone a volume.

  • Extend a volume.

  • Retype a volume.

  • Manage and unmanage a volume.

  • Consistency group snapshots.

QoS support for the SolidFire drivers includes the ability to set the following capabilities in the OpenStack Block Storage API cinder.api.contrib.qos_specs_manage qos specs extension module:

  • minIOPS - The minimum number of IOPS guaranteed for this volume. Default = 100.

  • maxIOPS - The maximum number of IOPS allowed for this volume. Default = 15,000.

  • burstIOPS - The maximum number of IOPS allowed over a short period of time. Default = 15,000.

  • scaledIOPS - The presence of this key is a flag indicating that the above IOPS should be scaled by the following scale values. It is recommended to set the value of scaledIOPS to True, but any value will work. The absence of this key implies false.

  • scaleMin - The amount to scale the minIOPS by for every 1GB of additional volume size. The value must be an integer.

  • scaleMax - The amount to scale the maxIOPS by for every 1GB of additional volume size. The value must be an integer.

  • scaleBurst - The amount to scale the burstIOPS by for every 1GB of additional volume size. The value must be an integer.

The QoS keys above no longer require to be scoped but must be created and associated to a volume type. For information about how to set the key-value pairs and associate them with a volume type, see the volume qos section in the OpenStackClient command list.

Note

When using scaledIOPS, the scale values must be chosen such that the constraint minIOPS <= maxIOPS <= burstIOPS is always true. The driver will enforce this constraint.