Acropolis Block Services (ABS)

• Exposes backend DSF to external consumers via iSCSI
• Use Cases:
  • Oracle RAC
  • MSCS
  • Containers
  • Bare-metal
  • Exchange on vSphere
• Constructs:
  • Data Services IP: Cluster Wide VIP for iSCSI logins
  • Volume Group: iSCSI target/group of disk devices
  • Disks: Devices in Volume Group
  • Attachment: Permissions for IQN access
  • Backend = VG’s disk is just a vDisk on DSF

Path High-Availability

• Data Services VIP leveraged for discovery
• Single address without knowing individual CVM IP’s
• Assigned to iSCSI master
• In event of failure, new master elected with address

• With this, client side MPIO is not needed
  • No need to check “enable multi-path” in Hyper-V

Multi-Pathing

• iSCSI protocol mandates single iSCSI session/target
• 1:1 relationship from Stargate to target
• Virtual targets automatically created per attached initiator and assigned to VG
• Provides iSCSI target per disk device
• Allows each disk device to have its own iSCSI session, hosted across multiple Stargates

• Load balancing occurs during iSCSI session establishment per target
• Performed via hash
• TRIM supported (UNMAP)

Acropolis File Services (AFS)

• SMB is only supported protocol
• File Services VMs run as agent VM’s
  • Minimum of 3 VM’s deployed by default for scale
• Transparently deployed
• Integrated into AD/DNS
• During install, the following are created:
  • AD Computer Account
  • AD SPN for file server and each FSVM
  • DNS for FS pointing to all FSVM(s)
  • DNS for each FSVM
  • Each FSVM uses Acropolis Volumes API accessed via ingest iSCSI
  • Allows FSVM to connect to any iSCSI target in event of outage

• For availability in Linux, DM-MPIO (Linux Multipathing) is leveraged within FSVM with active path set to Local CVM.

• In event of failure, DM-MPIO will active failover path on remote CVM.

• Each FSVM will have IP which clients use to communicate to FSVM as part of DFS.

• In event of failure, VG and IP of failed FSVM will be taken over by another FSVM:

• When failed FSVM comes back and is stable, it will re-take its IP and VG.