Administrator Guide
Table Of Contents
- Dell FluidFS V3 NAS Solutions For PowerVault NX3500, NX3600, And NX3610 Administrator's Guide
- Introduction
- How PowerVault FluidFS NAS Works
- FluidFS Terminology
- Key Features Of PowerVault FluidFS Systems
- Overview Of PowerVault FluidFS Systems
- PowerVault FluidFS Architecture
- Data Caching And Redundancy
- File Metadata Protection
- High Availability And Load Balancing
- Ports Used by the FluidFS System
- Other Information You May Need
- Upgrading to FluidFS Version 3
- FluidFS Manager User Interface Overview
- FluidFS 3.0 System Management
- Connecting to the FluidFS Cluster
- Managing Secured Management
- Adding a Secured Management Subnet
- Changing the Netmask for the Secured Management Subnet
- Changing the VLAN ID for the Secured Management Subnet
- Changing the VIP for the Secured Management Subnet
- Changing the NAS Controller IP Addresses for the Secured Management Subnet
- Deleting the Secured Management Subnet
- Enabling Secured Management
- Disabling Secured Management
- Managing the FluidFS Cluster Name
- Managing Licensing
- Managing the System Time
- Managing the FTP Server
- Managing SNMP
- Managing the Health Scan Throttling Mode
- Managing the Operation Mode
- Managing Client Connections
- Displaying the Distribution of Clients between NAS Controllers
- Viewing Clients Assigned to a NAS Controller
- Assigning a Client to a NAS Controller
- Unassigning a Client from a NAS Controller
- Manually Migrating Clients to another NAS Controller
- Failing Back Clients to Their Assigned NAS Controller
- Rebalancing Client Connections across NAS Controllers
- Shutting Down and Restarting NAS Controllers
- Managing NAS Appliance and NAS Controller
- FluidFS 3.0 Networking
- Managing the Default Gateway
- Managing DNS Servers and Suffixes
- Managing Static Routes
- Managing the Internal Network
- Managing the Client Networks
- Viewing the Client Networks
- Creating a Client Network
- Changing the Netmask for a Client Network
- Changing the VLAN Tag for a Client Network
- Changing the Client VIPs for a Client Network
- Changing the NAS Controller IP Addresses for a Client Network
- Deleting a Client Network
- Viewing the Client Network MTU
- Changing the Client Network MTU
- Viewing the Client Network Bonding Mode
- Changing the Client Network Bonding Mode
- Managing SAN Fabrics
- FluidFS 3.0 Account Management And Authentication
- Account Management and Authentication
- Default Administrative Accounts
- Default Local User and Local Group Accounts
- Managing Administrator Accounts
- Managing Local Users
- Managing Password Age and Expiration
- Managing Local Groups
- Managing Active Directory
- Managing LDAP
- Managing NIS
- Managing User Mappings between Windows and UNIX/Linux Users
- FluidFS 3.0 NAS Volumes, Shares, and Exports
- Managing the NAS Pool
- Managing NAS Volumes
- File Security Styles
- Thin and Thick Provisioning for NAS Volumes
- Choosing a Strategy for NAS Volume Creation
- Example NAS Volume Creation Scenarios
- NAS Volumes Storage Space Terminology
- Configuring NAS Volumes
- Cloning a NAS Volume
- NAS Volume Clone Defaults
- NAS Volume Clone Restrictions
- Managing NAS Volume Clones
- Managing CIFS Shares
- Managing NFS Exports
- Managing Quota Rules
- Viewing Quota Rules for a NAS Volume
- Setting the Default Quota per User
- Setting the Default Quota per Group
- Adding a Quota Rule for a Specific User
- Adding a Quota Rule for Each User in a Specific Group
- Adding a Quota Rule for an Entire Group
- Changing the Soft Quota or Hard Quota for a User or Group
- Enabling or Disabling the Soft Quota or Hard Quota for a User or Group
- Deleting a User or Group Quota Rule
- Managing Data Reduction
- FluidFS 3.0 Data Protection
- FluidFS 3.0 Monitoring
- FluidFS 3.0 Maintenance
- Troubleshooting
- Getting Help
High Availability And Load Balancing
To optimize availability and performance, client connections are load balanced across the available NAS
controllers. Both NAS controllers in a NAS appliance operate simultaneously. If one NAS controller fails,
clients are automatically failed over to the remaining controllers. When failover occurs, some CIFS clients
reconnect automatically, while in other cases, a CIFS application might fail, and the user must restart it.
NFS clients experience a temporary pause during failover, but client network traffic resumes
automatically.
Failure Scenarios
The FluidFS system can tolerate a NAS controller failure without impact to data availability and without
data loss. If one NAS controller becomes unavailable (for example, because the NAS controller failed, is
turned off, or is disconnected from the network), the NAS appliance status is degraded. Although the
FluidFS system is still operational and data is available to clients, the administrator cannot perform most
configuration modifications and performance might decrease because data is no longer cached.
The impact to data availability and data integrity following a multiple NAS controller failure depends on
the circumstances of the failure scenario. Dell recommends detaching a failed NAS controller as soon as
possible, so that it can be safely taken offline for service. Data access remains intact as long as one of the
NAS controllers in each NAS appliance in a FluidFS system is functional.
The following table summarizes the impact to data availability and data integrity of various failure
scenarios.
Scenario System Status Data Integrity Comments
Single NAS controller
failure
Available, degraded Unaffected
• Peer NAS controller enters
journaling mode
• Failed NAS controller can be
replaced while keeping the
file system online
Sequential dual‐NAS
controller failure in
single NAS appliance
system
Unavailable Unaffected Sequential failure assumes that
there is enough time between
NAS controller failures to write all
data from the cache to disk (MD
system or non‐volatile internal
storage)
Simultaneous dual‐ NAS
controller failure in
single NAS appliance
system
Unavailable Lose data in cache Data that has not been written to
disk is lost
Sequential dual‐NAS
controller failure in
multiple NAS appliance
system, same NAS
appliance
Unavailable Unaffected Sequential failure assumes that
there is enough time between
NAS controller failures to write all
data from the cache to disk (MD
system or non‐volatile internal
storage)
Simultaneous dual‐NAS
controller failure in
multiple NAS appliance
Unavailable Lose data in cache Data that has not been written to
disk is lost
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