Isilon supports containers, larger files, faster Azure compute access and cloud-based management

Dell EMC has delivered a powerful update to its OneFS operating system which runs its scale-out out Isilon filers, adding support for containers, larger files and effective capacity, faster Azure cloud compute access, and cloud-based management.

Version 8.2.2 OneFS supports 16TB files, four times more than before. Dell EMC also says OneFS’ inline compression and deduplication on its hybrid SSD/HDD H5600 system can increase its effective capacity 3x. As raw H5600 chassis capacity is 800TB that means it can effectively be 2,400TB. But this depends upon the stored files’ contents and your experience may be different.

Isilon H5600.

There is a Container Storage Interface (CSI) plugin for Kubernetes so that containers can get persistent volumes from an Isilon system through Kubernetes. Container code can call for volume provisioning/deletion, snapshot creation/deletion, creating volumes from snapshots and shared storage access for NFS file shares across multiple Kubernetes Pods.

As a side note, Blocks & Files notes CSI support is spreading, witness Portworx, VAST Data, StorPool and Cisco HyperFlex. We suggest it is going to become a standard feature of storage arrays and hyper-converged systems.

Two cloud extras

OneFS now supports Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute Local, a fast link to a nearby Azure cloud data centre. This means data can be moved from the Isilon box to an Azure compute instance with latency as low as 1.2ms and bandwidth up to 200Gbit/s. Any data written back to the Isilon system won’t incur Azure egress charges.

Dell EMC says this means that Isilon-held data can be used to support infrequent large compute needs in the Azure cloud as well as normal, lower-level, local processing.

CloudIQ on smart phone.

The fourth update item is CloudIQ support for Isilon systems, CloudIQ being Dell EMC’s no-charge, cloud-based, array performance analysis service. It says this uses machine earning technology to analyse information from the Isilon filer and provide a system health check. Admin staff get to find out about potential problems and fix them faster and more easily than before.

They can access CloudIQ through a desktop/notebook browser or mobile phone. It also supports other Dell EMC products such as PowerMax, Unity XT, XtremIO, the SC Series, PowerVault and Connectrix switches.

Dell EMC notes that the CSI plugin is available free of charge on its Community forums for CSI Drivers and Containers, GitHub and Docker Hub.