WHITE PAPER
Software-Defined Storage IzumoFS with Cisco UCS andCisco UCS Director Solutions
Introduction
While the data handled by companies has an average growth rate of over 50% perannum, growth of HDDs’ capacities have slowed down. Still, the needs to process
large amounts of data at high speed and in real time has never been higher. To
solve the problem, IzumoFS - Next Generation Software Defined Storage provides an optimal solution in combination with Cisco Unified Computing System(Cisco UCS). The solution realizes a distributed storage with scalability and faulttolerance.

IzumoFS - Cisco UCS Software Storage Solution
IzumoBASE and Cisco are going to collaborate by integrating IzumoFS with Cisco
UCS Server to provide the best storage solution in the market.
IzumoFS consists of a Pure P2P architecture that doesn't require any gateway,
connector or even metadata node. The installation process is simple and fast, as it
requires only 2 steps and less than 60 seconds. IzumoFS provides high usability
by simplifying configurations as much as possible. With the combination of suchusability and inline deduplication for data capacity compression, IzumoFS brings
down storage TCO drastically.
On the other hand, Cisco UCS series, including Cisco UCS Manager and Cisco
UCS Director, provides a centralized, superior hardware management andprovisioning systems. In addition, Cisco UCS is constantly introducing novel
technologies that offer the latest hardware technology and manageability at all time.
As an optimal way to catch up with the evolution of Cisco UCS, IzumoFS has anode replacement feature, which enables users to renew hardware easily withminimal overhead. It allows users to benefit from newest advantages of Cisco UCS
at any time.
The key benefit of IzumoFS -- Cisco UCS integration for customers are:-Construct enterprise scale-out NAS with Cisco UCS
Easy storage management by simple IzumoFS UI
Flexible hardware management by Cisco UCS manager
Seamless hardware replacement by IzumoFS’s Node Replacement toupgrade Cisco UCS..

This white paper outlines the result of compatibility test between IzumoFS and1

Cisco UCS. Also, as an appendix, it describes a configuration example of Cisco
UCS Director integration feature (under development).

IzumoFS Architecture and Features
IzumoFS runs on CentOS or RHEL and serves a huge virtual single storage pool.
IzumoFS supports SMB / NFS / iSCSI protocols without any gateway, connector.
Clients do not need to install any client applications. IzumoFS realizes a flexible,
high-performance and cost-efficient scale-out NAS with comfort.
Other key features are--Next generation security with distribution scheme that uses secret sharing(a user can choose between performance-oriented replication andsecurity-oriented secret sharing scheme as a distribution policy for eachvolume).
Real-time Active to Active disaster recovery by wide-area inter-siteclustering.
Inline deduplication that enables high efficiency in capacity and higher
cache hit rate.

Figure 1 General diagram of IzumoFS cluster and its storage pool
As shown in Figure 1, IzumoFS has an extremely simplified architecture. A user
can use all features of IzumoFS by simply launching the IzumoFS service installedon each IA server. Internal core components of IzumoFS are the following threecomponents, which users do not have to recognize in normal operation:IzumoFSIzumoFS provides access through SMB / NFS / iSCSI protocol and manages block
data and metadata. It Serves a virtual storage pool in cooperation with IzumoDB.

2IzumoDB
IzumoDB acts as a distributed object store and it handles inter-node commu
nication over RPC.
IzumoFS API
IzumoFS provides its own management API. It will mainly be used by themanagement console on web ? that runs on all nodes ? and a freely installable CLI
console. All nodes can be managed and automated from any single node.
Figure 2 shows how these IzumoFS components and hardware interwork.

Figure 2 General diagram of IzumoFS core components and its mutual behavior
IzumoFS uses RAID at physical layer of nodes to maintain availability of disks.
Therefore, IzumoFS does not manage individual disks. In terms of performance, itis essential to assign separate RAID groups for block data and metadata. Although
not mandatory, we also recommend metadata be stored on SSDs.

3Cisco UCS Server
Cisco UCS (Unified Computing System) is an advanced server solution from Cisco.
These days, each layer of infrastructures -- such as application, server, network,and storage -- operates in various environments including cloud, physical andvirtual environments. Managing those components is becoming more complicatedthan ever. Cisco UCS integrates these diverse environments and provides asystem that responds to the needs of flexible and rapid changes in the ITenvironment.

Cisco UCS Manager exists as a major software for achieving superior
manageability of Cisco UCS. Cisco UCS Fabric Interconnect integrates andmonitors both Cisco UCS blade servers and rack-mount servers.
Cisco UCS Manager manages all information of servers by Service Profiles.
Service Profilescan be flexibly associated with servers by Cisco UCS Manager.
This achieves rapid provisioning which is required for fast moving IT environment.
It eliminates needs for administrators to perform troublesome setting tasks on
individual servers. Operation efficiency will greatly increase with tasks that
previously required a lot of man-hours, such as introducing a large number ofservers at once.

4Solution Use Cases
IzumoFS - Cisco UCS Software Storage Solution realizes an optimal infrastructurewith SMB / NFS / iSCSI protocol and modern environments like cloud computing
and inter-site clustering. The following are examples of solution use cases:
Scale-Out NAS-Available and extensible scale-out NAS
Start from minimal of 3 servers and scale as data grows
Extremely simple operation with Pure P2P architecture
Flexible operation depending on data size
Allow up to 2 server failures at any moment-Seamless migration from existing environment by supporting
SMB / NFS / iSCSI protocol
Super secure cloud service with Secret Sharing Scheme
Seamless hardware upgrade by Node Replacement feature
No worries for future data migration tasks (Node Replacement
feature enables graceful upgrade on each hardware)

Cloud-Inter-site Clustering-Centralized data management on distributed environment
Servers on each site are Active - Active
Data will be synced to each site periodicallyA user can choose to access the closest server to get maximum
performanceFrequently accessed data will be cached automatically to theclosest site

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IzumoFS - Cisco UCS Compatibility Testing
IzumoBASE and Cisco did a series of Interoperability Verification Testing (IVT)
between IzumoFS and Cisco UCS C240 M4 Rack mount servers.The IVT includes
installation, functionality testing, and resilience testing. IVT assures the solution
behaves as expected in the environment and configuration described below.
Environments and Diagrams
The IzumoFS cluster in testing environment consists of four IzumoFS nodes. It is
the recommended configuration to use secret sharing as a redundancy policy. Asa best practice in terms of performance and ease of maintenance, OS, metadata
and block data are stored in separate RAID groups. Detailed network and hardware
diagrams and specs of the nodes are illustrated below.

Figure 3 Server and network configuration

Figure 4 Installed components

6Table 1 Hardware Specs

Result of Compatibility Testing
We confirmed the compatibility of running IzumoFS on Cisco UCS C240 M4
through installation, functionality testing, and resilience testing. Since the test
focuses on compatibility between Cisco UCS C240 M4 and IzumoFS, aperformance test of IzumoFS was done as an internal operation.
A series of tests successfully confirmed compatibility between Cisco UCS C240 M4
and IzumoFS. Also, it confirmed that Cisco UCS C240 M4 operates as specified byIzumoFS. For the test, we used IzumoFS Version 2.1.2, which was the latest
version at the moment. Contents of the tests are as follows.
Installation
Configuration of Cisco UCS Service Profile
Installation of operating systems
Creation of partitions for block data and meta data
Installation of JDKInstallation of IzumoFS
Installation of IzumoFS CLI
Setup of a network interface for inter-node transaction
Functionality testing
Scaling: Scale storage capacity by adding new storage nodes without
interrupting I/O
Attaching iSCSI volume: create and attach an iSCSI volumeiSCSI volume snapshot: create and restore snapshots
Publish SMB/NFS shared folder: create and use SMB/NFS shared folders
SMB/NFS shared folder snapshot: create and restore snapshots
Inline Deduplication: store data with inline deduplication
Secret sharing: create a shared folder with secret sharing configured andconfirm security of split shares
Real time I/O monitoring: monitor real-time transition of capacity,throughput, IOPS, and latency

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Node replacement: replace node without data rebalancing
Resilience testing
Storage Node failure: I/O failovers as configured on surviving nodes
Storage Node network interface failure: I/O failovers as configured onsurviving nodes
IzumoFS service failure: I/O failovers as configured on surviving nodes

Product Roadmap
IzumoBASE is trying to convert complicated operations of contemporary storage
systems to simple ones and to make contemporary storage systems stableinfrastructures -- just as if twisting a tap always lets water come out. Specifically,as shown in the illustration of Solution Use Cases, we aim IzumoFS atcomprehensive use cases such as on-premise, cloud, and wide area cluster.
Now that cloud computing has become popular, we can say that we are going intoan era of IoT where everything is connected to the Internet. In such times, it's
required to have an infrastructure with tens of billions of devices constantly
generating and analyzing data. This is a vision so-called fog computing or edge
computing.
IzumoFS supports active-active utilization of geographically distributed nodes bytaking advantage of its flexibility which is characteristic of SDS. As a productroadmap for the future, we are planning to extend the product to focus on wide areaclustering, aiming for new products that match IoT and fog computing era.

8Appendix
Cisco UCS Directorer Collaboration
Cisco UCS DirectorCisco UCS Director can orchestrate IT processes including not only Cisco products
but also products of other companies. By integrating and automating IT
infrastructure, a user can manage complex tasks as a series of processes andimprove operational efficiency.
By using a self-service portal, users can quickly request the necessary IT
infrastructure from administrators and administrators can manage and approvethose request to dispatch a new IT infrastructure on a centralized system. Theseworkflows are made up of subdivided tasks, allowing flexible orchestration
depending on the practical business process.
IzumoFS - Cisco UCS Director Collaboration
Currently, management of IzumoFS’s shared folder through Cisco UCS Director isunder development. Figure 5 shows the screen under development. With thisfeature, a user can create, edit or delete IzumoFS’s shared folders from Cisco UCS
Director.

Figure 5 IzumoFS Share Folders on Cisco UCS Director
In addition, operations on IzumoFS’s shared folder through Cisco UCS Director"Task" is also under development. With this task, IzumoFS workflow (Figure 6) andcatalog (Figure 7) can be created on Cisco UCS Director. For example, a user cansend a request for paying out a shared folder to Cisco UCS Director administrator
at required timing (Figure 8). By approving received requests, the Cisco UCS
Director administrator can pay out shared folders to end users without opening theIzumoFS administration console (Figure 9 - 11).

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Figure 6 Cisco UCS Director Workflow

Figure 7 Cisco UCS Director catalogs

Figure 8 Share Folder Request

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Figure 9 Approval request list

Figure 10 Approve request

Figure 11 Approved Share Folder in IzumoFS GUIIzumoFS makes it easy for administrators to operate whatever they need to do with
the infrastructure. In addition, through a series of Cisco UCS Director linkage
functions, a user can make storage operable without opening management consoleof IzumoFS and incorporate communications between an administrator.
Recommended Configurations
Example configurations of IzumoFS are shown below. The performance
configuration is oriented towards a high throughput. The mid-range configuration isfor cost effectiveness, and the dense configuration is suitable for a large amount ofdata with highly integrated Cisco UCS S3260. In practical applications, thesetypical configuration examples will be adjusted according to data sets,environments, and requirements.

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Resources
Cisco:
https://www.cisco.com
IzumoBASE:
https://www.izumobase.com
IzumoBASE Blog:
https://www.izumobase.com/blog
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/IzumoBASE
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/IzumoBASE-INC-1551591798412154
Cisco Marketplace IzumoFS solution:
https://marketplace.cisco.com/catalog/solution/155055?pid=160705
Cisco Japan Solution Partner page:https://www.cisco.com/c/ja_jp/partners/partner-with-cisco/solution-partnerprogram-spp/solutions/izumobase-izumofs.html?stickynav=1

IzumoBASE, INC.
IzumoBASE, with our vision “to make storage trueinfrastructure”, delivers IzumoFS, a Software-Defined Storage
with ease, that provides cutting-edge solutions to complex
data management, with the power of the newest technology* IzumoFS is a registered trademark of IzumoBASE, INC.
* Other company or product names are registered trademarks of respective owners.

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