Dell Enterprise Object

Storage - ECS
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T h e h u n g.n gu yen@de ll .co m
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U D S So lu ti o n En g i n e e r
What is object storage?
A different approach, redesigned to store & access files massively and for cloud era

TRANSACTION UNITS PROTOCOLS METADATA SUPPORT

Objects – files with REST and SOAP Supports custom
custom metadata over HTTP metadata

WELL SUITED FOR BIGGEST STRENGTH LIMITATIONS

Relatively static file data Scalability and Not well suited for frequently
and as cloud storage distributed access changing transactional data

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The way how the file is
stored/accessed/organized
File Object
Metadata:
Name: Picture.jpg
Owner: Mr. Bean
Metadata: Date: 23.8.17 13:38
Name: picture.jpg Resolution: 512 × 418
Path: /mnt/picture.jpg Location GPS: 50.0481661N,
Owner: Mr. Bean 14.4084219E
Created Date: 23.8.17 13:38 Date Taken: 21.8.17 14:35
Camera Type: Nikon D750
Modified Date: 28.8.17 08:38
Client Number: 56672146576
Permission: 750
Keyword 1: restaurant

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What would be the advantages?
• No management overhead for managing directory structure (e.g: no more than 1M
files/folder)
• No need to check if the directory exist before writing the file, no more bottleneck with
directory lock (“Only one thread can be modifying the directory at any one time. If workload
has a high rate of creates and deletes, then these will be serialized by the directory lock…”)
• Metadata searching, avoid the need for Database for some simple needs.

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How it works?

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Different in the way of accessing

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What would be the advantages?
• Portability, don’t have to worry about OS
• ACL cross platform is easier

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What would be the advantages?
• No need proximity as Internet friendly
• Active-Active multi-sites support is built-in

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Why Use Object?
a. Accessible by web-based protocols (HTTP / HTTPS), Developers friendly,
multiple SDKs options (java, GO, .net, Python, etc)
b. Highly scalable – Capacity / Global Federation, no object limit
c. Globally accessible for Reads / Writes from multiple sites
d. Object data can be tagged with user-defined custom metadata Key / Value
pairs for quickly searching for blobs matching query, reduce the need for
separate DB
e. Presigned URL, web server not in datapath

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File upload/download
Pre-signed URL
• The web browser sends an API request to the web server that compute the
headers needed by the web browser to upload the picture directly on ECS
• The web server is not in the data path, both upload/download
→ Mobile app, Internet users…

POST /api/v1/uploadpicture Compute the headers, including the

signature, using the secret key
Provide the computed headers

PUT http://<bucket name>.<namespace>.<ECS base URL>:9020/pictures/<Picture

name>

Web Browser Web Server ECS

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A Typical application deployment
And infrastructure cost becomes prohibitive
Traditional Storage

Web
servers

DB
servers

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Why object storage is different
Web servers are not in the data path, less infra needed
ECS
appliances

Web
servers

DB
servers

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Why Use Object?
a. Versioning enables individual object ‘snapshot’ like functionality with
Lifecycle policies to control how many days to keep current and non-current
versions around before expiration (automatic purging of expired objects)
b. Immutable objects with retention settings (1yr, 5yr, 7yr etc)

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How versioning works?

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Object lock (S3 Standard)

• Object locks apply to individual object versions only

• Different versions of a single object can have

different retention modes and periods

• When an object is overwritten, a new version of the

object is created which can be created with different
lock settings

• Objects can still be deleted!

• A delete marker is added

• Previous version(s) still exist and are locked

(assuming the retention period hasn’t expired
between versions)

• Delete markers can be deleted

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Object lock (S3 Standard)

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Dell Object Storage
& Use cases

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Dell ECS
Enterprise-grade object storage
Cloud-native
apps EXF900
IoT, AI,
Dev / test Machine Learning

Data
Containers
monetization EX500

Safety &
security ECS Analytics

CloudPools
EX5000
Backup
& CloudTier

Sync &
Compliance
shares
Archive / tape
replace

Scale-out | Geo-distributed | Multiprotocol | Custom metadata | Turnkey appliances

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ECS core features and capabilities

Limitless scale & predictable Globally connected Multi-tenancy / access

performance • VDC federation (8 sites) • Namespaces & role-based access
• Scale-out architecture • Active/active architecture with XOR controls
• No limits on capacity, number of reduction • Identity & access management
objects, file size, or nodes, (IAM) controls
performance increase consistently

Multiprotocol support Protection & compliance Advanced features

• Cloud-native via HTTP and S3 • FIPS 140-2, D@RE, erasure • NVMe SSD options
(S3a) RESTfulAPIs coding, etc. • SSD metadata cache
• NFS, SMB, CIFS, Swift, CAS, • Retention, indexing, replication • Custom metadata
ATMOS, HDFS
• S3 extension: Object cloning

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Object Storage Use Cases

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ECS scale-out architecture

Clients

Multi-protocol S3 S3a HDFS NFS CIFS Swift

Load Balancer

Front-end Network

ECS Nodes and

Back-end Network
ECS Nodes Intra-cluster
Same roles for all nodes communication
Typical single deployment

HTTP Load AD
Balancer DNS
NTP

Namespace 1

Storage Pool 1 Bucket Bucket

01 02
Geo-replication deployment

Replication Group

Namespace 1

Storage Pool 1 Bucket Bucket Storage Pool 2

01 02

Geo – Federated
Use Cases
PowerProtect DD/Netbackup + ECS

Access Methods
NFS ▪ CIFS ▪ VTL ▪ NDMP ▪ DD Boost

Cloud Tier

Tier cold data from Free up capacity and Extend the value
PowerProtect DD to ECS improve TCO of data
PowerScale + ECS

Extended OneFS Namespace

Apps PowerScale OneFS

ECS Private
Seattle
Cloud

CloudPools

Clients Tokyo
London

NFS | SMB | S3 | HDFS | Swift

Cost-effective Automated Eliminates data Single vendor

cold storage data tiering residency issues solution
ECS, the ultimate backup target

And more!

Backup and Validated target 59.5% lower TCO Keeps data under
archive at any by multiple ISVs than public cloud 1 your organization’s
scale control

1Economic Benefit Analysis of On-premises Object Storage Versus Public Cloud, ESG: by Tony Palmer and Scott Sinclair, February 2019
ECS for AI, deep learning & analytics
INDUSTRY VERTICALS

M&E Healthcare EDU

AI ML Models

FinServ ADAS Sciences

INPUT OUTPUT ANALYZE

ECS DATA LAKE

Turnkey Appliances Software-Defined Cloud Service Providers

ECS Object Storage Use Case Landscape
Monitoring and Observability Analytics Backup Environment
NDMP/NAS

Veeam NetWorker,
Internet of Things (IoT) Veritas Avamar,
Commvault NetBackup
SDP Rubrik
NDMP/NAS
PowerScale/Isilon + Other NAS (NTAP, VNX, …) (S3)
SmartPools
Modern Applications
CloudPools Archive Gateway

Dell Data
Security, Audio & Video
Protection
LTR
ECS Object Cloud Suite
Protocols & APIs: S3 | Swift | Atmos | NFS | CIFS | HDFS | CAS
PowerProtect
CIFS Object Access
LTR
ECS GeoDrive
CloudTier
NFS Object Access NFS

Long-term Retention Tape

Sync & Share
Libraries

CAS
CENTERA
File-Object, Object-File (FOOF) NFS ▪ S3
Migration &
Dell EMC DataIQ Transformation
SmartSync / Superna
ECS EX-Series | EX500
EX500 | PowerEdge R740xd2
• Scale-out nodes
• Improved performance via dual, 10 core processors
2U • Identical performance characteristics with every node
• Optional SSD for metadata cache
• Modern application or deep archive use cases

Model Memory CPU/PE Server Disk per node Rack capacity Networking connections

EX500 48TB 64GB,192 2 x 10 core 12, 24 x 2TB / 4TB 120TB – 768TB 25GbE FrontEnd | 25GbE BackEnd
GB
EX500 96TB 64GB,192 2 x 10 core 12, 24 x 2TB / 4TB 240TB – 1536TB 25GbE FrontEnd | 25GbE BackEnd
GB
EX500 192TB 64GB,192 2 x 10 core 12, 24 x 8TB 480TB – 3072TB 25GbE FrontEnd | 25GbE BackEnd
GB
EX500 288TB 64GB,192 2 x 10 core 12, 24 x 12TB 720TB – 2304TB 25GbE FrontEnd | 25GbE BackEnd
GB
EX500 384TB 64GB,192 2 x 10 core 12, 24 x 16TB 960TB – 6144TB 25GbE FrontEnd | 25GbE BackEnd
GB
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ECS EX-Series | EX5000
EX5000 | PowerEdge XE7100 • Single and dual node configurations
• Drawer accessible and hot-pluggable drives
• 16TB disk drives per node
5U • Optional SSD for metadata cache
• Long-term retention, storage consolidation, and multi-
purpose object storage requirements that span S3,
HDFS, and archive workloads

Model Memory CPU/PE Server Disk per node Rack capacity Networking connections

EX5000(S) 16TB 25, 50, 75, 100

192GB 2 x 28 core 2,000TB – 11,200TB 25GbE FrontEnd | 25GbE BackEnd
Single node x 16TB
EX5000(D) 16TB
192GB 2 x 28 core 25, 50 x 16TB 4,800TB – 11,200TB 25GbE FrontEnd | 25GbE BackEnd
Dual node

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ECS EX-Series | EXF900
EXF900 | PowerEdge R740xd • Scale-out nodes
• High performance NVMe SSDs with dual
24-core processors
2U
• Identical performance characteristics with every node
• AI, machine learning, IoT and real-time analytics
apps

Model Memory CPU/PE Server Disk per node Rack capacity Networking connections

EXF900 46TB 192GB 2 x 24 core 12, 24 x 3.84TB 230TB – 1,474TB 25GbE FrontEnd | 25GbE BackEnd

EXF900 92TB 192GB 2 x 24 core 12, 24 x 7.68TB 460TB – 2,949TB 25GbE FrontEnd | 25GbE BackEnd

EXF900 184TB 192GB 2 x 24 core 12, 24 x 15.36TB 920TB – 5,898TB 25GbE FrontEnd | 25GbE BackEnd

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Rights
Inc.Reserved.