Deploying IBM Storage Scale

Deploy the Storage Scale deployable architecture using the IBM Cloud console.

Deploy the Storage Scale deployable architecture using the IBM Cloud CLI.

The offering enables the initial Storage Scale-based cluster creation. Any updates that are needed post-deployment regarding Storage Scale configuration or setup must be performed by using Storage Scale tools and commands. If you use the Schematics interface to make changes to configuration properties and reapply those changes, you can cause disruptions to the running Storage Scale cluster. Restoring it back to a working state might not be easy.

Creating the project by using the UI

You can deploy your Storage Scale cluster by using the IBM Cloud console UI to create a project.

  1. Log in to the IBM Cloud catalog by using your unique credentials.

  2. Search for IBM Storage Scale in the search catalog.

  3. Click Create project.

  4. In Create a project section:

    • Specify a Name for your project.
    • Optionally provide a Description to describe the purpose of the project.
    • Select a Region for the location where you want the Schematics workspace to be created. The region selected here is not for the Scale cluster deployment but for the schematics workspace to be created.
    • Select a Resource group for your Schematics workspace.
    • Click Create to save your project. The project is added to the Projects view of the IBM Cloud console.

  5. In the Configure and deploy section, edit the configuration by entering the Security and Inputs details.

  6. In the Security tab, you have two sections:

    • Authentication: specify an API key for the IBM Cloud account where you want to deploy your Storage Scale cluster to fulfill the ibmcloud_api_key input variable.
    • Compliance: configure the IBM Cloud® Compliance Manager controls that you want to use to validate the deployable architecture code before the deployment. You can use the architecture defaults or select your own from an existing Compliance Manager instance.

  7. In the Inputs tab, you can:

    • Edit the required deployment values for the mandatory input variables: storage_gui_username, storage_gui_password, existing_resource_group, remote_allowed_ips, ssh_keys, and zones.
    • Toggle the Optional values, to add the optional values.

  8. Click Done.

    Click the information icon (i) to view the descriptions for the input values of each variable in the IBM Cloud console.

    Secure deployment values might be entered directly or might be referenced from an existing IBM Cloud® Secrets Manager. As a best practice, the more secure option is to use a Secrets Manager to store secured input values.

    For example, to enable the scale_encryption_enabled variable, you need to set the value to true.

  9. Click Save to save your configuration options.

  10. Click Validate. IBM Cloud projects run a Code Risk Analyzer scan that includes a supported set of Compliance Manager rules. It checks the controls that are part of the Storage Scale deployment and that IBM Cloud projects support. Any extra controls that are not included in the list of supported Compliance Manager rules are not checked when you validate the configuration. Once the validation is completed, provide a comment in the pop-up to approve the validation and proceed to deployment.

  11. Click Deploy to proceed with the deployment. Deploying the deployable architecture can take several minutes. You are notified when the deployment is successful. Optionally click View resources from the Summary tab to see details about the deployed Storage Scale project. When deployed, you can then access your deployed environment.

Schematics workspace

Once you deploy the project, in the back end a Schematics workspace is created for the cluster deployment. To view the created workspace follow the steps:

  1. Go to the Navigation Menu.
  2. Select Platform Automation > Schematics > Terraform.
  3. You can see the list of workspaces created.

When deployed, you can then access your deployed environment. For more information on accessing the cluster after the deployment, see Accessing the deployed environment.

You can retrieve the logs from either the Schematics workspace or the deployer node to view both successful and failed cluster deployments.

Retrieving apply plan logs in the Schematics workspace

After you apply a plan, a new log file is generated, which can be viewed in the Jobs tab in the Schematics workspace. In the following sections you can see the instructions and examples of successful or failed deployments.

Successful cluster deployment

  1. In the Jobs tab in the Schematics workspace, select the job and expand the log file.
  2. If the job was successful in creating all of the resources that are part of the deployment, then your workspace goes to an active state.
  3. Use the SSH command in the output of your apply plan log to log in as vpcuser for the deployer, compute, and storage node through the bastion host as ubuntu user. See the following sample response of a successful deployment:

Sample response:

2022/05/09 14:35:53 Terraform apply | Apply complete! Resources: 41 added, 0 changed, 0 destroyed.
2022/05/09 14:35:53 Terraform apply |
2022/05/09 14:35:53 Terraform apply | Outputs:
2022/05/09 14:35:53 Terraform apply |
2022/05/09 14:35:53 Terraform apply | ssh_command = "ssh -J ubuntu@141.125.161.0 vpcuser@10.241.1.5"
2022/05/09 14:35:53 Command finished successfully.

Failed cluster deployment

  1. In the Jobs tab in the Schematics workspace, select the job and expand the log file for a better view.
  2. If the job fails to create any of the resources that are a part of the deployment, then your workspace goes to a failed state. Deployment might error out if any of the deployment values are incorrect or if there are any issues at the infrastructure level.
  3. Fix the errors, and then click Apply plan again. See the following sample response of a failed deployment:

Sample response:

2022/05/09 12:51:12 Terraform plan | Error: [ERROR] No SSH Key found with name ssh-key-east-new
2022/05/09 12:51:12 Terraform plan |
2022/05/09 12:51:12 Terraform plan | on main.tf line 85, in data "ibm_is_ssh_key" "compute_ssh_key":
2022/05/09 12:51:12 Terraform plan | 85: data "ibm_is_ssh_key" "compute_ssh_key" { # This block is trying to fetch the key_pair details for compute node, which is dependent on the code present on public repo
2022/05/09 12:51:12 Terraform plan |
2022/05/09 12:51:12 Terraform plan |
2022/05/09 12:51:12 Terraform plan |
2022/05/09 12:51:12 Terraform plan | Error: [ERROR] No SSH Key found with name ssh-key-east-new
2022/05/09 12:51:12 Terraform plan |
2022/05/09 12:51:12 Terraform plan | on main.tf line 89, in data "ibm_is_ssh_key" "storage_ssh_key":
2022/05/09 12:51:12 Terraform plan | 89: data "ibm_is_ssh_key" "storage_ssh_key" { # This block is trying to fetch the key_pair details for compute node, which is dependent on the code present on public repo
2022/05/09 12:51:12 Terraform plan |
2022/05/09 12:51:12 Terraform plan |
2022/05/09 12:51:12 �[1m�[31mTerraform PLAN error: Terraform PLAN errorexit status 1�[39m�[0m
2022/05/09 12:51:12 �[1m�[31mCould not execute job: Error : Terraform PLAN errorexit status 1�[39m�[0m

Deploying Storage Scale cluster using the CLI

To generate the API key, see Managing user API keys. To login to the IBM Cloud CLI, see ibmcloud login.

You can deploy your Storage Scale cluster by using the IBM Cloud CLI to create a catalog workspace with the supported Storage Scale cluster version. The CLI requires a values.json file with your configuration settings.

  1. Install the IBM Cloud CLI and the catalogs management plug-in before you run any CLI commands.

  2. The CLI requires a values.json file with your configuration settings. Use the values.json file as a reference. You can copy the contents, change the values to meet your own deployment configurations, and then save it as values.json.

  3. Run this command in the IBM Cloud CLI to deploy your Storage Scale cluster with the configuration you specified in your values.json file.

    ibmcloud catalog install --vl <version_locator_value> --override-values values.json

    Outputs:

    Attempting install of Storage Scale cluster version x.x.x...
Schematics workspace: https://cloud.ibm.com/schematics/workspaces/us-south.workspace.globalcatalog-collection.40b1c1e4/jobs?region=
Workspace status: DRAFT
Workspace status: INACTIVE
Workspace status: INPROGRESS
Workspace status: ACTIVE
Installation successful
OK

  4. The CLI requires a version_locator_value. You can retrieve this value from the IBM Cloud console UI by clicking View details.

    1. Log in to the IBM Cloud catalog by using your unique credentials.

    2. Click Review deployment options.

    3. In the Deployment options section, select Create from the CLI, copy the version_locator_value, and save this value to be used in a later step. The value is an 80 character alphanumeric string, such as:

      1082e7d2-5e2f-0a11-a3bc-f88a8e1931fc.6c26cd4c-4f72-45e5-8bde-77387aa05138-global
    • Provide the mandatory deployment values for your Storage Scale cluster, specifically, replace the Fill the value here text with values.

If you deployed by using a project, you can copy this SSH command from the IBM Cloud console: select Projects > project_name > Configurations > project_configuration_name > Outputs tab, and use the copy icon to copy the ssh_command value and run it from a command line.

Schematics actions

  1. You can view the logs in your workspace by running the command ibmcloud schematics logs --id us-east.workspace.hpcc-cluster.7cbc3f6b

  2. You can list the workspaces in your account by running the command $ ibmcloud schematics workspace list

Example response with workspace details:

Name               ID                                            Description   Status     Frozen
hpcc-cluster       us-east.workspace.hpcc-cluster.7cbc3f6b       INACTIVE      False
OK

For more information, see the IBM Cloud Schematics CLI reference.

If you deployed by using a project, you can copy this SSH command from the IBM Cloud console: select Projects > project_name > Configurations > project_configuration_name > Outputs tab, and use the copy icon to copy the ssh_command value and run it from a command line.