17 March 2025

Existing Security Group support

IBM Storage Scale now supports the use of existing security groups, allowing for enhanced network access control and seamless integration with predefined security policies.

Existing Key Protect Instance support

IBM Storage Scale can now integrate with an existing Key Protect instance in the same region as the Scale cluster.

Sapphire Rapids (x3 and x3d) support

IBM Storage Scale now supports Sapphire Rapids (x3 and x3d) profiles.

26 February 2025

Bug Fix

Fixed OpenLDAP bug in the new version of the custom image.

Enhancement

The Storage Scale version is updated from 5.2.1.1 to 5.2.2.1

22 November 2024

Migrated OpenLDAP configuration to support SSSD

The OpenLDAP SSSD configuration offers cross-platform compatibility, ensuring consistent authentication setup across various environments. Moving from a nslcd daemon system to a System Security Services Daemon (SSSD) OpenLDAP configuration enhances flexibility and facilitates seamless integration within diverse system landscapes.

15 October 2024

Updated RHEL stock image version

The RHEL stock image version has been updated from RHEL 8.8 to RHEL 8.10.

Updated Storage Scale software version

The Storage Scale version used to configure the compute and storage clusters has been updated from version 5.2.0.1 to 5.2.1.1.

Bare metal support for protocol nodes

Dedicated protocol nodes can be deployed on bare metal servers.

12 September 2024

Bug Fixes

Updated the SGKLM images.

4 September 2024

Enabling AFM feature

Enabling AFM feature allows you to connect IBM Storage Scale filesets to Cloud Object Storage (COS).

Enabling Encryption with IBM Key Protect

You can now encrypt the Storage Scale cluster file systems using IBM Key Protect. To enable encryption, specify the scale_encryption_xxx deployment values when setting up your workspace. For detailed instructions on enabling encryption and configuring these deployment values, refer to the Enabling Encryption documentation.

13 June 2024

Following are the feature changes made for this release:

Enabling colocation feature

Enabling colocation designates the subset of Storage server as protocol nodes. If disabled, the protocol nodes are created on a dedicated virtual server irrespective of storage type.

Enabling boot drive encryption feature for Bare Metal

Enable the boot drive encryption feature for IBM Bare Metal servers on VPC to use the local disk drive for boot. Boot drive encryption encrypts the drive by using LUKS and leverages the local Trusted Platform Module (TPM) for key management.

Updated Storage Scale software version

The Storage Scale version that is used for the configuration of the compute and storage clusters is updated from version 5.1.9.2 to 5.2.0.1.

26 April 2024

Enhancements

• Introducing a single CES hostname that is mapped to all the CES IP addresses to distribute the workload.
• LDAP user integration with password-based authentication.
• Minor encryption, NFS, and security fixes.

22 March 2024

Updated Storage Scale software version

The Storage Scale version that is used for configuration of the compute and storage clusters is updated from version 5.1.9.0 to 5.1.9.2

11 December 2023

Enabling CES Feature

You can now enable the CES feature to enable access to data stored in Storage Scale. By providing a nonzero value to the total_protocol_cluster_instances variable, you can enable the CES feature. For more information about enabling CES and configuring these deployment values, see Enabling CES Feature.

User Management

LDAP is an optional component for CES, allowing users to either use an existing LDAP server or set up a new LDAP node specifically for the CES cluster. By setting up the ldap_basedns deployment value to the required domain name during the deployment, the LDAP feature is integrated along with the Scale CES. For more information about LDAP integration and configuring these deployment values, see Configuring CES with LDAP.

Updated RHEL stock image version

The RHEL stock image version was updated from RHEL 8.6 to RHEL 8.8.

Updated Storage Scale software version

The Storage Scale version that is used for configuration of the compute and storage clusters has been updated from version 5.1.8.1 to 5.1.9.0

21 September 2023

Encryption with GKLM

You can now encrypt your Storage Scale cluster file system by using the IBM Security® Guardium® Key Lifecycle Manager (GKLM). If you want to enable encryption, you need to define the scale_encryption_xxx deployment values when you configure your workspace. For more information about enabling encryption and configuring these deployment values, see Enabling encryption by using GKLM.

Parallel vNIC (Virtual Network Interface Controller)

Create a secondary vNIC for higher VSI profiles to separate the data and storage traffic across different vNICs for higher bandwidth and better performance.

Sapphire Rapids-based virtual server instance profile support

The solution now supports deployment of compute nodes on virtual server instance profiles that use 4th Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors (code named Sapphire Rapids). Those profiles can be used only with the RHEL 8.8 custom image.

22 August 2023

Updated RHEL stock image version

The RHEL stock image version was updated from RHEL 8.4 to RHEL 8.8.

Updated Storage Scale software version

The Storage Scale version that is used for configuration of the compute and storage clusters has been updated from version 5.1.4.1 to 5.1.8.1.

10 March 2023

Persistent Storage Scale storage (GA)

The persistent Storage Scale storage feature is now generally available. Users can deploy a persistent storage configuration that uses bare metal servers with locally attached NVMe storage.

10 November 2022

Storage Scale evaluation (Developer Edition) storage

With the evaluation storage feature, users can try out the Storage Scale solution on IBM Cloud® without a license. The automated deployment is done on virtual server instances with instance storage, with Storage Scale Developer Edition packages, and is available only for prototyping and testing purposes. For more information, see Storage types.

22 September 2022

Persistent Storage Scale storage (Beta)

With the persistent Storage Scale storage beta feature, users can now deploy a persistent storage configuration that uses bare metal servers with locally attached NVMe storage. This is a beta feature that is available for prototyping and testing purposes. There are no warranties, SLAs, or support provided for persistent storage and it is not intended for production use.

Updated Storage Scale software version

The Storage Scale version that is used for configuration of the compute and storage clusters has been updated to version 5.1.4.1.

10 June 2022

Introducing IBM Storage Scale storage for HPC solutions

You now have the option for automated deployment of compute and storage clusters that use IBM Storage Scale for high-performance, shared storage for your HPC solutions. The clusters use the compute and storage node configurations that you select.