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Hitachi Content Platform for Cloud Scale v2.1.0 Release Notes

About this document

This document gives late-breaking information about HCP for cloud scale v2.1.0. It includes information that was not available at the time the technical documentation for this product was published, a list of new features, a list of resolved issues, and a list of known issues and where applicable their workarounds.

Intended audience

This document is intended for customers and Hitachi Vantara partners who license and use HCP for cloud scale.

Getting help

The Hitachi Vantara Support Website is the destination for technical support of products and solutions sold by Hitachi Vantara. To contact technical support, log on to the Hitachi Vantara Support Website for contact information: https://support.hitachivantara.com/en_us/contact-us.html.

Hitachi Vantara Community is a global online community for Hitachi Vantara customers, partners, independent software vendors, employees, and prospects. It is the destination to get answers, discover insights, and make connections. Join the conversation today! Go to community.hitachivantara.com, register, and complete your profile.

About this release

This is build 2.1.0.12 of the Hitachi Content Platform for cloud scale (HCP for cloud scale) software.

Major features

HCP for cloud scale is a software-defined object storage solution that is based on a massively parallel microservice architecture and is compatible with the Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) application programming interface (API). HCP for cloud scale is especially well suited to service applications requiring high bandwidth and compatibility with the Amazon S3 API.

Major features in v2.1.0

HCP for cloud scale v2.1.0 includes the following major features.

Storage chargeback reporting

In this version, authorized users can generate bucket usage reports. Data can be filtered by user, bucket, and time period. This feature offers an efficient way for users, administrators, or service providers to track space usage.

Reports are generated in CSV format with hourly, daily, or monthly granularity. Usage is reported by byte-hours, GB-months, or bytes written or deleted. The feature includes MAPI methods and a GUI display.

Access to the feature is granted by permission at the user level (for the user's buckets) or the system level (for any bucket or user).

For more information about chargeback reporting, see the Administration Guide and the Management API Reference.

Storage component capacity monitoring

HCP for cloud scale includes an Object Storage Management application for supporing storage components. In this version, the Storage Component page displays the used, free, and total disk capacity for HCP S Series nodes configured in the system. If all the storage components are HCP S Series nodes, the page displays the total, used, and free capacity of the entire system. You can set capacity threshold alarms to send an alert message, an email notification, or a visual display if the capacity of an HCP S Series storage component, or the system as a whole, reaches a threshold. This page provides a single monitoring point for the system, and the information helps you with capacity planning.

For more information about capacity monitoring, see the Administration Guide and the Management API Reference.

S3 Console application enhancements

HCP for cloud scale includes an S3 Console application for users to generate S3 credentials, manage their S3 buckets, and manage objects in their buckets. In this version, bucket management is enhanced with these features:

  • Users can create, list, edit, and remove their empty buckets
  • Users can view metrics
  • Users can manage expiration life cycle and object lock retention period
  • Users can manage bucket replication (sync-to and sync-from)
  • An administrator can view overall capacity and the number of objects in all user’s buckets

In this version, object management is enhanced with these features:

  • Users can browse objects in their buckets
  • Users can upload objects, including by drag and drop
  • Users can delete, download, view versions of, generate links with expiration date to, and view properties of objects
  • Users can create folders

For more information about the S3 Console application, see the S3 Console Guide.

Features in v2.0.3

HCP for cloud scale v2.0.3 includes the following features.

Bug fixes

This release resolves a number of issues.

Features in v2.0.2

HCP for cloud scale v2.0.2 includes the following features.

Bug fixes

This release resolves a number of issues.

Features in v2.0.1

HCP for cloud scale v2.0.1 includes the following features.

Ingest performance optimizations

This release improves the performance of object ingest operations.

Bug fixes

This release resolves a number of issues.

Major features in v2.0.0

HCP for cloud scale v2.0.0 includes the following major features.

S3 Console application

HCP for cloud scale supports an application for users to manage S3 buckets and browse objects. The application lets users:

  • Generate S3 access and secret keys
  • Create and manage buckets
  • Configure bucket synchronization and bucket policies
  • Browse objects in buckets
Digital license key to enable Data at Rest Encryption (DARE)

A digital license key is required to enable DARE. This key is not available in certain countries identified by the Hitachi Vantara Global Trade Compliance (GTC) team.

System requirements

This section lists the hardware, networking, and operating system requirements for running an HCP for cloud scale system with one or more instances.

Hardware requirements

To install HCP for cloud scale on on-premises hardware for production use, you must provision at least four instances (nodes) with sufficient CPU, RAM, disk space, and networking capabilities. This table shows the hardware minimum requirements and best-practice resources for each instance in an HCP for cloud scale system.

ResourceMinimumBest
RAM32 GB128 GB
CPU8-core24-core
Available disk space500 GB 10k SAS RAID(4) 2000 GB 15k SAS RAID SSD
Network interface controller (NIC)(1) 10 Gb Ethernet NICs(4) 10 Gb Ethernet NICs

Software requirements

The following table shows the minimum requirements and best-practice software configurations for each instance in an HCP for cloud scale system.

ResourceMinimumBest
IP addresses(1) static(2) static
Firewall Port AccessPort 443 for S3 API

Port 8000 for System Management App GUI

Port 9084 for MAPI and Object Storage Management App GUI

Same
Network TimeIP address of time service (NTP)Same

Operating system and Docker minimum requirements

Each server or virtual machine you provide must have the following:

  • 64-bit Linux distribution
  • Docker version installed: Docker Enterprise Edition, 19.03.12 or later, or Docker Community Edition 18.09.0 or later
  • IP and DNS addresses configured

Additionally, you should install all relevant patches on the operating system and perform appropriate security hardening tasks.

ImportantThe system cannot run with Docker versions before 1.13.1.

To execute scripts provided with the product on RHEL, you should install Python.

Operating system and Docker qualified versions

This table shows the operating system, Docker, and SELinux configurations with which the HCP for cloud scale system has been qualified.

Operating systemDocker versionDocker storage configurationSELinux setting
Red Hat or CentOS Enterprise Linux 8.1Docker Enterprise Edition 19.03.12 or later

Note: Separate license required for Docker Enterprise Edition

overlay2Enforcing
Red Hat or CentOS Enterprise Linux 7.6Docker Community Edition 18.09.0 or later

Note: Technical support not available for Docker Community Edition

direct-lvm and overlay2Enforcing
Ubuntu 18.04Docker Community Edition 18.09.0 or later

Note: Technical support not available for Docker Community Edition

aufsN/A

If you are installing on Amazon Linux, before deployment, edit the file /etc/security/limits.conf on every node to add the following two lines:

*  hard  nofile  65535
*  soft  nofile  65535

Docker considerations

The Docker installation folder on each instance must have at least 20 GB available for storing the HCP for cloud scale Docker images.

Make sure that the Docker storage driver is configured correctly on each instance before installing HCP for cloud scale. To view the current Docker storage driver on an instance, run docker info.

NoteAfter installing, changing the Docker storage driver requires a reinstallation of HCP for cloud scale.

If you are using the Docker devicemapper storage driver:

  • Make sure that there's at least 40 GB of Docker metadata storage space available on each instance. HCP for cloud scale needs 20 GB to install successfully and an additional 20 GB to successfully update to a later version. To view Docker metadata storage usage on an instance, run docker info.
  • On a production system, do not run devicemapper in loop-lvm mode. This can cause slow performance or, on certain Linux distributions, HCP for cloud scale might not have enough space to run.

SELinux considerations

You should decide whether you want to run SELinux on system instances and enable or disable it before installing HCP for cloud scale. To enable or disable SELinux on an instance, you must restart the instance. To view whether SELinux is enabled on an instance, run: sestatus

To enable SELinux on the system instances, use a Docker storage driver that supports it. The storage drivers that SELinux supports differ depending on the Linux distribution you're using. For more information, see the Docker documentation.

Time source requirements

If you are installing a multi-instance system, each instance should run NTP (network time protocol) and use the same external time source. For information, see support.ntp.org.

Supported browsers

The following browsers are qualified for use with HCP for cloud scale software. Other browsers or versions might also work.

  • Google Chrome (latest version as of the date of this publication)
  • Mozilla Firefox (latest version as of the date of this publication)

Installation or upgrade considerations

This section provides information about installing or upgrading HCP for cloud scale software.

Installation

After installing the software, but before putting the system into production, you might want to assign a name to the cluster; update Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificates for the system, storage components, or synchronized buckets; or enable encryption.

After renaming a cluster:

  1. Update or upload the system certificate.
  2. Restart (repair) the S3 Gateway service.
  3. Restart (repair) the MAPI Gateway service.
  4. If encryption is enabled, restart (repair) the Key Management Server (KMS) service and unseal the vault.

After uploading the system certificate:

  1. Restart (repair) the S3 Gateway service.
  2. Restart (repair) the MAPI Gateway service.
  3. If encryption is enabled, restart (repair) the Key Management Server (KMS) service and unseal the vault.

After uploading a client certificate for a storage component:

  1. Restart (repair) the S3 Gateway service.
  2. Restart (repair) the MAPI Gateway service.

After uploading a client certificate for an S3-compatible remote system used for bucket synchronization:

  1. Restart (repair) the S3 Gateway service.
  2. Restart (repair) the Policy Engine service.

After enabling encryption:

  1. Restart (repair) the S3 Gateway service.
  2. Restart (repair) the Policy Engine service.

For more information on these tasks see the Administration Guide or the online help available in the system.

Upgrade

The update process can trigger alarms on the Status tab of the System Management application, or emails if notification is enabled, that services have gone down, exited abnormally, or become underprotected. These notifications are expected during an update and you can safely ignore them. Update alarms should clear automatically when the update finishes.

When upgrading to v2.1, if the system includes HCP S Series storage components, alerts are triggered that they aren't configured for capacity alerts. You can safely ignore these alerts and configure HCP S Series storage components for capacity alerts after the upgrade is complete.

In previous releases, the best practice was to scale the MAPI Gateway service to all nodes. In v2.1, the MAPI Gateway service is limited to one service instance. When upgrading to v2.1, if the MAPI Gateway service on the system had previously been scaled to more than one service instance, the service is not scaled down automatically, and Object Storage Management application users can encounter incorrect metrics or unexpected logouts. Use the System Management application to manually scale down the MAPI Gateway service to one service instance.

When upgrading to v2.0, the process can appear to stall for extended periods of time. Allow the update process to finish.

Resolved issues

The following HCP for cloud scale issues are resolved in this release.

Object storage management

The following table lists resolved issues affecting object storage management.

IssueArea affectedDescription
ASP-5557MAPI GatewayScaling MAPI Gateway beyond one instance can cause incorrect metrics display or unexpected logout

If the MAPI Gateway service is scaled beyond one service instance, Object Storage Management application users can encounter incorrect metrics or unexpected logouts.

Resolution

This issue is resolved. The MAPI Gateway service is limited to one instance.

ASP-8317EncryptionEnabling encryption might not take effect on all storage components immediately

After encryption is enabled, the encryption status is immediately displayed as on. However, there can be a delay before all storage components begin encrypting ingested objects. Objects stored without encryption remain unencrypted.

Resolution

This issue is resolved.

Known issues

The following issues with HCP for cloud scale have been identified in this release.

Don't try to initialize the encryption key management server (the Vault service) manually outside of HCP for cloud scale. Doing so results in data loss.

The S3 Console application uses the Metrics service to fetch bucket information. So the S3 Console application can display bucket information and statistics to users, configure the port hosting the Metrics service as external.

Object storage management

The following table lists known issues affecting object storage management.

IssueArea affectedDescription
ASP-1138System ManagementCannot update cluster name

After changing the cluster hostname, the change is not automatically made externally visible.

Workaround

Restart the S3 Gateway:

  1. In the System Management application, select Services.
  2. Select the S3-Gateway service.
  3. Click REPAIR.
ASP-2422Tracing AgentIncorrect alert message during manual deployment

When manually deploying a four-node, multi-instance system, the Tracing Agent service returns an alert that the service is below the needed instance count even when the correct number of service instances are deployed.

Workaround

If you have deployed the correct number of instances you can safely ignore this alert.

ASP-3081Management APIAPI job methods are not supported

A number of API methods refer to jobs. Jobs are not supported in this release.

ASP-3119MAPI GatewayBlocked thread on authorization timeout

Authentication and authorization use a system management authorization client service which has a different timeout interval. If a management API authorization or authentication request times out but the underlying client service doesn't, the thread is blocked.

Workaround

Stop and restart the MAPI Gateway service container.

ASP-3170MAPI GatewayCertain API methods are public

The MAPI schema includes public API methods, which do not need OAuth tokens.

Workaround

None needed. The public API methods do not need OAuth tokens.

ASP-3297Storage ManagementCannot write to storage even though storage is available

The storage component to which data is written is selected at random. If a filled storage component is selected, the write might fail.

Workaround

Use the Object Storage Management application or the MAPI method PATCH /storage_component/update to set the filled storage component's readOnly flag to true.

ASP-6630Storage ManagementSetting encryption from multiple clients simultaneously can render existing storage component inaccessible

If two accounts try to set the encryption flag simultaneously, either using the GUI or the management API method /s3_encryption/set, existing storage components can become inaccessible.

Workaround

  • If you intend to use encryption, set it before defining storage components.
  • If you have already defined storage components and intend to use encryption, do not try to set encryption from multiple accounts, or by multiple calls to the API method /s3_encryption/set, simultaneously.
ASP-7161Amazon S3Reported size of record returned from S3 Select might not match AWS

AWS calculates the size of a record returned in an S3 Select query as the total size of the record, including any delimiters. HCP for cloud scale calculates the size as the total data of each column returned. These calculations can sometimes differ slightly.

ASP-7239Storage ManagementStorage component host name final segment allowed to begin with number

When configuring a storage component, the last segment of the host name can't begin with a number (for example, company.9com), but the field validation allows it, resulting in a invalid hostname error at the end of the process.

Workaround

Ensure that the last segment of the host name does not begin with a number before proceeding.

ASP-7329Amazon S3S3 operations on objects with NUL and \ characters fail

The characters null (NUL) and backslash (\) are not supported in object keys for S3 operations. The operations fail with the error 400 BadRequest.

Workaround

Do not use the null or backslash characters in object keys.

ASP-9344Storage ManagementStale alerts continue to be displayed

The Object Storage Management application can continue to display alerts even after the underlying condition changes.

Workaround

Refresh the page.

System management

The following table lists known issues affecting system management.

IssueArea affectedDescription
ASP-3379ConfigurationCannot set refresh token timeout value

The Refresh Token Timeout configuration value in the System Management application (Configuration > Security > Settings) has no effect.

ASP-8404System managementAfter internal network interruption, services might not come back online

If the internal network is disconnected in one HCP for cloud scale node and then restored, the services Cassandra, Elasticsearch, and Kafka might not come back online automatically on the node, leaving the system underprotected.

Workaround

Restart the hcpcs service on the node.

ASP-8671System managementCannot repair misconfigured service

If a service fails to start and isn't listed in the System Management application as an enabled service, it might have been misconfigured to require more memory than is available. The service can't be reconfigured from within the application.

Workaround

  1. Using HTTP, connect to the Service Deployment service on port 8080.
  2. Select the service that won't start and click the Configuration tab.
  3. Edit the configuration to default values.
  4. Click Change and deploy configuration.
  5. Use the System Management application to select the service.
  6. On the Configuration tab, set the value of Container Memory to the default value.
  7. Click Update. The service redeploys.
ENS-7957 (FNDD-476)System updateNetwork types cannot be configured for new services before system update

Before starting an update, you are prompted to specify the network configuration for any new services included in the version that you're updating to. However, you can specify only the port numbers for the new service. You cannot specify the network type (that is, internal or external) for the service to use. Each new service gets the default network type, which is determined by the service itself.

ENS-7962 (FNDD-570)System updateUploading an update package fails after the failure and recovery of a system instance

If a system instance enters the state Down, when you try to upload an update package the upload fails. However, after the system instance recovers, when you try again to upload an update package, the upload fails again even though the system is in a healthy state.

Workaround

  1. In the System Management application, go to the Monitoring > Processes page and for the Upload Plugin Bundle task click Retry Task.
  2. Upload the update package again.
ENS-7964 (FNDD-15)VolumesVolume configuration is not displayed correctly in System Management application

During installation, you can configure volumes for system services by specifying different values in the volume.config file on each system instance. Each volume is correctly configured with the settings you specify, but the Monitoring > Services > Service Details page in the System Management application incorrectly shows each volume as having identical configurations.

ENS-8299 (FNDD-545)Service deploymentDatabase service fails to deploy

The Cassandra service can fail to deploy with the error Could not contact node over JMX. The log file on the node running the service instance includes the following entry: java.lang.RuntimeException: A node required to move the data consistently is down (/nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn). If you wish to move the data from a potentially inconsistent replica, restart the node with -Dcassandra.consistent.rangemovement=false

Workaround

  1. Restart the Cassandra container running on that node.
  2. Redeploy the service.
ENS-10750 (FNDD-19)UpdatesUpdate volume prechecks not performed

Validation of volume configuration values is not honored by the upgrade process. As a result, configuration values passed to Docker are not valid.

Workaround

Use caution when specifying volume values.

FNDD-970MAPIIf IdP is unavailable, threads blocked

HCP for cloud scale uses a System Management function to validate tokens. The function does not time out. If the identity provider is unavailable, the requesting thread is blocked.

FNDD-3520User interfaceCopyright date on pages is 2019, not 2021

The copyright date on System Management application pages is 2019, not 2021.

Workaround

This product is copyrighted in 2021.

S3 Console

The following table lists known issues affecting the S3 Console application.

IssueArea affectedDescription
ASP-9373S3 ConsoleNo message confirming bucket creation

When a bucket is created, a confirmation message should be displayed. No message is displayed.

Workaround

After creating a bucket, list the buckets to verify that the bucket was created.

Related documents

This is the set of documents supporting v2.1.0 of HCP for cloud scale. You should have these documents available before using the product.

  • Hitachi Content Platform for Cloud Scale Release Notes (RN‑HCPCS004‑13): This document is for customers and describes new features, product documentation, and resolved and known issues, and provides other useful information about this release of the product.
  • Installing Hitachi Content Platform for Cloud Scale (MK‑HCPCS002‑08): This document gives you the information you need to install or update the HCP for cloud scale software.
  • Hitachi Content Platform for Cloud Scale Administration Guide (MK‑HCPCS008-04): This document explains how to use the HCP for cloud scale applications to configure and operate a common object storage interface for clients to interact with; configure HCP for cloud scale for your users; enable and disable system features; and monitor the system and its connections.
  • Hitachi Content Platform for Cloud Scale S3 Console Guide (MK‑HCPCS009-01): This document is for end users and explains how to use the HCP for cloud scale S3 Console application to use S3 credentials and to simplify the process of creating, monitoring, and maintaining S3 buckets and the objects they contain.
  • Hitachi Content Platform for Cloud Scale Management API Reference (MK‑HCPCS007‑06): This document is for customers and describes the management application programming interface (API) methods available for customer use.

Documentation corrections

The following issues were identified with the documentation, including the online help, after its publication.

Management API reference information

The following refers to the management API reference information available in the Object Storage Management application profile menu under REST API.

Jobs

The information describes endpoints related to jobs. Jobs are not supported in this release.