Getting started

You can increase or decrease the capacity, performance, and availability of HCP for cloud scale by adding or removing the following:

• Instances: physical computer nodes or virtual machines
• Service instances: copies of services running on additional instances
• Storage components: S3 compatible systems used to store object data

In a multi-instance site, you might add instances to improve system performance or if you are running out of storage space on one or more instances. You might remove instances if you are retiring hardware, if an instance is down and cannot be recovered, or if you decide to run fewer instances.

When you add an instance, you can also scale floating services (such as the S3 Gateway) to the new instance. When you scale a floating service, HCP for cloud scale automatically rebalances itself.

In a multi-instance site, you can manually change where a service instance runs:

• You can configure it to run on additional instances. For example, you can increase the number of S3 Gateway service instances to improve throughput of S3 API transactions.
• You can configure it run on fewer instances. For example, you can free computational resources on an instance to run other services.
• You can configure it to run on different instances. For example, you can move the service instances off a hardware instance to retire the hardware.
• For a floating service, instead of specifying a specific instance on which it runs, you can specify a pool of eligible instances, any of which can run the service.

Some services have a fixed number of instances and therefore cannot be scaled:

• Metadata Coordination

You might add storage components to a site under these circumstances:

• The existing storage components are running out of available capacity
• The existing storage components do not provide the performance you need
• The existing storage components do not provide the functionality you need

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• High availability

  HCP for cloud scale supports high availability for multi-instance sites.

An HCP for cloud scale site has three master instances and thus can tolerate the failure of one master instance without interruption of service.

If a site with only two healthy master instances experiences an outage of another master instance (for example, if services restart or the entire instance or operating system restarts), it goes into a degraded state until all three master instances are restored.

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• High availability

  HCP for cloud scale supports high availability for multi-instance sites.

HCP for cloud scale services provide high availability as follows:

• The Metadata Gateway service always has at least three service instances. When the system starts, the nodes "elect a leader" using the raft consensus algorithm. The other service instances follow the leader. The leader processes all GET and PUT requests. If the followers cannot identify the leader, they elect a new leader. The Metadata Gateway service tolerates the failure of one service instance without interruption. If more than one service instance is unavailable, some data can become unavailable until the instance recovers.
• The Metadata Coordination service always has one service instance. If that instance fails, HCP for cloud scale automatically starts another instance. Until startup is complete, the Metadata Gateway service cannot scale.
• The Metadata Cache service is deprecated but always has one service instance. If that instance fails, HCP for cloud scale automatically starts another instance.
• To protect messaging consistency, the Message Queue service always has three service instances. To prevent being split into disconnected parts, the service shuts down if half of the service instances fail. In practice, messaging stops if two of the three instances fail. Do not let the service run with only two instances, because in that scenario if one of the remaining instances fails, the service shuts down. However, when one of the failed instances restarts, messaging services recover and resume.
• To maintain access to the encryption key vault, the Key Management Server service uses an active-standby model. One service instance is the active instance and any other service instances are kept as standbys. If the active vault node becomes sealed or unavailable, one of the standbys takes over as active. You can scale up to the number of instances in the HCP for cloud scale system or your acceptable performance limits.

The rest of the HCP for cloud scale services remain available if HCP for cloud scale instances or service instances fail, as long as at least one service instance remains healthy. Even if a service that has only one service instance fails, HCP for cloud scale automatically starts a new service instance.

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• High availability

  HCP for cloud scale supports high availability for multi-instance sites.

Metadata is available as long as these services are available:

• S3 Gateway
• Metadata Gateway

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• High availability

  HCP for cloud scale supports high availability for multi-instance sites.

Object data is available as long as these items are available:

• The S3 Gateway service (at least one instance)
• The storage component containing the requested object data
• At least two functioning Metadata Gateway service instances (of the required three)

For high availability of object data or data protection, you should use a storage component with high availability, such as HCP, HCP S Series Node, or AWS S3.

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• High availability

  HCP for cloud scale supports high availability for multi-instance sites.

You can install each HCP for cloud scale instance with both an internal and an external network interface. To avoid single points of networking failure, you can:

• Configure two external network interfaces in each HCP for cloud scale instance
• Use two switches and connect each network interface to one of them
• Bind the two network interfaces into one virtual network interface in an active-passive configuration
• Install HCP for cloud scale using the virtual network interface

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• High availability

  HCP for cloud scale supports high availability for multi-instance sites.

If an instance (a compute node) fails, HCP for cloud scale automatically adds new service instances to other available instances (compute nodes) to maintain the minimum number of service instances. Data on the failed instance is not lost and remains consistent. However, while the instance is down, data redundancy might degrade.

HCP for cloud scale adds new service instances automatically only for floating services. Depending on the remaining number of instances and service instances running, you might need to add new service instances or deploy a new instance.

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• Failure recovery

HCP for cloud scale monitors service instances and automatically restarts them if they are not healthy.

For floating services, you can configure a pool of eligible HCP for cloud scale instances and the number of service instances that should be running at any time. You can also set the minimum and maximum number of instances running each service. If a service instance failure causes the number of service instances to go below the minimum, HCP for cloud scale starts another service instance on one of the HCP for cloud scale instances in the pool that doesn't already have that service instance running.

Persistent services run on the specific instances that you specify. If a persistent service fails, HCP for cloud scale restarts the service instance in the same HCP for cloud scale instance. HCP for cloud scale does not automatically bring up a new service instance on a different HCP for cloud scale instance.

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• Failure recovery

HCP for cloud scale performs regular, periodic health verifications to detect storage component failures.

If HCP for cloud scale detects a storage component failure, it sets the storage component state to INACCESSIBLE, so that HCP for cloud scale will not try to write new objects to the storage component, and sends an alert. While a storage component is unavailable, the data in it is not accessible.

HCP for cloud scale continues to verify a failed storage component and, when it detects that the storage component is healthy again, automatically sets its state to ACTIVE. HCP for cloud scale sends an alert when this event happens as well. After the storage component is repaired and brought back online, the data it contains is again accessible and HCP for cloud scale can write new objects to it.

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• Failure recovery

The Object Storage Management application includes a RESTful API interface for the following functions:

• Managing storage components and Amazon S3 settings
• Managing administrative resources such as serial numbers and system events
• Managing user resources such as S3 user credentials and OAuth tokens

The Object Storage Management API is served by the MAPI Gateway service from any HCP for cloud scale node.

You can execute all functions supported in the Object Storage Management application using the API.

All URLs for the API have the following base, or root, uniform resource identifier (URI):

https://hcpcs_ip_address:9099/mapi/v1

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• HCP for cloud scale management APIs

  The Hitachi Content Platform for cloud scale (HCP for cloud scale) system includes RESTful application programming interfaces (APIs) that you can use to exercise its functions and manage the system.

The System Management application provides a RESTful API for managing the following:

• Alerts
• Business objects
• Certificates
• Events
• Instances
• Jobs
• Licenses
• Notifications
• Packages
• Plugins
• Security
• Services
• Setup
• Tasks
• Updates

You can execute all functions supported in the System Management application using the API.

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• HCP for cloud scale management APIs

  The Hitachi Content Platform for cloud scale (HCP for cloud scale) system includes RESTful application programming interfaces (APIs) that you can use to exercise its functions and manage the system.

The initial user account, which has all permissions, is created when you install HCP for cloud scale. The initial user account can perform all HCP for cloud scale functions. After the initial user account is created, you can change its password any time, but you cannot disable the account and you cannot change its permissions.

The initial user is the only local account allowed and is intended only to let you configure an identity provider (IdP). HCP for cloud scale can communicate with IdPs using HTTP or HTTPS. HCP for cloud scale supports multiple IdPs:

• Active Directory
• OpenLDAP
• 389 Directory Server
• LDAP compatible

HCP for cloud scale supports external users defined in the IdP. External users with the appropriate permissions can perform some or all of these functions:

• Log in to the Object Storage Management application and use all functions
• Log in to the System Management application and use all functions
• Get an OAuth token to use all API calls for the Object Storage Management and System Management applications
• Log in to the S3 Console application and get S3 credentials to use the S3 API

HCP for cloud scale discovers the groups in each IdP and allows assigning roles to groups.

HCP for cloud scale uses OAuth2 as a service provider to authenticate single sign-on (SSO) access. SSO lets you use one set of login credentials for all HCP for cloud scale applications, so you can switch between applications without logging in again.

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• Security and authentication

Object Storage Management application API methods need a valid OAuth access token for a user account with suitable permissions, or else the requests are rejected. With one exception, System Management application API methods also require a valid OAuth access token for a user account with suitable permissions, or else the requests are rejected. (The exception is the API method to generate an OAuth token, which requires only a username and password in the body of the request.)

Before using either the Object Storage Management or System Management APIs, you need to obtain an OAuth token. You can generate an OAuth token by sending a request to the OAuth server with your account credentials. Then you can supply the OAuth token in the Authorization header in each request. OAuth tokens are valid for five hours.

S3 API requests generally require valid S3 credentials for users with the right privileges, that is, access control lists (ACLs). (Exceptions are methods configured to allow anonymous access and pre-signed requests.) HCP for cloud scale supports AWS Signature version 4 authentication to include S3 credentials in S3 requests.

Users with a valid account and suitable permissions can generate S3 credentials. You can generate an unlimited number of S3 credentials, but only the last credentials generated are valid. These credentials are associated only with your account. S3 credentials do not have an expiration date, so they are valid until revoked.

Users with a valid account and suitable permissions can revoke all S3 credentials of any user. That is, you can revoke your own S3 credentials or the S3 credentials of any other user. Revocation removes all S3 credentials associated with the account.

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• Security and authentication

When you install HCP for cloud scale, you can set up network isolation by configuring one external network and one internal network.

HCP for cloud scale software creates a cluster using commodity x86 servers that are networked using Ethernet. The software uses two networks on the operating system hosting the HCP for cloud scale software. These networks can also use link aggregation defined by the OS administrator.

While two networks provide optimal traffic isolation, you can deploy the software using a single network. The OS administrator must make and implement networking decisions before you install HCP for cloud scale.

HCP for cloud scale services use a range of network ports. You can configure services to use different ports instead of the default ports. Installation is the only opportunity to change the default ports used by services.

For information about installing HCP for cloud scale, see Installing Hitachi Content Platform for Cloud Scale.

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• Security and authentication

Procedure

1. From the Object Storage Management application, select Settings > Serial number.

   The SERIAL NUMBER page opens, displaying the current serial number in the Serial number field.

2. Update your serial number in the Serial number field.

3. Click Save.

Results

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• Editing your serial number

  The Object Storage Management application manages the product serial number. An administrative account with appropriate permissions can enter or edit this number.

POST /serial_number/set

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• Editing your serial number

  The Object Storage Management application manages the product serial number. An administrative account with appropriate permissions can enter or edit this number.