- August 2018
Super Micro Computer, Inc.
980 Rock Avenue
San Jose, CA 95131 USA
www.supermicro.com
Table of Contents
3 Business problem and business value
3 Requirements
4 Conguration
5 P4600 NVMe Drives
6 Architectural overview
8 Networking architecture
9 Component model
9 Deployment
14 Appendix A: Bill of Materials
14 Appendix B: OSD Drive and Journal
Proposal Changes
16 Appendix C: Policy.cfg
17 Appendix D: Network Switch
Conguration
18 Appendix E: OS Networking
Conguration
20 Appendix F: Performance Data
27 Resources
Application Notes
SUSE Enterprise Storage v5
Implementation Guide For
Supermicro SuperServer Platforms
Introduction
The objective of this guide is to present a step-by-step guide on how to implement SUSE
Enterprise Storage (v5) on the Supermicro server platforms.
It is suggested that the document be read in its entirety, along with the supplemental
appendix information before attempting the process.
The platform is built and deployed to show customers the ability to quickly deploy a
robust SUSE Enterprise Storage cluster on the Supermicro server platform. Its goal is to
show architectural best practices and how to build a Ceph-based cluster that will support
the implementation of any of the currently supported protocols.
Upon completion of the steps in this document, a working SUSE Enterprise Storage (v5)
will be operational as described in the SUSE Enterprise Storage 5 Deployment Guide
Target Audience
This reference architecture (RA) is targeted at administrators who deploy software
dened storage solutions within their data centers and make the dierent storage
services accessible to their own customer base. By following this document as well as
those referenced herein, the administrator should have a full view of the SUSE Enterprise
Storage architecture, deployment and administrative tasks, with a specic set of
recommendations for deployment of the hardware and networking platform.
SUSE Enterprise Storage v5 Implementation Guide For Supermicro SuperServer Platforms2
Business problem and business value
SUSE Enterprise Storage delivers a highly scalable, resilient, self-healing storage system
designed for large scale environments ranging from hundreds of Terabytes to Petabytes.
This software dened storage product can reduce IT costs by leveraging industry standard
servers to present unied storage servicing block, le, and object protocols. Having
storage that can meet the current needs and requirements of the data center while
supporting topologies and protocols demanded by new web-scale applications, enables
administrators to support the ever-increasing storage requirements of the enterprise with
ease.
Business problem
Customers of all sizes face a major storage challenge. While the overall cost per Terabyte
of physical storage has gone down over the years, a data growth explosion, driven by the
need to access and leverage new data sources (ex: external sources such as social media)
and the ability to ‘manage’ new data types (ex: unstructured or object data) has taken
place. These ever increasing “data lakes” need dierent access methods: le, block, or
object.
Addressing these challenges with legacy storage solutions would require a number
of specialized products (usually driven by access method) with traditional protection
schemes (ex: RAID). These solutions struggle when scaling from Terabytes to Petabytes at
reasonable cost and performance levels.
Business value
This software dened storage solution enables transformation of the enterprise
infrastructure by providing a unied platform where structured and unstructured data
can co-exist and be accessed as le, block, or object, depending on the application
requirements. The combination of open-source software (Ceph) and industry standard
servers reduce cost while providing the on-ramp to unlimited scalability needed to keep
up with future demands.
Requirements
Enterprise storage systems require reliability, manageability, and serviceability, which
together are known as RAS. The legacy players have established a high threshold for
each of these areas and now expect the software dened storage solutions to oer the
same. Focusing on these areas helps SUSE make open source technology enterprise
consumable. When combined with highly reliable and aordable hardware from
Supermicro, the result is a solution that meets the customer's expectation(s).
Functional requirements
A SUSE Enterprise Storage solution is:
• Simple to setup and deploy, within the documented guidelines of system
hardware, networking and environmental prerequisites.