New features in EMC Isilon OneFS 7.2

EMC® Isilon® OneFS 7.2 has a number of new and updated features, from node compatibility support and Hadoop updates to the new object storage application based on OpenStack™ Swift. Some of these new capabilities, which offer benefits on both the hardware and software-side, are summarized below. For more technical information about all of the new OneFS 7.2 features and enhancements, refer to the OneFS 7.2 Release Notes, OneFS 7.2 CLI Administration Guide, and OneFS 7.2 Web Administration Guide.

Protection Updates

New protection policy for large capacity nodes
To ensure that node pools made up of large capacity nodes can maintain a data protection level that meets EMC Isilon guidelines for meantime to data loss (MTTDL), OneFS offers a new requested protection option, +3d:1n1d.

Suggested Protection (new clusters only)
If you have a new cluster running OneFS 7.2, congratulations! In addition to your new hardware, you can also take advantage of the OneFS suggested protection feature, which calculates a recommended protection level based on the current configuration of your cluster. It continually evaluates your cluster and alerts you if your cluster falls below the suggested protection level. This feature is available for new clusters only. Clusters that have been upgraded to OneFS 7.2 do not have this capability.

Hadoop enhancements

OneFS 7.2 supports HDFS 2.3 and 2.4, and more Hadoop distributions, including Cloudera CDH5, Hortonworks Data Platform 2.1, and Apache Hadoop 2.4. For more information about how Isilon works with these distributions, see the Hadoop InfoHub or the Cloudera for Isilon InfoHub on the Isilon Community.

Protocols updates

HDFS
In OneFS 7.2, users connecting to the EMC Isilon cluster through a WebHDFS interface can be authenticated with Kerberos. For Cloudera users, HDFS supports secure impersonation through proxy users who impersonate other users with Kerberos credentials to perform Hadoop jobs on HDFS data. See the Cloudera for Isilon InfoHub on the Isilon Community for more information.

NFS
OneFS 7.2 includes many NFS service improvements, such audit and multi-tenant capabilities. Refer to the OneFS 7.2 Release Notes for more details.

Node compatibility

Using the SmartPools® software module, you can specify compatibilities between different generations of nodes that meet certain criteria. For example, you can create compatibilities between Isilon S200 and similarly configured Isilon S210 nodes, and between X400 and similarly configured X410 nodes. This means that if you purchase a new single S210 node, for example, OneFS 7.2 enables you to add this node to an existing node pool of S200 nodes. After you add three or more S210 nodes to your cluster, you can delete the compatibility so that OneFS can autoprovision the new S210 nodes into their own node pools.

In OneFS 7.2, you can create compatibilities between S210 node and S200 nodes, and then add unprovisioned nodes into node pools.
In OneFS 7.2, you can specify compatibilities between an S210 node and S200 node, which will enable the unprovisioned newer generation node to be joined to the existing node pool of older generation nodes.

Isilon Swift

OneFS 7.2 introduces Isilon Swift, an object storage application for Isilon clusters based on the object storage API provided by OpenStack Swift. The Swift RESTful API, an HTTP-based protocol, allows Swift clients to execute Swift API commands directly with the Isilon cluster to execute object storage requests. For more information, see the OneFS 7.2 Isilon Swift Tech Note.

Firmware updates

OneFS 7.2 provides automatic firmware updates through drive support packages. Make sure to install the latest drive support packages to take full advantage of this feature. Log in to the EMC Online Support site to find the latest drive support packages.

How to upgrade to OneFS 7.2

If you want to upgrade to this new release, explore your upgrade options by reviewing the Isilon Supportability and Compatibility GuideThen, prepare for the upgrade process by reviewing the following documents:

When you’re ready to upgrade, download the OneFS 7.2 installation file from the Download section of the EMC Online Support site.

Start a conversation about Isilon content

Have a question or feedback about Isilon content? Visit the online EMC Isilon Community to start a discussion. If you have questions or feedback about this blog, contact us at isi.knowledge@emc.com. To provide documentation feedback or request new content, contact isicontent@emc.com.

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About the Author: Kirsten Gantenbein