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Nutanix Objects is an S3-compatible object store service designed to solve the data backup problem of unanticipated data growth. Nutanix objects Storage service has these features benefits / advantages, compatibility, licensing, system requirements, Network Ports and URLs but Nutanix Objects has some limitation also.
Nutanix Objects is specially designed to handling unstructured data that could start small then grow at a rapid pace with potential to reach the petabyte scale. Storing unstructured data using traditional block or file data management protocols could result in un-manageably large, complex, and expensive solutions.
Nutanix Objects runs on Nutanix AOS —the industry’s most popular hyper-converged solution—natively converging compute and storage into a turnkey appliance that can be deployed in minutes to run any application out of the box. Nutanix Objects offers the ability to start small and scale to store petabyte bursts of new data while still maintaining the benefits of a distributed system, such as flexibility, scalability, and cost effectiveness.
Read also: Nutanix Cluster size Limitation, Scabalibity
The Nutanix solution offers powerful virtualization capabilities that focus on adding value to organizations by providing a robust but very easy-to-use product. At the end of the day, simplicity is key to productivity and with Nutanix Objects, users have the freedom to deploy object storage alongside block and file storage because the different storage types are integrated into the same infrastructure stack for ease of management and transparency.
Nutanix Objects 1.0 is generally available from Aug 5, and can be deployed from within Nutanix Prism Central 5.11
Nutanix Objects is a software-defined Object Store Service being introduced by Nutanix. This service is designed with an Amazon Web Services Simple Storage Service (AWS S3) compatible REST API interface to handle petabytes of unstructured and machine-generated data.
Objects addresses storage-related use cases for backup, storage, long-term retention, and enables you to develop cloud-native applications by using standard S3 APIs. With Nutanix Objects, the current storage offering of the Nutanix solution expands.
You do not have to introduce extra storage solutions when you use Objects as it is deployed and managed as part of the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud OS.
Buckets are logical constructs in which you can store objects, which consist of data and metadata that describes the data. You can manage these buckets and objects by using Nutanix Prism Central, or S3-compatible REST APIs after an administrator has authorized the applications and users to access buckets accordingly.
Nutanix Object Features
Following are the Nutanix Objects features you can implement in your environment by using Objects:
Backup – You can integrate Objects with the back up applications such as Commvault, Commtrade HYCU, Veeam and Veritas. You can create backups to protect your data with a simple, scalable, and cost-effective active archive solution. You can start with small storage and scale to petabytes of storage to deliver great performance. Objects supports the multipart upload API with which you can reduce slow upload times by breaking data into chunks and upload documents, images, and videos to the global namespace.
Read also https://hyperhci.com/2019/05/01/top-5-nutanix-backup-solutions/
Long-term Retention – You can use Objects for storage and long-term data retention. You can use built-in object versioning for deeper storage protection and search your data without the problem of tape systems. You can also maintain previous versions of the object and avoid loss from accidental overwrites or deletes. You can meet regulatory compliance for healthcare, financial, and government sectors by enabling Write-Once-Read-Many (WORM) buckets so your data is not overwritten or deleted.
DevOps – You can use a single global namespace to PUT and GET objects with over-the-network HTTP and HTTPS commands. Objects enables you to integrate REST API calls within your programs or scripts without tracking complex directory structures. DevOps and IT ops can use an S3-compatible interface for cross-geo, cross-team collaboration, and agile development.
Nutanix Object Comparability
Nutanix Objects 1.0.0.1 supports / compatible the following version of Prism Central and Nutanix AOS. If you are on Prism Central 5.11, you can upgrade Objects Service Manager 1.0 to Objects Service Manager 1.0.0.1 through LCM. No other Objects services are released in the Objects 1.0.0.1 release.
| Prism Central Supported Version | AOS Supported Version |
|---|---|
| Prism Central version 5.11 | AOS version 5.11 |
Object Terminology
Following are the terms that you frequently encounter when you are using Objects:
| Terminology | Description |
|---|---|
| Bucket | An organizational unit exposed to the users and contains the objects. A deployment may have multiple buckets. For example, departmental and compartmental. |
| Object | The actual unit (blob) of storage and the item interfaced by using the API (GET or PUT). |
| S3 | The term used to describe the original object service introduced by Amazon Web Services (AWS). This term is now used synonymously for an object service. S3 is also used to define the object API which can be leveraged throughout the projects. |
| Internal Access Network | A VLAN required internally for deploying Object Store Services on Prism Element. |
| Client Access Network | A VLAN required for accessing the Object Store endpoints externally. |
Enabling Nutanix Objects
For using Objects services, you need to enable Objects in Prism Central, and add license in Prism Element.
To enable Objects in Prism Central, do the following:
- Log on to the Prism Central web console, and click the Entity menu > Services > Objects.
- To enable the Object Store Services, click Enable.Note: Enabling of Object Store Services is performed only once.You can now use the Objects services.
- Objects License Management
Nutanix provides licenses that you can apply automatically or manually to help ensure access to a variety of features. This features enable you to administer your environment based on your current and future needs. You can add and manage Objects license from Prism Element where you deploy Objects.
Nutanix Objects License Management
Nutanix Objects licenses that you can apply automatically or manually to help ensure access to a variety of features. This features enable you to administer your environment based on your current and future needs. You can add and manage Objects license from Prism Element where you deploy Objects.
- Up to 2 TB Objects storage is free for all users.
- If you deploy Objects on the Prism Element with AOS licenses, then add the Objects license to it.
- If you deploy Objects on the Prism Element without AOS licenses, then add the Objects Pro licenses to it.
- You can add Objects license from the Prism Element manually. For more information, refer to Manual License Selection.
- You can view the Objects usage information in the Prism Central. For more information, refer to Displaying License Features and Details.
Nutanix Objects Deployment Prerequisites
Before you start deploying Nutanix Object Store Services, review this section carefully to ensure you have met the prerequisites.
General Requirements
Nutanix Objects general system requirements to ensure that your environment conforms to the following general requirements before running Objects:
- Hypervisor is AHV.
- Prism Element and Prism Central version 5.11 or later running in your environment.
- Recommended browser: Google Chrome
- Minimum of three nodes in a cluster running AHV with 12 vCPUs and 36 GiB of memory in each node (recommended). You can also have a single node cluster running AHV with a minimum of 12 vCPUs and 36 GiB of memory. Note: Objects use no more than 12 vCPUs for each AHV node.
- Recommended to enable Pulse for online deployment.
- Recommended to have a high speed and stable Internet connection for deployment at a site with Internet access. Note: Image download times out after 90 minutes and the deployment fails.
- Ensure that no AHV host or Prism Element or Prism Central upgrade is in progress while deploying Objects.
- Recommended that proxy should be able to reach the guest VM.
- Ensure that the Object Store domain should be dedicated for the Object store deployment.For example, if the top level domain is mycompany.com, then the object store domain can be a sub domain such as testobjectstore.mycompany.com.
Nutanix Objects Network Requirements
Nutanix Objects network requirements before running Objects:
- Configure Domain Name Servers (DNS) on both Prism Element and Prism Central.
- Configure Network Time Protocol (NTP) servers on both Prism Element and Prism Central.
- Set up the Virtual IP address and the data services IP address on the Prism Element where you plan to deploy Objects.
- Ensure VLANs that are required internally for Object Store Services and externally for accessing the Object Store endpoints are configured on Prism Element correctly. Follow the guidelines provided in the Network Configurations section.
- Ensure that you have an Internet connectivity for both Prism Element and Prism Central for online deployment. If you do not have Internet, refer to Dark Site Deployment (Offline Deployment).
URL and Port Requirements
Nutanix Objects URL and Network Ports requirements are used by the Objects server requirements below:
- Prism Central must have access to download.nutanix.com and Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR) at 464585393164.dkr.ecr.us-west-2.amazonaws.com
- Nutanix Object Gold image is downloaded from http://download.nutanix.com/msp/Msp-1.0.0/Centos7.5.1804-msp-ntnx-0.0-82977d.qcow2.
| Protocol | Port Number | Source | Destination | Directionality | Description |
| TCP | 7301 | Prism Central hosting Objects | Prism Central hosting Objects | Bi-directional | This port is opened on the Objects Manager running in the Prism Central to receive the manageability requests. This port is the proxy to other ports. |
| TCP | 7302 | Prism Central hosting Objects | Prism Central hosting Objects | Bi-directional | This port is opened on the Objects Manager running in the Prism Central to receive the manageability requests. This port is the proxy to Object Manager Leader in scale-out Prism Central. |
| TCP | 81 | Prism Central hosting Objects | Load balancer VM (Internal and external network) | Uni-directional | This port is opened on the load balancer that directs traffic from the Objects Manager to the UI Gateway. |
| TCP | 80 | External S3 clients | Load balancer VM (External network) | Uni-directional | This port is the HTTP endpoint to access Objects. This port is opened on the load balancer that directs traffic to the Object Controller pod. |
| TCP | 443 | External S3 clients | Load balancer VM (External network) | Uni-directional | This port is the HTTPS endpoint to access Objects. This port is opened on the load balancer that directs traffic to the Object Controller pod. |
| TCP | 2009 | Worker VMs | Prism Element | Uni-directional | This port is opened for the data traffic from Object Controller pod to Stargate. |
| TCP | 22, 53, 443, 2379, 5000 | Prism Central hosting Objects | Worker VMs | Uni-directional | These ports are opened for the management traffic from Prism Central to Worker VMs. |
| TCP | 3205, 3260 | Worker VMs | Prism Element | Uni-directional | These ports are opened for the management traffic from Worker VMs to Prism Element. |
| TCP | 9440 | Worker VMs | Prism Central hosting Objects | Uni-directional | This port is opened for the V3 API calls from the Worker VMs to Prism Central. |
| TCP | 9440 | Worker VMs | Prism Element | Uni-directional | This port is opened for the V2 API calls from Worker VMs to Prism Element. |
| TCP/UDP | Any port | Worker VMs | Worker VMs | Bi-directional | This port is opened for the data traffic from Worker VMs to Worker VMs. Within the network, all ports should be reachable. |
| TCP | 31002 | Prism Central hosting Objects | Worker VMs | Uni-directional | This port is opened on the Worker VMs for the service registry registration. |
| TCP | 5553 | Prism Central hosting Objects, Worker VMs | Load balancer VMs (Internal and external network) | Uni-directional | This port is opened for the traffic from the Worker VMs and the service manager running on Prism Central to IAM (Identity and Access Manager) service through load balancers. |
| UDP | 53 | Worker VMs | Name Servers | Uni-directional | This port is opened on the Name Servers for the domain name resolution. |
| UDP | 123 | Worker VMs | NTP Servers | Uni-directional | This port is opened on the NTP Servers to sync time on the worker VMs. This is not required if NTP Server configured on the Prism Central is local. |
Note: URL and Port requirements are not required for the dark site deployment.
Nutanix Objects Network Configurations
You can configure and manage Nutanix Objects VLANs through Prism Element, and use these VLANs for deploying Object Store through Prism Central.
Internal Access Network is a VLAN required internally for deploying Object Store Services on Prism Element. Client Access Network is a VLAN that is required for accessing the Object Store endpoints externally. Once you have successfully added these VLANs in Prism Element, you can use these VLANs for deploying object store through Prism Central.
For more information about network configurations, refer to Network Configuration for VM Interfaces in Prism Web Console Guide.
The following section describes each of these VLANs in more detail:
Internal Access Network: Object Store uses this VLAN internally to deploy its services. This VLAN must have a minimum of 18 IP addresses in usable IP address range.
This VLAN is configured on the AHV cluster that will run the object store with at least 12 free IPs in the DHCP pool (need to be in AHV managed network or IP address management) and six static IP addresses.
Later while deploying object store from Prism Central, you can use two of these IP addresses for the Internal Access Network configuration based on the object store storage and resource requirements.
Client Access Network: Object Store uses this VLAN for accessing Object Store endpoints. This VLAN should have at least four IP addresses in the usable IP address range.
Later while deploying object store from Prism Central, you can use four of these IP addresses for the client access network configuration based on the object store storage and resource requirements.
Note: You can have two VLANs, each for Internal Access Network and Client Access Network, but it is not required. You can have the Internal Access Network and the Client Access Network on the same VLAN.
Nutanix Objects System Limitations
Nutanix Objects system’s limitations / maximums list:
- Maximum 120 TB HDD tier for each node is supported.
- Objects is not supported on nodes with Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) SSDs.
- Data Services IP address change is not supported.
- Controller VM, Microservices Platform (MSP) and Prism Central IP addresses change are not supported.
- Prism Central and Prism Element de-registration and re-registration is not supported.
Conclusion
Nutanix Objects is the great feature for those enterprises customer has unstructured data growth is unexpected and need to keep backup for long-term basis. with Nutanix HCI solution customer can leverage to integrate the Amazon S3 storage service and directly keep the data on cloud S3 storage on demand.
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