Configuring Tiering in WEKA

To tier a WEKA filesystem to cloud, you need to attach an object store bucket to the filesystem. You can attach the object store bucket to an existing filesystem or create a new one. This article describes the steps to create a new Filesystem Group, a new Filesystem, and attach the object store to the Filesystem.

Requirements

• WEKA cluster version 4.4.35 or higher

  • Data Protection Option (DPO) license

• An active Wasabi account

  • Access & Secret Key Pair (see 3—Creating a User Account and Access Key)

  • Wasabi bucket (see 2—Working With Buckets and Objects)

Creating a Filesystem Group

1. Navigate to Manage.

2. Select Filesystems.

   

3. Under the Filesystem Groups, click on Create Filesystem Group.

   

4. Provide a name for the filesystem group and configure the following.

   • Drive Retention Period—The target length of time that data stays on the SSDs after it was written or last modified. When the period ends, WEKA releases the data from the SSD tier. The data is not lost, because a copy is already in the object store, and it is fetched back to SSD when it is read again.

   • Tiering Cue—The time WEKA waits after data was last modified before it copies that data to the object store. The data stays on the SSD after the copy, and the Drive Retention Period then decides when it is released.

5. Click Create.

   

6. The Filesystem Groups section will now display the new Filesystem Group on the left.

   

Creating a Tiered Filesystem

1. In the Filesystems section, click + Create to create a filesystem.

   

2. Provide the following details.

   • Name—Provide a name for the filesystem.

   • Group—Select the filesystem group created earlier.

   • Object Store Bucket—Select the object store bucket (refer to Creating an Object Store in WEKA)

   • Drive Capacity—Select the capacity allocated to the SSD tier.

   • Total Capacity—Select the capacity allocated to the object store.

   

3. Scroll down to configure the settings and click Save.

   

   The new filesystem is displayed and shows the details of the attached object store bucket.

   

Verifying Tiering

When a filesystem is mounted on a WEKA client, you can use CLI commands to list the location of the files and tier the files manually (if needed). For more information, refer to weka fs tier location.

For information about the location of the data in SSD and tiered location use the following command.

weka fs tier location *

According to the tiering period configured, that data will then be tiered to Wasabi.

Appendix

This section provides the command line approach for the above configuration.

Create a Filesystem group.

weka fs group add <group> [--ssd-retention <dur>] [--start-demote <dur>]

Create Filesystem.

weka fs add <fs> <total-capacity> [--fs-group <group>] [--ssd-capacity <cap>] [--obs-name <bucket>]

Attach a bucket to the filesystem.

weka fs tier s3 attach <fs> <bucket> [--mode writable|remote]

Detach a bucket store from the filesystem.

weka fs tier s3 detach <fs> <bucket> [--force]

For the location of a file:

weka fs tier location /path/filename

To manually tier a file:

weka fs tier release /path/filename

To retrieve a file:

weka fs tier fetch /path/filename