FREQUENTLY ASKED
CAN I CONNECT TO VMWARE ESXI ENVIRONMENTS?
Many companies rely on VMware solutions for virtualization.
Because good interoperability is important to us, we’ve optimized our software to deliver storage for VMware.
CAN I MODIFY THE PXE BOOT IMAGE?
You should choose our hooks scripts in the Maintenance - Hooks menu to configure the image after system start on the fly.
Otherwise you have to extract the operating system image, change it as you like and repack it. The current image can be found in the container folder /images/.../filesystem.squashfs.
Please try to use the hooks scripts first. It is the much better way.
CAN I RUN SEVERAL CLUSTERS AT THE SAME TIME?
You can operate any number of clusters with croit.
However, you need a separate Layer 2 network and a separate management VM for each cluster.
Unfortunately, there is currently no way to manage multiple clusters from a single management server.
If you run several clusters, you get the quantity discount for all OSDs of all installed clusters.
CAN I USE LDAP FOR USER MANAGEMENT?
Of course, our solution supports seamless integration into existing AD or LDAP environments. To configure LDAP, please execute the following command on your management node:
docker exec -it croit vi /config/config.yml
You can then edit or add the following block:
|
Once the configuration is complete, all you need to do is restart the docker container to activate the change.
CAN I USE OKTA FOR USER MANAGEMENT?
As of v1901 release, our management solution supports seamless integration with Okta.
To configure Okta, please execute the following command on your management node:
docker exec -it croit vi /config/config.yml
You can then edit or add the following block:
oktaOAuth:
baseUrl: https://dev-XXXXXX.oktapreview.com
issuer: "https://dev-XXXXXX.oktapreview.com/oauth2/default"
clientId: "ABC123ABC123ABC123"
audience: "" # defaults to 'api://default'
mapRoles:
admin: croit-admin
viewer: croit-viewer
Once the configuration is complete, all you need to do is restart the docker container to activate the change.
DO I NEED A BACKUP OF THE MANAGEMENT NODE?
As always, it is important to have backups. Therefore, it is also important to create functioning backups for our management nodes.
To make it as easy as possible for our users to back up and restore the management node, we offer a fully encrypted cloud backup solution within the management interface. All you have to do is make sure you don’t lose the encryption key.
DO YOU OFFER PUBLIC DEBIAN CEPH MIRRORS?
As we build our solution upon Debian Linux, we provide our own Debian Ceph mirror for public use. You find more in our Blog post.
DO YOU OFFER SLA (SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENTS)?
As a service provider for storage systems, data center solutions, Linux and networks, we naturally also offer SLAs. In addition, you can individually select the response times and availability you require. We offer SLAs only in connection with a software license.
We would like to point out, however, that with good planning of your cluster, no expensive SLA is actually required, since the failure of components is tolerable at any time.
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you would like an SLA.
HOW BIG CAN CEPHFS SCALE?
CephFS is a POSIX-compliant file system that can scale to petabyte of data and billions of objects. It is possible to make individual settings on a per file or folder basis to store parts of the data in different areas or storage classes.
HOW CAN MY COMPANY BENEFIT FROM CROIT?
As a customer-oriented company, croit offers a number of advantages over other solutions. This gives you as a customer direct access to our specialized consultants who, thanks to years of experience, get the most out of your infrastructure. In addition, we offer special Service Level Agreements (SLA), through which you receive round-the-clock support.
With croit you can build and operate clusters quickly, easily and reliably Ceph. In addition, croit offers a variety of additional functions based on standardized open source components. These include NFS-Ganesha, High-Availability (HA) with Keepalived, statistics using Graphite and much more.
HOW TO CHANGE THE S3 GATEWAY CERTIFICATE?
If you want to use S3 in production, you have to replace our self-signed https certificate with your own wildcard certificate. You can do this using our menu S3 Explorer and click on the bottom bar on SSL Certificate.
After uploading the new SSL certificate, please restart the SSL gateways using our services view to activate it.
Hint: Your SSL certificate should match the domain and all sub domains. If your domain is s3.croit-demo.io a valid certificate should include *.s3.croit-demo.io and s3.croit-demo.io.
IS IT DIFFICULT TO PERFORM AN UPDATE?
With our goal of making all work steps as simple and convenient as possible, we have of course also set up the regular and important software updates in a simple workflow.
An update of the management node for example, can be achieved, with the following commands.
docker pull croit/croit:latest
docker rm -f croit
docker run --cap-add=SYS_TIME -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock --net=host --restart=always --volumes-from croit-data --name croit -d croit/croit:latestIS IT POSSIBLE TO MIGRATE EXISTING CLUSTERS?
If you already have a Ceph installation and want to manage it more easily and reliably with croit, our software offers a simple takeover function.
All you have to do is enter some configuration from your existing cluster in the welcome dialog and croit takes over the existing cluster. From this moment on you can start new servers easily and conveniently via network boot to extend your existing cluster.
IS THERE A GUIDE FOR UPGRADING CEPH?
Since the official instructions, which are often very complex and quickly lead to errors, do not meet our requirements, we offer a fully automatic upgrade system. For the upgrade from Ceph Luminous to Ceph Mimic a direct integration into our management interface was created.
WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES OF BLOCK STORAGE?
- Block storage is a common paradigm.
- Traditional file systems are widely used and reliable.
- Any programming language can easily work with files.
- File permissions and limitations are enabled via the file systems.
- You can take snapshots to return to a previous state.
- Thanks to its low IO latency, it is also ideally suited for databases.
- Ideal for virtual servers.
WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES OF OBJECT STORAGE?
- A simple RESTful API, with clients available for all major operating systems and programming languages.
- Quite easy to scale even to billions of objects.
- Additional metadata can be stored on each object.
- The I/O requirements to the underlying hardware are low.
- Caching can greatly improve performance.
- Can be integrated into modern applications and accessed from remote.
- Good integration with erasue coding to save additional underlying disk space.
- Individual plugins can be attached to solve complex problems.
- Client side PGP based encryption for increased security.
WHAT ARE THE DISADVANTAGES OF BLOCK STORAGE?
- A block device can only be used by a single client.
- Only the meta data known in the file system can be stored. Additional information therefore increases complexity.
- You need to mount the block device in order to get access to the data.
- A filesystem is required before you can put files on the block device.
- You need to take care of more different tasks like choosing the right filesystem for your requirement.
- Size are somewhat limited by filesystems and handling problems when it comes to large block devices.
WHAT ARE THE DISADVANTAGES OF OBJECT STORAGE?
- You can’t use object storage with traditional databases.
- High latency for each object access.
- Updates of object requires rewrite of the complete object.
- Badly suited for frequently changing data.
- Only limited support to mount an object storage as a filesystem.
- Access is only possible with additional client software.
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF THE NETWORK BOOT?
croit provides a uniqe solution to build and run your cluster. Starting from the croit management node, you can boot your storage hardware over the network. As a result, you save costs and time.
Furthermore, it facilitates daily operation, as it automates update processes and increases reliability, for example. In addition, in the event of an error, a new, clean and error-free operating system can be started by a simple server reboot, which automatically recognizes the hardware and starts up the services again.
All operating system images are checked by croit for known problems and run through a comprehensive test protocol. Of course you can also use your own PXE boot images if you have special requirements.
WHAT HAPPENS IF I DO NOT RENEW MY LICENSE?
Since the operation of your cluster has the highest priority, it has no effect when the license expires. You will only receive a warning within our software alerting you to the problem.
After a transition period, however, the functions in the web interface that are no longer licensed will be blocked. Enterprise features that have already been set up, however, will continue to work, but can no longer be changed.
As soon as you renew the license, all control functions are available in our software.
WHAT IS BLOCK STORAGE?
Block-based storage interfaces are the most common way to store data. A virtual block device simulates a traditional hard disk. From the application’s point of view, there is no difference to a dedicated hard disk.
The block storage can be exported using RBD or iSCSI. Thus almost all virtualization environments as well as physical hardware can be connected to croit.
WHAT IS CEPHFS?
CephFS is a POSIX-compliant file system ontop of a Ceph cluster. CephFS can be used on any number of clients simultaneously and changes are immediately applied to all clients. With CephFS you get a scalable file system that you can use as usual to store your data.
In Linux servers you can make this completely transparent for the respective application. Whenever you need more space, you just need to expand your cluster to instantly store more data in the same file system.
WHAT IS CROIT STORAGE?
croit provides a intuitive, advanced and reliable software to build and run Ceph in production.
With our software management solution, you can bring up Ceph clusters within a few minutes.
WHAT IS ERASURE CODE?
Erasure Code (EC) is a way of dividing up data and storing it securely on separate devices. Both performance and safety as well as the required space can be individually adjusted as required.
Detailed information on how Erasure Code works can be found on Wikipedia.
WHAT IS OBJECT STORAGE?
Object storage is a modern way to interact with storage. Whenever you have any type of object (file), you can put them on to the croit cluster using a standardized S3 or SWIFT compatible RESTful API.
Since it provides interfaces compatible with OpenStack Swift and Amazon S3, the Ceph Object Gateway has its own user management
WHERE CAN I FIND INFORMATION ABOUT THE NEXT RELEASE?
In the past, we have been asked frequently which features we are currently working on, what functions are on the roadmap and what goals we have for our innovative Ceph storage management solution.
In order to allow our users to participate in the development of our software, a new Trello Board has been created.
WHICH PROCESSORS SUPPORT CROIT?
With croit you are able to boot any x86_64 / amd64 system that allows PXE boot.
WHICH SERVER MANUFACTURERS ARE SUPPORTED?
In general, croit works on all servers on the market. Nevertheless, we cannot test against every manufacturer. There is good experience with servers from Supermicro and Dell, which are used by a large number of customers.
If you are unsure, we offer tested, guaranteed functioning hardware in individual configuration.
