6.2. Exporting Data via S3¶

6.2.1. Object Storage Infrastructure Overview¶

The infrastructure of the object storage consists of the following entities: object servers (OS), name servers (NS), and the S3 gateways (GW).

These entities run as services on the Virtuozzo Storage nodes. Each service should be deployed on multiple Virtuozzo Storage nodes for high availability.

• An object server stores actual object data received from S3 gateway, packed into special containers to achieve high performance. The containers are redundant, you can specify the redundancy mode while configuring object storage.

• A name server stores information about objects (metadata) received from the S3 gateway. Metadata includes object name, size, ACL, location, owner, and such.

• S3 gateway is a data proxy between object servers and users. It receives and handles Amazon S3 protocol requests and uses nginx web server for external connections. S3 gateway handles S3 user authentication and ACL checks. It has no data of its own (i.e. is stateless).

6.2.2. Planning the S3 Cluster¶

Before creating an S3 cluster, do the following:

1. Define which nodes of the Virtuozzo Storage cluster will run the S3 storage access point services. It is recommended to have all nodes available in Virtuozzo Storage run these services.

2. Configure the network so that the following is achieved:

   • All components of the S3 cluster communicate with each other via the S3 private network. All nodes of an S3 cluster must be connected to the S3 private network. Virtuozzo Storage internal network can be used for this purpose.

   • The nodes running S3 gateways must have access to the public network.

   • The public network for the S3 gateways must be balanced by an external DNS load balancer.

   For more details on network configuration, refer to Planning Network in the Installation Guide.

3. All components of the S3 cluster should run on multiple nodes for high-availability. Name server and object server components in the S3 cluster are automatically balanced and migrated between S3 nodes. S3 gateways are not automatically migrated; their high availability is based on DNS records. You should maintain the DNS records manually when adding or removing the S3 gateways.

6.2.3. Sample Object Storage¶

This section shows a sample object storage deployed on top of a Virtuozzo Storage cluster of five nodes that run various services. The final setup is shown on the figure below.

6.2.4. Creating the S3 Cluster¶

To set up object storage services on a cluster node, do the following:

1. Make sure that S3 private network is configured on each node that will run object storage services.

2. On the SERVICES > S3 > Nodes screen, check the box of each cluster node where object storage services will run.

   

3. Click Create S3 cluster.

4. Make sure a network interface with an S3 (private) role is selected in the drop-down list. The corresponding interfaces with S3 public roles will be selected automatically.

   Note

   If necessary, click the cogwheel icon and, on the Network Configuration screen, configure S3 roles.

   

5. Click Proceed.

6. In Tier, select the storage tier that will be used for the object storage. For information about storage tiers, consult Understanding Storage Tiers in the Installation Guide.

7. In Failure domain, choose a placement policy for replicas. For more details, see Understanding Failure Domains in the Installation Guide.

8. In Data redundancy, select the redundancy mode that the object storage will use. For more details, see Understanding Data Redundancy in the Installation Guide.

   

   Note

   You can later change the redundancy mode on the S3 > Settings panel.

9. Click Proceed.

10. Specify the external (publicly resolvable) DNS name for the S3 endpoint that will be used by the end users to access the object storage. For example, mys3storage.example.com. Click Proceed.

    Important

    Configure your DNS server according to the example suggested in the management panel.

11. From the drop-down list, select an S3 endpoint protocol: HTTP, HTTPS, or both.

    

    Note

    It is recommended to use only HTTPS for production deployments.

    If you have selected HTTPS, do one of the following:

    • Check Generate self-signed certificate to get a self-signed certificate for HTTPS evaluation purposes.

      Note the following:

      • S3 geo-replication requires a certificate from a trusted authority. It does not work with self-signed certificates.

      • To access the data in the S3 cluster via a browser, add the self-signed certificate to browser’s exceptions.

    • Acquire a key and a trusted wildcard SSL certificate for endpoint’s bottom-level domain. For example, the endpoint s3.storage.example.com would need a wildcard certificate for *.s3.storage.example.com with the subject alternative name s3.storage.example.com.

      Upload the certificate, and, depending on the certificate type, do one of the following:

      • If the certificate is contained in a PKCS#12 file, specify the passphrase.

      • Upload the SSL key.

12. If required, click Configure Notary and specify Notary DNS name and Notary user key. For more information on Notary, see Managing Notary in Buckets.

13. Click Done to create an S3 cluster.

After the cluster is created, on the S3 Overview screen, you can view cluster status, hostname, used disk capacity, the number of users, I/O activity, and the state of S3 services.

To check if the S3 cluster is successfully deployed and can be accessed by users, visit https://<S3_DNS_name> or http://<S3_DNS_name> in your browser. You should receive the following XML response:

<Error>
<Code>AccessDenied</Code>
<Message/>
</Error>

To start using the S3 storage, you will also need to create at least one S3 user.

6.2.5. Managing Object Storage Users¶

The concept of S3 user is one of the base concepts of object storage along with those of object and bucket (container for storing objects). The Amazon S3 protocol uses a permission model based on access control lists (ACLs) where each bucket and each object is assigned an ACL that lists all users with access to the given resource and the type of this access (read, write, read ACL, write ACL). The list of users includes the entity owner assigned to every object and bucket at creation. The entity owner has extra rights compared to other users. For example, the bucket owner is the only one who can delete that bucket.

User model and access policies implemented in Virtuozzo Storage comply with the Amazon S3 user model and access policies.

User management scenarios in Virtuozzo Storage are largely based on the Amazon Web Services user management and include the following operations: create, query, and delete users as well as generate and revoke user access key pairs.

6.2.6. Managing Object Storage Buckets¶

All objects in Amazon S3-like storage are stored in containers called buckets. Buckets are addressed by names that are unique in the given object storage, so an S3 user of that object storage cannot create a bucket that has the same name as a different bucket in the same object storage. Buckets are used to:

• Group and isolate objects from those in other buckets.

• Provide ACL management mechanisms for objects in them.

• Set per-bucket access policies, for example, versioning in the bucket.

In the current version of Virtuozzo Storage, you can enable and disable Notary for object storage buckets and monitor the space used by them on the SERVICES > S3 > Buckets screen. You cannot create and manage object storage buckets from Virtuozzo Storage management panel. However, you can do it via the Virtuozzo Storage user panel or by using a third-party application. For example, the applications listed below allow you to perform the following actions:

• CyberDuck: create and manage buckets and their contents.

• MountainDuck: mount object storage as a disk drive and manage buckets and their contents.

• Backup Exec: store backups in the object storage.

6.2.7. Best Practices for Using S3 in Virtuozzo Storage¶

This section offers recommendations on how to best use the S3 feature of Virtuozzo Storage.

6.2.8. Replicating Data Between Geographically Distributed Datacenters with S3 Clusters¶

Virtuozzo Storage can store replicas of S3 cluster data and keep them up-to-date in multiple geographically distributed datacenters with S3 clusters based on Virtuozzo Storage. Geo-replication reduces the response time for local S3 users accessing the data in a remote S3 cluster or remote S3 users accessing the data in a local S3 cluster as they do not need to have an Internet connection.

Geo-replication schedules the update of the replicas as soon as any data is modified. Geo-replication performance depends on the speed of Internet connection, the redundancy mode, and cluster performance.

If you have multiple datacenters with enough free space, it is recommended to set up geo-replication between S3 clusters residing in these datacenters.

To set up geo-replication between S3 clusters, exchange tokens between datacenters as follows:

1. In the management panel of a remote datacenter, open the SERVICES > S3 > GEO-REPLICATION screen.

   

2. In the section of the home S3 cluster, click TOKEN and, on the Get token panel, copy the token.

3. In the management panel of the local datacenter, open the SERVICES > S3 > GEO-REPLICATION screen and click ADD DATACENTER.

   

4. Enter the copied token and click Done.

5. Configure the remote Virtuozzo Storage S3 cluster the same way.

6.2.9. Monitoring S3 Access Points¶

The S3 monitoring screen enables you to inspect the availability of each S3 component as well as the performance of NS and OS services (which are highly available).

If you see that some of the NS or OS services are offline, it means that the S3 access point does not function properly, and you should contact support or consult the CLI guide for low-level troubleshooting. S3 gateways are not highly available, but DNS load balancing should be enough to avoid downtime if the gateway fails.

The performance charts represent the number of operations that the OS/NS services are performing.

6.2.10. Releasing Nodes from S3 Clusters¶

Before releasing a node, make sure that the cluster has enough nodes running the Name Server, Object Server, and S3 Gateway services left.

To release a node from an S3 cluster, do the following:

1. On the SERVICES > S3 Nodes screen, check the box of the node to release.

2. Click Release.

6.2.11. Supported Amazon S3 Features¶

This section lists Amazon S3 operations, headers, and authentication schemes supported by the Virtuozzo Storage implementation of the Amazon S3 protocol.