Using the Hitachi Content Platform cloud providers

Data Migrator Administration Guide for Hitachi NAS Platform

Version
15.1.x
Audience
anonymous
Part Number
MK-92HNAS005-33

The NAS server provides two types of Hitachi cloud provider.

The options are:

  • Hitachi Content Platform
  • Hitachi Content Platform S3

To ensure optimal configuration, check that:

  • the account contains the fully qualified domain name of the HCP namespace. For HCP S3, the namespace must also have an assigned owner.
  • the user permissions are sufficient. The required Data Access Permissions are for the tenant-level user include Read, Write, Delete, Purge, and Search for the given namespace. Tenant or system administrator privileges are not needed.
  • HTTPS protocol is enabled
  • the HTTP protocol is enabled if (for better performance) encryption-in-transit is not desired
  • the default retention class is disabled

In addition to user permissions and retention class, there are extra attributes to set on an HCP S3 server:

  • the tenant-level user needs an additional ‘Privileged’ Data Access Permission
  • the tenant-level user must be the owner of the namespace
  • ACL needs to be enabled
  • HCP S3 Authenticated access requires the installation of HCP client certificates and HS3 API to be enabled
  • the ‘optimization for cloud protocols only’ setting needs to be enabled
  • MAPI, the Management API needs to be enabled for the tenant

Selecting a Hitachi Content Platform cloud provider

Use HCP S3 if:
  • You are using S node storage, especially if you are using encryption or compression.
  • You are using HCP version 8 or higher
Use HCP if:
  • HCP is not configured to store data on S Node Storage
  • HTTP protocol is used to leverage zero copy feature
  • You are using HCP versions earlier than 8

The main difference between the two providers is the method used for file uploads and downloads:

A Hitachi Content Platform server can store data on S Series storage in both encrypted and un-encrypted formats. When the NAS server requests an encrypted (or compressed) file from S series storage through HCP, it makes HTTP ranged GET requests in 500KB chunks. In order to decompress or decrypt large files, HCP has to read the entire file multiple times. This can impact performance.

The HCP S3 cloud provider uses multi-part upload functionality. This means that each chunk of data is encrypted and stored separately on the S series storage. When the NAS server requests an encrypted or compressed file, HCP only needs to retrieve the relevant chunks. This option increases performance when using encryption or compression on HCP S series storage with Data Migrator to Cloud.

You can select a provider when creating a new cloud account in the NAS Manager. Alternatively, if you already have a Hitachi Content Platform cloud provider configured, you can use the relevant Cloud Account Details page to switch between the two providers. Note that files uploaded with HCP provider and downloaded with HCP S3 cannot leverage the key benefits of the S3 feature.