SysEleven Stack Block Storage Service is built on the OpenStack Cinder project.
With the Block Storage Service it is possible to add additional persistent block storage to your compute instances.
You can manage your block storage volumes and make them available to your compute instances both via our public OpenStack API endpoints, as well as using the Dashboard and the OpenStack CLI.
| Volume type | CBK region | DBL region | FES region |
|---|---|---|---|
| quobyte | Yes (default) | Yes (default) | Yes (default) |
| quobyte-multiattach | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| ceph | No | No | Yes |
The data will be stored on SSDs in the SysEleven Stack distributed storage cluster based on Quobyte. The data will be replicated and stored on three different storage nodes and SSDs.
A volume can only be attached to a single virtual machine at a time.
This volume type is the same as the quobyte volume type, except that the volumes can be attached to multiple VMs at the same time.
The performance of quobyte-multiattach is slightly reduced because some caching strategies are not possible with multi-attach volumes. There is also a performance penalty using ocfs2 (or any other cluster file system, like gfs2) compared to ext4, because the file system must coordinate with the other nodes over the network.
Please refer to our multi-attach volume tutorial. It explains how to use multi-attach volumes with the cluster file system ocfs2.
WARNING: This mode of operation requires special cluster file systems like ocfs2 or gfs2. Otherwise it can lead to the loss of data and/or file system and data corruption.
The data will be stored on SSDs in the SysEleven Stack distributed storage cluster based on Ceph. The data will be replicated and stored on three different storage nodes and SSDs.
A volume can only be attached to a single virtual machine at a time.
| OpenStack Cinder Feature | CBK region | DBL region | FES region |
|---|---|---|---|
| Block storage volumes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Volume transfer | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Volume snapshots | Yes (offline*) | Yes (offline*) | Yes (offline*) |
| Save volume as glance image | Yes (offline*) | Yes (offline*) | Yes (offline*) |
| Multi-attach volumes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Volume resizing | Yes (offline*) | Yes (offline*) | Yes (offline*) |
| Volume backups | No | No | No |
The OpenStack Cinder service allows end users to manage virtual block storage devices. Via a self service API it provides the functionality to create volumes for persistent storage and attach them to virtual machines. A volume can be moved from one VM to another by detaching it and re-attaching it somewhere else. Also you may delete or rebuild a VM without losing its data that is kept on a Cinder volume.
Inside the virtual machine the volume will be available as a block device (e.g. on Linux operating systems as /dev/vdX). It might be necessary to format the device with the file system of your choice.
Volume transfers allow you to transfer ownership of a volume to a different OpenStack project.
The transfer can be initiated in one project using openstack volume transfer request create, and then completed using openstack volume transfer request accept.
A snapshot saves a point-in-time copy of a block storage volume.
openstack volume snapshot create --volume volume_name_or_id snapshot_nameSnapshots can only be created while the volume is detached. The option --force to create a snapshot from an attached volume is currently not supported and may lead to a snapshot in ERROR state. Boot volumes cannot be detached (not even while the instance is shut down).
You may use the snapshot as a source when creating a new volume:
openstack volume create --snapshot snapshot_id name_of_new_volumeIt is possible to copy the contents of a cinder volume to the glance image store, e.g. using the OpenStack CLI:
openstack image create --volume volume_name_or_id name_of_new_imageThe cinder volume must be detached for the operation to succeed.
When you create a volume with a multi-attach volume type (See available volume types), it is possible to attach it to multiple virtual machines at the same time.
WARNING: This mode of operation requires special cluster file systems like ocfs2 or gfs2. Otherwise it can lead to the loss of data and/or file system and data corruption.
This is useful, for example, to make app servers more scalable or to reduce single points of failure: If your application relies on a file system to store information, for example pictures, you can use multi-attach volumes to share the file system across a number of app servers, without the need for network storage solutions like NFS.
Please refer to our multi-attach volume tutorial. It explains how to use multi-attach volumes with the cluster file system ocfs2.
Your client must use the nova API version 2.60 or later for attaching / detaching the volume. In the openstack CLI you can accomplish this using the --os-compute-api-version parameter:
openstack --os-compute-api-version 2.60 server add volume instance_name volume_nameThe necessary settings for Terraform are described in the Terraform documentation for multi-attach volume attachments.
Sometimes it is necessary to change the size of your volume.
Cinder volumes can be extended in size using the API or the OpenStack CLI:
openstack volume set --size XX volume_name_or_idFollowing the volume size change it might be necessary to grow the filesystem. If you are using ext4 you may need to run this command on the VM where the volume is attached:
resize2fs /dev/vdX