Designlet: Create NFS Datastore using Oracle Cloud File Storage Service

Introduction

Oracle Cloud has announced the support of Oracle Cloud File Storage Service (FSS) as a VMware-certified NFSv3-based Cloud datastore.  This is deployed as secondary storage in addition to the existing VMware vSAN storage already present on the OCVS cluster.

This capability allows a customer to take advantage of additional storage options within their OCVS infrastructure for such use cases as:

  • Shared file storage for additional scaling and capacity outside of vSAN storage
  • Resiliency against failures in the form of additional storage outside vSAN
  • Lift and shift of VMware applications
  • Backup across the VMware SDDC to shared Oracle storage services
  • Storing structured or unstructured data for big data and analytics
  • Additional datastores for testing and development purposes

Prerequisites

Before adding an NFS-based datastore to an OCVS cluster, the following prerequisites must be met to connect to the FSS storage service:

 

Solution Architecture

At a high level, OCVS VMware SDDC will connect to the Oracle Cloud File Storage Service (FSS) mount point directly via the customer’s Virtual Cloud Network (VCN).  This secure connectivity will ensure the NFS-based traffic does not traverse public interfaces to reach additional Oracle Cloud services.

You can host the mount target in the same subnet where VMware SDDC is deployed. However, it is not recommended as there are just enough IPs for the customer to use for VMware SDDC nodes from the OCVS SDDC Subnet. The recommendation is to create a new subnet for Oracle Cloud File Storage Service and host the FSS Mount point to this subnet. 

OCI FSS

As shown in the above diagram, A new subnet is created in the same VCN where Oracle VMware Solution SDDC is deployed. You may require to allow communication between OCVS-SDDC-Subnet and File-Share-Subnet by modifying firewall rules in the security list.

 

Configuration and Deployment

Below are high-level steps to create an NFS datastore backed by the Oracle Cloud File Storage Service (FSS).

  1. Create a new Subnet for FSS Mount Point. The subnet should be in the same VCN where VMware SDDC is deployed. 
  2. Modify the Security List of the VMware SDDC subnet to allow communication from the newly created FSS subnet. 
  3. Create FSS Mount Point by logging into OCI Console → Storage → File System, Ensure it is created in the same VCN as the VMware SDDC subnet and using the newly created FSS subnet. 

    image-20220502194814-1​​

  4. Create a Mount Target
    image-20220502194948-2

    Select the Mount Commands button in order to retrieve the NFS mount configuration.

    mount 12.0.1.242:/OCVSsecondarydatastore
    

     

    The output of the command will include the NFS mount IP as well as the path.

  5. Mount NFS v3 Datastore to VMware SDDC.
    image-20220502195230-3

 

 

Demo

Conclusion

This summarizes the addition of an OCI FSS-based datastore to an existing OCVS cluster. Additional considerations and specific configurations can be referred to in the VMware Best practices  as well as the OCI FSS FAQ  for enabling NFS based datastores. 

Authors and Contributors

Jatin Purohit, Sr. Technical Marketing Manager, VMware 

Vinay Rao, Principle Solution Architect, Oracle

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Storage Oracle Cloud VMware Solution Document Feature Walkthrough Intermediate Deploy