Pure Storage FlashArray Volume Driver for OpenStack Release Notes

New Features

• Active/Active Replication
  This allows users to configure FlashArray backends in clustered environments.

• Volume Metadata
  Volume metadata is added describing the backend array name (array_name) and volume name (array_volume_name). This allows easier identification and location of a cinder volume when multiple clusters are using the same backend arrays, or when the cinder scheduler has multiple backends to choose from.

New Features

• iSCSI CIDR

  Added configuration option pure_iscsi_cidr_list for setting several network CIDRs for iSCSI target connection. Both IPv4 and IPv6 are supported. The default allows all IPv4 targets. When used, superceeds pure_iscsi_cidr

Upgrade

• Minimum purestorage SDK version increased to 1.17.0

Fixes

• Parameter pure_iscsi_cidr is now IPv4/v6 agnostic.

• Fixed issue where cloning a consistency group containing volumes with very long names causes a crash [IBM PowerVC only].

• Fixed issue with an incorrect internal mechanism for checking REST API of backend array. This has no external effect on users.

• Fixes issue when cloning multiple volumes [IBM PowerVC only].

• Fixed issues with multi-attched volumes being disconnected from a backend when still listed as an attachment to an instance.

New Features

• Quality of Service

  Add support for backend Quality of Service

• Active / Active

  Enabled support for Cinder Active/Active controllers to both the iSCSI and FC driver

Fixes

• Ensure unmanaged volumes do not exceed FlashArray volume name length limits
• Add missing support for host_personality in Fibre Channel driver

New Features

• Revert to Snapshot

  Add support for revert to snapshot

Fixes

• Resolve issue where CIDR filters are not correctly enforced with synchronous replication.

New Features

No new features for the Cinder driver

New Features

• Host Personality Support
  Pure Storage FlashArray driver has added configuration option pure_host_personality for setting the host personality upon host creation (existing hosts are not affected).
• VLAN Support
  Pure Storage FlashArray driver has added configuration option pure_iscsi_cidr for setting a network CIDR for iSCSI target connection. The default value will allow connections to all iSCSI targets.

New Features

• FlashArray Replication Configuration options
  Pure Storage FlashArray driver has added configuration options pure_replication_pg_name and pure_replication_pod_name for setting the names for replication PGs and Pods.

New Features

• ActiveCluster support
  Pure Storage Volume Drivers for ActiveCluster using the standard replication APIs are available.
• Multiattach Support
  FlashArray driver now supports multiattach

Compatibility Notices

• The driver now requires Purity Python REST Client version 1.13 (or later) if using ActiveCluster based replication in Cinder
  This version is included when you install the Pure Storage Python SDK.

Removal Notices

• Default policy.json is removed
  Cinder now uses default policies. A policy file is only needed if overriding one of the defaults.

Deprecation Notices

• Cisco Fibre Channel Zone Manager marked as unsupported
  enable_unsupported_driver will need to be set to True in the driver’s section in cinder.conf to continue to use it. If its support status does not change, they will be removed in the Rocky release.
• The Consistency Group APIs have now been marked as deprecated
  Generic Volume Group APIs should be used instead

Upgrade Notices

• The default value for pure_replica_interval_default used by Pure Storage volume drivers has changed from 900 to 3600 seconds.

Deprecation Notices

• Volume driver configuration settings are deprecated in the [DEFAULT] section
  Volume driver configuration settings must instead be placed in named backend sections. In the Pike release, having volume driver configuration entries in the [DEFAULT] section generates an error.

• Consistency groups are planned to be deprecated in a future release
  Generic volume groups, a new Cinder feature, are planned to replace consistency groups.

Installation and Configuration

Please see https://support.purestorage.com/Solutions/Cloud/OpenStack/Reference/Pure_Storage_FlashArray_OpenStack%C2%AE_(Pike)_Cinder_Volume_Driver_Setup_Guide.

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Deprecation Notices

• Volume driver configuration settings are deprecated in the [DEFAULT] section
  Volume driver configuration settings must instead be placed in named backend sections. In the Ocata release, having volume driver configuration entries in the [DEFAULT] section generates an error.

• Consistency groups are planned to be deprecated in a future release
  Generic volume groups, a new Cinder feature, are planned to replace consistency groups.

New Feature

• Generic volume groups
  The Pure Storage volume drivers support consistent_group_snapshot_enabled type groups that work the same way as consistency groups did previously and are interpreted as representing Purity protection groups.

Installation and Configuration

Please see https://support.purestorage.com/Solutions/Cloud/OpenStack/Reference/Pure_Storage_FlashArray_OpenStack%C2%AE_(Ocata)_Cinder_Volume_Driver_Setup_Guide.

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Deprecation Notice

• Volume driver configuration settings are deprecated in the [DEFAULT] section
  Volume driver configuration settings must instead be placed in named backend sections. In Newton, having volume driver configuration entries in the [DEFAULT] section generates a warning. In the OpenStack O release or a later OpenStack release, we expect this not to be supported and to generate an error.

Compatibility Notices

• The driver now requires Purity Python REST Client version 1.6 (or later).
  This version is included when you install the Pure Storage Python SDK.

Installation and Configuration

Please see https://support.purestorage.com/Solutions/Cloud/OpenStack/Reference/Pure_Storage_FlashArray_OpenStack%C2%AE_(Newton)_Cinder_Volume_Driver_Setup_Guide.

Compatibility Notices

• This release is compatible with Purity FlashArrays that support the Pure Storage REST API 1.2 or higher.

• We recommend at a minimum Purity 4.0.20 or 4.1.0 for this release.

• Some features require REST API 1.4 or higher.

New Features

• Cinder v2.1 (cheesecake) Replication
  The Volume Drivers now support the host-based replication in Cinder with the ability to create replicated volumes and failover the Cinder Volume backend from one FlashArray to another

• Improved Custom Scheduler Filter Functions
  There are now a significantly larger number of metrics exposed to the Cinder scheduler from the FlashArray which can be used in driver filter and/or goodness functions.

• TRIM/Discard/UNMAP
  You can now allow for Cinder volumes to get TRIM/Discard/UNMAP commands when used with VM's provisioned with libvirt (KVM, qemu, etc as supported by hypervisor).

• Automatic Volume Eradication
  New config option to allow for automatically eradicating Pure volumes upon deletion in Cinder. It is disabled by default.

• Disable Automatic Oversubscription Ratio
  New config option to allow for disabling the automatic calculation of oversubscription ratio given to Cinder scheduler by the Volume Drivers. When disabled the drivers will respect the configured oversubscription ratio.

• Validating HTTPS Management Requests
  The Cinder volume drivers now can be configured to validate HTTPS requests to the FlashArray management REST API. Custom certificates can be configured.

Installation and Configuration

Please see https://support.purestorage.com/Solutions/Cloud/OpenStack/Reference/Pure_Storage_FlashArray_OpenStack%C2%AE_(Mitaka)_Cinder_Volume_Driver_Setup_Guide.

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Compatibility Notices

• This release is compatible with Purity FlashArrays that support the Pure Storage REST API 1.2 or higher.

• We recommend at a minimum Purity 4.0.20 or 4.1.0 for this release.

• Some new features (such as the Cinder import feature) require REST API 1.4 or higher.   

New Features

• Fibre Channel Volume Driver
  In addition to the PureISCSIDriver, there is now a PureFCDriver which has the same level of support and functionality. Going forward all core driver features will be supported on both unless otherwise specified.
  This allows OpenStack deployments using Fibre Channel and Pure FlashArrays. The PureFCDriver is fully compatible with the Cinder Fibre Channel Zone Manager, which allows for automatic zoning.

• Glance Image Caching
  Support has been added to Cinder to allow for caching Glance images. When enabled for Pure Drivers, Glance image caching provides significant performance improvements when creating volumes from images.

• Custom Scheduler Filter Functions
  You can now specify custom filter functions for Cinder's scheduler. The most important use of this is to allow for filtering on total volumes on the Array to prevent hitting the volume limit. In the future, this can be expanded to allow for scheduling based on other metrics reported by the Array.

• Manage/Unmanage Snapshot
  Two new API's for Cinder have been added in Liberty to allow for managing and unmanaging snapshots. This functionality is almost identical to the older manage/unmanage volume commands, but allows for using existing snapshots. Support has been added to the Pure drivers for this.

• Create Consistency Group from Consistency Group (clone CG)
  A new API to allow for cloning Cinder Consistency Groups from a source Consistency Group or Consistency Group Snapshot was added in Liberty. Support for these has been added to the Pure drivers.

Fixes

• Re-typing a volume that would cause a volume to stay on the same Pure FlashArray no longer requires a migration.

• Cinder thin-provisioning now allows for individual volumes to be larger than the free space left on array.

• Previously iSCSI volumes would not always be detached from initiators correctly. The migration to os-brick in Nova and Cinder has resolved this issue.

Installation and Configuration

Please see https://support.purestorage.com/Solutions/Cloud/OpenStack/Reference/Pure_Storage_FlashArray_OpenStack%C2%AE_(Liberty)_Cinder_Volume_Driver_Setup_Guide.

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Compatibility Notices

• This release is compatible with Purity FlashArrays that support the Pure Storage REST API 1.2 or higher.

• We recommend at a minimum Purity 4.0.20 or 4.1.0 for this release.

New Features

• Consistency groups
  Utilizes Pure protection groups to provide application consistent local snapshots for user specified volumes.

• Automatic Host Creation
• The cinder driver will automatically create the host it needs to connect volumes with the iSCSI network. Previously this was a manual step.

• Improved CHAP support
• Enable chap support via the pure_use_chap option for each backend in cinder.conf. This will automatically generate a username and random password when creating a host with automatic host creation. Passwords are stored in the Cinder database.

• Support for Manage/Unmanage-exisiting commands in cinder CLI
• Allows user to convert an existing volume/snapshot in the array to be a cinder managed volume. This action renames the volume on the array.

• Using Pure Storage Python SDK internally
• Self explanatory. Previously the driver was using a custom class to interface with the Purity array. Now it uses the standard PureStorage pypi module. Cinder nodes must have https://pypi.python.org/pypi/purestorage installed.

• Thin-provisioning support with Cinder Scheduler
• In Kilo the capacity filter for the scheduler has been made aware of thin provisioning/data reduction and backends can now report an over subscription ratio. Our driver calculates this value automatically based on current usage for an array. Where previously we recommended disabling the capacity filter it will now work correctly and see the benefits of the FlashArray's data reduction.

Installation and Configuration

Please see https://support.purestorage.com/Solutions/Cloud/OpenStack/Reference/Pure_Storage_FlashArray_OpenStack%C2%AE_(Kilo)_Cinder_Volume_Driver_Setup_Guide.