Unleash the Power of Automation with VSP One Block Storage Modules for Red Hat Ansible
Author: Liam Yu, Senior Product Solutions Marketing Manager, Integrated Systems at Hitachi Vantara
Envision a world where creativity and collaboration reign supreme in the realm of artificial intelligence. This year the Red Hat Summit 2024 heralded a new era, one where the open-source ethos transforms open-source generative AI. Imagine a landscape where proprietary models are relics of the past, and businesses flourish with a diverse array of AI models, as accessible and modifiable as a community garden.
Red Hat foresees a future where AI isn’t just a tool but a ubiquitous companion, seamlessly woven into the fabric of countless applications. Red Hat President and CEO Matt Hicks opened the summit speaking about the explosion of choices.
“We are now seeing the impact of broadening the open-source ecosystem in the world of AI and this isn't going to slow down. As models get smaller, as training gets cheaper, as capabilities grow, the reach of this technology will expand across the planet. The breakthrough from MIT today, will be expanded on by the ITs in India tomorrow… I think this is a safe prediction AI won't be built by a single vendor. It isn't going to revolve around a single monolithic model. Your choice of where to run AI will be everywhere and it's going to be based on open source.” -Matt Hicks, President and CEO, Red Hat
This vision requires a paradigm shift, making the tuning of language models as effortless as adjusting a lens, and the modernization of infrastructures as swift as the wind. In this open-source utopia, every developer contributes a verse, and every organization dances to the rhythm of innovation.
The Impact on Hybrid Cloud Storage Infrastructure
The evolution of AI is being propelled by two main factors which will require the right flexible data storage strategies:
• Language & Code Accessibility: Opening language and code models to developers and the wider community is crucial. This enables better document comprehension and advances in-app development.
• Instruct Lab Technology: Red Hat’s instruct lab technology is making it easier and quicker to train AI models, despite the challenges developers face. This innovation is accelerating partnerships and fostering a competitive market.
These advancements are central to the AI developments planned for this year, aiming to meet specific developer needs and streamline the training process.
With this at the center of the strategy, Hitachi Vantara has been diligently developing the latest Red Hat Ansible storage modules, meticulously tailored for the Virtual Storage Platform One (VSP One) Block and VSP One SDS Block storage systems. These modules are engineered to enhance operational efficiency by automating storage provisioning tasks, thereby simplifying the management of storage infrastructure.
The Ansible storage modules are pivotal in automating essential storage provisioning operations, from the initial setup (from Day 0) to the routine management of storage tasks (to Day 1 and beyond). They ensure your storage environment is consistently optimized and aligned with your business requirements, and most importantly, allow the flexibility of choice as we enter the modern AI era. This is also why the VSP One Block modules boast remarkable flexibility in connectivity, offering two distinct connection options:
• Direct Connection: Optimal for setups that require immediate interaction with the storage system, ensuring swift execution during initial deployments and minimizing the need for additional infrastructure.
• Gateway Connection: Employs the Hitachi Unified API Infrastructure Gateway, suitable for environments that need a secure, structured access path. It supports HTTPS and Fibre Channel protocols, enabling both in-band and out-of-band communication.
Hitachi Vantara’s VSP One Block Storage modules for Red Hat Ansible will be available on Ansible Galaxy, GitHub and the Hitachi Vantara support portal.
Here’s How it works
The architecture of our solution is depicted in the diagram below.
Users can transform their storage management experience with the seamless integration of Hitachi storage modules into Ansible’s dynamic environment. Hitachi Vantara’s Core Storage Models for Ansible, including tools like the playbook, enable seamless management of both on-premises storage (VSP One SDS) and public cloud storage clusters. This unified automation control simplifies IT operations within a hybrid cloud environment, ensuring consistent management whether the storage resides on-premises or in the public cloud. Harness the power of core modules, playbooks and host inventory to easily manage storage tasks. You’ll enjoy robust capabilities and unparalleled flexibility for both direct and gateway connections, elevating your infrastructure to new heights of efficiency and reliability.
• Direct Connection Path: Enables direct communication with Hitachi VSP One SDS Block and VSP One storage systems, using HTTPS protocols to ensure secure and efficient data transfer.
• Gateway Connection Path: For environments leveraging the Hitachi UAI Gateway, this provides an additional layer of abstraction and control, suitable for more complex or distributed storage environments.
The Hitachi Unified API Infrastructure gateway is set to revolutionize your storage network by providing a secure, high-performance connection to storage arrays across locations. It’s designed to facilitate complex workflows with ease. Moreover, integration with Ansible modules means you can expect secure and efficient communication with storage arrays, all managed through a secure UAI Gateway API token. This gateway is the key to unlocking a more streamlined and secure storage management process.
Hitachi Unified API Infrastructure gateway
■ Supports both out-of-band (OOB) and in-band (CCI CMD device) communication for high performance.
■ Simplifies development of playbooks by using advanced workflow modules for storage provisioning, data protection available in the API gateway.
■ Enables a single secure connection to manage multiple storage systems across all VSP One platforms.
■ Federates across multisite configurations to enable workflow orchestrations.
■ Offers additional services to manage secure multitenancy and task management for tracking status and debugging.
Secure multitenancy
The Hitachi Unified API Infrastructure is designed for a new dawn in storage resource management, offering a secure and scalable solution that caters to multitenancy. This cutting-edge technology not only fortifies data security but also empowers organizations with the ability to partition storage resources efficiently.
Here’s how it transforms the storage landscape:
• Enhanced Security: Each tenant enjoys a private slice of the storage pie, ensuring data integrity and confidentiality.
• Resource Efficiency: Maximize your storage capabilities by distributing resources across tenants, optimizing space and performance.
• Simplified Management: Oversee your storage needs with ease, thanks to a centralized system that streamlines operations.
Embrace the future of storage management with Hitachi’s Unified API Infrastructure, where security meets efficiency.
The benefits of being able to slice storage resources across multiple tenants include:
• Resource Isolation: Ensures different tenants (e.g., departments, business units or clients) have isolated storage environments, enhancing security and restricting access to authorized users.
• Cost Efficiency: Multitenancy allows for shared infrastructure, reducing overall costs. Organizations can use a single array to serve multiple tenants, for better resource utilization and cost savings.
• Simplified Management: Centralized management of resources makes it easier to oversee and maintain the array. Administrators can manage multiple tenants from a single interface, streamlining operations.
• Scalability: Multitenancy solutions scale easily. As the number of tenants grows, additional resources can be allocated without significant reconfiguration or downtime.
• Compliance and Security: Multitenancy allows you to enforce strict compliance and security policies for each tenant. This is particularly important in industries with stringent regulatory requirements.
Hitachi Unified API Infrastructure GW enables a single partner multiple subscriber model
• Partner: Administers the tenancy rules and configurations for the subscriber.
• Partner, aka apiadmin, is the default user created in the UAI GW. Partner is assigned with super administrator roles and privileges.
• Apiadmin user can register multiple subscribers and assign the storage resources to the subscribers.
• Apiadmin can assign an entire storage array or a quota of the storage array, storage ports, storage pools, hostgroups, iscsi targets to the subscriber by tagging the resources for that subscriber.
• Subscribers or tenants use only the storage resources allocated by the partner.
Use Cases for Multitenancy in Storage Arrays
• Enterprise IT Environments: Large organizations with multiple departments or BUs can use multitenancy to provide each with dedicated resources while centrally managing everything.
• Service Providers: Cloud or managed service providers can offer storage services to multiple clients using a single storage array. Each client operates in a virtualized, isolated environment.
• Development and Testing: Multitenancy allows development, testing and production environments to coexist on the same storage infrastructure without interference, facilitating better resource utilization and management.
• Educational Institutions: Universities and schools can provide different faculties or departments with isolated storage environments while using a common infrastructure.
• Healthcare: Organizations can use multitenancy to store sensitive patient data securely for different departments or practices, ensuring compliance with regulations like HIPAA.
• Financial Services: Banks and financial institutions can segregate storage for different branches, departments or customer data, ensuring security and compliance with financial regulations.
Key Takeaways
So, what does it all mean for you and other open-source advocates? To start, the Red Hat Summit 2024 marked the advent of a transformative era for AI, characterized by a surge in creativity and collaboration. And it’s only the beginning. The open-source movement will revolutionize GenAI, democratizing the tuning of language models, making it as simple as adjusting a lens. And importantly, modernizing infrastructures at an accelerated rate.
This makes offerings like Hitachi Vantara’s essential, allowing businesses to transform their storage management. Leveraging Ansible’s flexibility and tools will render today’s proprietary models obsolete and foster an environment where businesses thrive using highly adaptable and communal AI models. Benefits include:
1. Enhanced Operational Efficiency: Red Hat Ansible storage modules for VSP One Block and SDS Block systems automate storage provisioning tasks, simplifying management and optimizing storage environments.
2. Flexible Connectivity Options: Choose from two connectivity options; Direct Connection for immediate interaction and Gateway Connection for structured, secure access, supporting both HTTPS and Fibre Channel protocols.
3. Availability and Support: Accessible on Ansible Galaxy, GitHub and the Hitachi Vantara support portal, ensuring broad availability and support.
If you've been in tech for a decade or more you've seen these paradigm shifts before, and you understand the economic impact of creative destruction and explosive growth that follows. This isn't the first time, and it certainly won't be the last. But it is still one you will not want to miss.
Getting Started
Ready to embark on a journey to unparalleled storage management with Hitachi Vantara’s new Ansible storage modules? Start by diving into our comprehensive documentation for a smooth installation and use cases. You can also explore our GitHub repository “hitachivantara” for in-depth guidance or unleash the full potential of your solutions with curated playbooks from Ansible Galaxy.
These innovative modules are your gateway to a transformed IT landscape, where managing and provisioning storage is efficient and flexible, drawing on the prowess of the Hitachi Vantara ecosystem.
Hitachi Vantara VSP One Block Storage Modules for Red Hat Ansible 3.1.0
Hitachi Vantara VSP One Block Storage Modules for Red Hat Ansible version 3.1.0 is a major release that introduces new features and enhancements. The purpose is to provide customers with improvements in advanced automation and support for VSP One Block Storage and VSP One SDS Block Storage. Organizations that a growing quickly and adopting Red Hat Ansible within their environment can now take advantage of Hitachi’s leading infrastructure automation immediately.
Key Features
- Support for VSP One Block Storage and VSP One SDS Block Storage Arrays: This release adds support for NVMe over TCP for VSP One Block.
- Includes additional automation for Advanced Volume options, Port security and Thin Image Advanced.
- Enables Day 0 automations for pool management, advanced automations for Remote replication via the Hitachi Unified API Infrastructure (UAI) Gateway.
- Modules and Playbooks: Our new Ansible storage modules simplify the process of setting up new storage systems on day 0 and managing ongoing storage tasks on day 1, ensuring our storage environment is always optimally configured and ready to meet business needs. We are supporting a total of 42 modules and 147 tasks across SDS and VSP storage arrays:
- SDS Block storage: 10 modules executing 40 tasks.
- VSP Storage: 32 modules executing 107 tasks.
- Sample playbooks in GitHub to showcase how to interact with these ansible modules to initiate actions (e.g. provision) or retrieve information (get hostgroup(s) info)
Related Links
For more Information contact:
Sree Lakshmi Lanka
Director Product Management
sreelakshmi.lanka@hitachivantara.com
Follow Us
At Hitachi Vantara, we’re continuously updating and developing enhancements to provide customers with the choice they need in this new era of AI. We’re committed to innovation to address specific needs across a broad set of industries.
For more guidance and tips, be sure to follow our GitHub repository. Join the ranks of our vibrant community forum where your voice matters. Share your experiences, spark curiosity with your questions, and forge connections with fellow enthusiasts.
• Watch “hitachivantara/vsponeblockansible” GitHub repository to receive notifications for all conversations and new releases.
• Star the Repository to bookmark the repository and show your support.
• Fork the Repository if you want to contribute or make your own modifications
In Ansible Galaxy:
• Follow our project page “hitachivantara” in Ansible Galaxy. Following a project will allow you to receive updates and notifications about new releases and changes.
• Star the Project: You can also star the project to show your support and make it easier to find later.
Liam Yu
Liam Yu is Senior Product Solutions Marketing Manager, Integrated Systems at Hitachi Vantara. Connect with Liam on LinkedIn