Commvault feature releases never fall short of delivering fun at the cutting edge – if loads of innovation is your definition of fun! Release 2022E is no exception - if you haven't already caught up with the “what’s new” announcement blog, please check that out here.
The focus of this article is on HyperScale X – a secure, scale out storage platform for modern data protection needs – and key innovation that Release 2022E unleashed. This is the first in a series of four articles through which we will unpack the latest capabilities, share how they can augment your data protection experience, and how you can leverage the features along with additional pointers for further reading. Let us begin the ride.
Simple, Scalable, and Reliable Deployments
Simple: HyperScale X installation experience was designed to simplify the end-to-end onboarding process – from cable ready servers to first backup. The HyperScale X installer now delivers this experience without any strings attached.
Irrespective of the network topology you are installing the nodes into – basic topology without network redundancy, bonded topologies, VLAN configurations, or networks with custom connectivity requirements – the HyperScale X installer now easily supports all configurations from a consistent and simple graphical interface. Expect a similar consistent experience irrespective of control plane linkage – installing HyperScale X into a data center with external control plane, with integrated data plane in a remote office situation, or as edge storage for Metallic hybrid cloud data protection.
Scalable: HyperScale X is often deployed in petabyte scale clusters and such capacities usually require several nodes to be added over time as data and retention changes. You could be deploying such capacity in one shot or expanding storage on demand through incremental node additions. Irrespective of the choice you make, HyperScale X installer now allows deploying 12 nodes at a time – whether you are setting up a new cluster or adding nodes to an existing cluster. Nodes are configured in parallel, speeding up the installation process so you can now set up a multi petabyte scale cluster under an hour, significantly decreasing the time to value for your HyperScale X investments.
Reliable: The rich installation experience is delivered with reliability in mind as you could be deploying HyperScale X into several remote sites with environmental unknowns. Reliable and reentrant installation experience guarantees that your time to value is preserved even when you are dealing with such conditions.
Immutable, Hardened, and Zero Trust Readiness
Zero Trust: Backup is the last line of defense against Ransomware in overall cybersecurity strategy. Backup copies stored on HyperScale X demand additional protection from anyone and everyone irrespective of their locality – within or outside the trust circle. With this release, we are introducing a restricted shell for HyperScale X nodes that limits user actions and commands that can be run at the console. In addition, the restricted shell also locks down administrative access to the system and any requests for login permission must go through additional authorization through Command Center. Trusting no “one” person or control when it comes to securing critical assets, HyperScale X truly embodies zero trust principles.
Immutable: Immutable storage adds an additional defensive layer around backup infrastructure, preventing accidental or intentional modifications to the backup data. HyperScale X is built on an immutable storage architecture; its scale out file system prevents any unauthorized modifications or deletions to the backup archives once they are committed. Immutability automatically applies for the entire lifetime of the dataset, until retention is met.
As an added benefit, unlike external storage systems, there is no immutability tax with HyperScale X – with storage efficiencies preserved and no additional performance or storage consumption side effects.
HyperScale X immutable storage is also now also certified for SEC regulatory requirements. With compliance to rules such as SEC Rule 17a-4, FINRA Rule 4511(c) and CFTC Regulation 1.31(c)-(d), if you are a financial or banking firm looking for preserving electronic records in a non-modifiable and non-erasable format for extended periods, HyperScale X immutable controls allow you to meet the stipulated requirements.
Hardened: HyperScale X is built on standard Linux distribution; this platform does not demand any custom or proprietary drivers, settings, or configs. While maintaining this consistency, HyperScale X also adapts the standard Linux installation to a more secure operating standard by applying additional hardening measures. Enabling SELinux policies is one such measure among others, along with enforcement of mandatory access controls on the backup volumes and data, preventing unauthorized modification by rogue processes or bad actors. These controls are monitored, alerting admins when any unauthorized penetrations occur, and audit logs are available for compliance and reporting requirements.
In addition to SELinux controls, this release also adds firewall controls to the HyperScale X platform. Firewall services are auto configured to block any non-essential ports and services that are not required for HyperScale X functions. This not only simplifies administration, but also creates optimal balance between security and performance in network topologies where an external firewall between HyperScale X and applications is not an option.
Operations Made Easy
Monitoring: HyperScale X is resilient by design, tolerating hardware component failures without affecting availability of the system. HyperScale X system build is designed with redundant components such as CPU, power supplies, cooling fans, network cards, HBA, etc., so the system is tolerant of their failures. However, proactive hardware health monitoring is always recommended so you can react to the failures in a timely manner and rectify the situation. HyperScale X Appliance already supports hardware health monitoring through Command Center and system alerts are default built in.
When it comes to Reference Architectures, while each hardware vendor that HyperScale X supports might offer an independent method to monitor hardware health, monitoring through Command Center offers a unified experience, think “one console to rule them all” – whether it is the data protection software or data protection infrastructure that you are monitoring. With our latest release we have extended the hardware monitoring support to all supported Reference Architectures. You can monitor the hardware health through the HyperScale X dashboard, as well as get notifications through built-in alerts. As Commvault alerts are already integrated with third party monitoring and ticketing systems with webhook extensibility, you can also integrate these alerts into such systems and get custom notifications.
Upgrades: Systematic patching of software stack is a key responsibility of IT administrators in today’s world, where systems with outdated software are vulnerable to malware exploits that could compromise the security of broader IT landscape if left unchecked. If you are a backup administrator, it is likely that this responsibility is upon you for backup infrastructure. HyperScale X, as an integrated platform, simplifies your job to keep the backup infrastructure and its end-to-end software stack up to date – starting from the operating system all the way to the data protection software.
You can download and apply updates at a monthly cadence, streamlining the update process as well as minimizing the window of opportunity for exploitation. We extend this capability to both deployment models that HyperScale X offers – Commvault Appliance or Reference Architecture. Centralized patching is an effective way to deal with zero-day vulnerabilities. A good example is the recent Log4j incident and how HyperScale X customers could address vulnerabilities across the entire software stack without investigating systems independently.
With this Release 2022E, you can also install operating system updates right from the Command Center, aligning with the update methods you are already familiar with Commvault software. You can download as well as update – either on demand based on your update schedules or scheduled for automated and hands-free process.
Well, this wraps up our HyperScale X what’s new highlights for Release 2022E, reiterating our commitment to HyperScale X as a simple and secure scale out storage for your modern data protection needs. The intent of this article is to throw spotlight on key innovation and the new capabilities introduced, however if you are curious about more technical details, as I said earlier, further technical deep dives are on your way.
Please stay tuned for the next article that will take you through the new HyperScale X installation experience. And as always please share your questions here in the Community.
