Dell PowerScale OneFS 9.5 Released

Dell PowerScale has launched OneFS 9.5, which brings an array of new security features and functionality to keep unstructured data and workloads more secure. Dell also delivers significant performance gains to the all-flash F600 and F900 PowerScale nodes.

Dell PowerScale has launched OneFS 9.5, which brings an array of new security features and functionality to keep unstructured data and workloads more secure. Dell also delivers significant performance gains to the all-flash F600 and F900 PowerScale nodes.

OneFS 9.5 Performance Improvements

While the security enhancements highlight the 9.5 release, we can’t overlook the improved performance Dell has unlocked in the F600 and F900 nodes. We recently wrote about Dell’s commitment to embracing new technologies like QLC SSDs in PowerScale. Now, customers can not only take advantage of 30.72TB SSDs but also derive additional performance gains with a software update.

OneFS 9.5 features SmartCache enhancements that deliver streaming read performance gains of up to 55% on the F-series nodes, F600 and F900. It should be noted that other PowerScale nodes will also see performance gains. However, they’re most dramatic in these NVMe-based systems. That said, there are other notable improvements, like F200 nodes getting support for 100GbE networking.

Additionally, enhancements to SmartPools in OneFS 9.5 offer configurable transfer limits, which include maximum capacity thresholds. If these thresholds are breached, SmartPools will not attempt to move files to a particular tier, boosting reliability and tiering performance.

A new feature dubbed PowerScale SmartQoS allows administrators to configure limits on the maximum number of protocol operations that NFS, S3, SMB, or mixed protocol workloads can consume. Again, this QoS feature is designed to offer more control to storage admins and better overall performance.

OneFS 9.5 Security Updates

The PowerScale OneFS 9.5 release meets US Federal and DoD mandates, such as FIPS 140-2, Common Criteria, and DISA STIGs, as well as general enterprise data security requirements. Features include multi-factor authentication, single sign-on support, data encryption in-flight and at rest, TLS 1.2, USGv6R1 IPv6 support, SED Master Key rekey, and a new host-based firewall.

PowerScale platforms with OneFS 9.5 can scale up to 186PB of encrypted raw capacity per cluster using 15TB and 30TB self-encrypting SSDs. This is done within a single volume and filesystem before additional compression and deduplication benefits. 9.5 also includes a PKI and certificate authority infrastructure for multi-factor authentication, account policy restrictions, and key manager for secrets.

Additionally, the OneFS 9.5 front-end firewall allows for granular control of the IPv6 stack and implements port blocking and packet filtering rules in accordance with security policy.

Dell SupportAssist

With 9.5, Dell SupportAssist provides a full replacement for ESRS. SupportAssist uses a new secure connect gateway to automatically detect and diagnose issues with PowerScale hardware and software and provides troubleshooting steps to resolve them, thanks to CloudIQ’s data analysis. It also proactively checks the health of the cluster, including drives, memory, and other components, alerting admins to any potential issues. Customers can use Dell support to diagnose and remedy cluster issues remotely.

Dell PowerScale F600 and F600 Specification Highlights

	PowerScale F900	PowerScale F600
Use Case	HPC, massive Performance workloads	Demanding line of business, and AI applications
Raw node capacity	46 TB to 720 TB	15.36 TB to 240 TB
ECC memory (per node)	736 GB	128, 192, 384, or 736 GB
Nodes per cluster	3 to 252	3 to 252
Raw cluster capacity	138 TB to 186 PB	46 TB to 60 PB
Inline Data Reduction	Yes	Yes
Storage Type	NVMe SSD (TLC, QLC)	NVMe SSD (TLC, QLC)

Availability

The new OneFS 9.5 code is now available on the Dell Technologies Support site, as an upgrade and reimage file. Dell is offering assisted upgrades to OneFS 9.5.0 at no cost to customers with a valid support contract.

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