Architecture

Anvil and DSX are required for each site as they have very different roles in the architecture. Each site is designed to operate independently of the other sites to handle situations when sites are down or disconnected for extended periods of time.

Anvil

Anvil is responsible for all metadata (including file system, extensive metadata, and deduplication chunk tracking) and systems management. Metadata replication is handled as point to point connections between Anvil nodes. The Anvil nodes are the only nodes that communicate with other Anvil nodes across sites. The connections between Anvil nodes are encrypted using TLS security.

There are three ports in use between Anvil nodes across sites: 9097, 9298, 9299. These ports must be open between all Anvil nodes, across all participating sites. . The network traffic across these ports is encrypted using TLS-based security.

DSX

DSX is responsible for transferring data chunks to cloud/object storage, using local storage to store data and for presenting NFS and SMB shares to site-local clients. While cloud/object storage may be located on the other site, DSX never communicates to other DSX nodes on other sites.