Objectives with Global Namespace configuration

Each site is designed to be able to operate if disconnected from the other sites, this has led to a design where objectives are currently always managed locally to the site. Essentially, each site will have their own objectives. This is beneficial as it also means that sites can’t interfere with each other’s data mobility, it also gives the local site administrator full control over where to place the data.

For example, consider two sites with very different characteristics, and how objectives could be used to manage the data storage.

Site 1: On-premises, fully-invested in large NAS systems that are capable of storing nearly all their data.

Site 2: In the cloud, to make the cloud cost-efficient, most of the data sits in object storage while only active data is on expensive high-performance storage.

The objectives on Site 1 will focus on keeping the existing NAS systems as full as possible with the most recent data. In other words, the objective will be to make sure the investment is as utilized as possible. Meanwhile, for Site 2, the objectives are nearly the opposite - the majority of the data sits in low-cost cloud storage while only the active files are located on expensive SSD/IOPS provisioned storage. This flexibility enables administrators to meet the tough requirements of managing data cost-effectively and delivering high performance across many sites.

Sample objective

This example will explain how to keep copies of all recent data on all sites.

To keep recent data in myshare Home on all the sites and leave the rest of the data in cloud storage, the following objective must be created on all three sites and applied on the share or directory on all sites.

> smart-objective-create --name "Recently used data is local" --expression "IF LAST USE AGE THEN\ {SLO('keep- online')} ELSE {SLO('place-on-shared-object-volumes')}"

For help in creating objectives, refer to Creating an Objective.