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Using VAST Polaris to Manage Deployments

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VAST Polaris is an online portal that you can use to deploy VAST clusters to your cloud accounts.

Accessing VAST Polaris for GCP

In your browser, navigate to VAST Cloud at admin.gcp.polaris.vastdata.com. Enter the username and password you were given.

Accessing VAST Polaris for AWS

In your browser, navigate to VAST Cloud at admin.aws.polaris.vastdata.com. Enter the username and password you were given.

Managing VAST on Cloud Deployments

Viewing Cloud Deployments

The Deployments page shows a summary of your VAST Cloud entitlements and current deployments, and a list of your current deployments.

The summary at the top of the page shows the following:

  • Entitlement totals. The total amount of storage currently allocated to deployments, and the total amount allocated to your organization.

  • Running. The number of running deployments (in deployment state Succeeded and health state Healthy).

  • Provisioning. The number of deployments that are in process of deployment, but not yet completed (deployment state In Progress).

  • Total Storage. The amount of storage allocated to deployments.

  • Healthy. The number of deployments successfully deployed (state Successful) and healthy, as a proportion of the total number of deployments.

The list of deployments shows all deployments, their deployment state, health, allocated storage, number of VMs allocated to the cluster.

Click on a deployment to show these details:

  • Hosts. A list of all the hosts used in the cluster, including their status, IP address, instance type, and the cloud zone it is deployed in. Click on View Host Details in the Actions menu (on the right), to see additional details for the host

  • Activity Feed. A log of activity events recorded during the deployment and running of the cluster.

Creating a Cloud Deployment for GCP

  1. Navigate to the Deployments page

  2. Click Create Deployment Configuration.

  3. In the Entitlements section, select an entitlement (allocation) for the deployment. The entitlement should have sufficient storage for the anticipated needs of the deployment.

  4. In the Deployment Basics section, enter these fields:

Deployment Name

The name of the cluster.

GCP Project ID

A project ID in your GCP account into which the cluster is deployed.

Instance Type

z3 is the only option.

Region

Select the GCP region in which the cluster is deployed, from the list.

Note

Not all GCP regions are available for VAST clusters.

Zone

Select the GCP availability zone for the deployment.

  1. In the Capacity section, select these fields

Deployment Type

Select whether the deployment is a single-host cluster, with fixed storage capacity, typically for testing, or a production cluster with more storage and computing capacity.

Usable storage capacity

If you selected the Production cluster option, enter the amount of usable storage, in TB. This can be up to the total allocated storage for the entitlement selected for the deployment.

The amount of storage determines the number of VMs. A production cluster must have a minimum of 8 VMs, each with about 26.7 TB of storage.

Storage on VAST cloud clusters have a Data Reduction Ratio of 1:1.

If you selected the Single host cluster option, the storage is fixed at 40TB.

  1. In the Tags section, optionally add tags. These are GCP labels. Enter a key and value, then click Add to Tags.

  2. In the Review section, you can review all the settings you have selected for the cluster. After reviewing, click Create Deployment Configuration.

  3. In the Let's deploy dialog, copy the deploy command. This command is run on your local machine using the VastCloud CLI tool. You can download and install this tool using the options at the top of the dialog for different OS options (this needs to be done only once).

  4. In a terminal or Windows CMD window on your local machine, run the copied command.

  • When prompted, enter a VIP range for the cluster. These are the addresses used to access the cluster once deployed in your GCP project. It must be reachable.

  • The deployment will start, and may take a few minutes to complete. When complete, the deployment will appear in the list in the Deployments page, where you can check the Activity Feed to verify the deployment proceeded correctly. You can also monitor the State and Health of the deployment.

Creating a Cloud Deployment for AWS

  1. Navigate to the Deployments page

  2. Click Create Deployment Configuration.

  3. In the Entitlements section, select an entitlement (allocation) for the deployment. The entitlement should have sufficient storage for the anticipated needs of the deployment.

  4. In the Deployment Basics section, enter these fields:

Deployment Name

The name of the cluster.

Region

Select the AWS region in which the cluster is deployed, from the list.

Note

Not all AWS regions are available for VAST clusters.

Instance Type

Select the instance type, from the list.

Zone

Select the AWS availability zone for the cluster, form the list.

  1. In the Capacity section, select these fields

Deployment Type

Select whether the deployment is a single-host cluster, with fixed storage capacity, typically for testing, or a production cluster with more storage and computing capacity.

Usable storage capacity

If you selected the Production cluster option, enter the amount of usable storage, in TB. This can be up to the total allocated storage for the entitlement selected for the deployment.

The amount of storage determines the number of VMs. A production cluster must have a minimum of 8 VMs, each with about 26.7 TB of storage.

Storage on VAST cloud clusters have a Data Reduction Ratio of 1:1.

If you selected the Single host cluster option, the storage is fixed at 40TB.

  1. In the Tags section, optionally add tags. These are AWS labels. Enter a key and value, then click Add to Tags.

  2. In the Review section, you can review all the settings you have selected for the cluster. After reviewing, click Create Deployment Configuration.

  3. In the Let's deploy dialog, copy the deploy command. This command is run on your local machine using the VastCloud CLI tool. You can download and install this tool using the options at the top of the dialog for different OS options (this needs to be done only once).

  4. In a terminal or Windows CMD window on your local machine, run the copied command.

  • The deployment will start, and may take a few minutes to complete. When complete, the deployment will appear in the list in the Deployments page, where you can check the Activity Feed to verify the deployment proceeded correctly. You can also monitor the State and Health of the deployment.

Modifying a Cloud Deployment

You can expand a deployed cluster by adding more storage. Additional VMs are deployed according to the amount of additional storage you select.

  1. Navigate to the Deployments page

  2. Open the Actions menu for the cluster, and select Expand. The cluster deployment must be in deployment state Succeeded. with health status Healthy

  3. In the Target Usable Storage field, enter the desired total amount of storage. The value must be larger than the current amount of storage, which is shown initially in the field. Alternatively, click Use Maximum Available, to allocate all remaining storage from your entitlement to this cluster.

  • The total number of hosts (VMs) and storage (entitlement)

  1. Click Expand Cluster.

Removing a Cloud Deployment Using the VastCloud CLI

You can delete a deployed cluster using the VastCloud CLI. This releases all resources (VMs, storage).

  1. Run this VastCloud CLI command to delete a cluster:

  • vastcloud cluster delete <deployment-name>

  • where <deployment-name> is the name of the deployment (as it appears in the list of deployments). Run the command vastcloud cluster list to see a list of all deployed clusters.

Managing Users

Adding Users

Admin users can add additional VAST Cloud tenant admin users. These users can create and manage cloud clusters using the organization's entitlements quota.

Note

VAST Cloud portal users are not related to users of VAST cloud clusters that are deployed by them. VAST Cluster users are created on the cluster after it is deployed.

Users and groups for the GCP and AWS Polaris portals are separate.

  1. Navigate to the Directory menu option, and select Users.

  2. Click Invite User.

  3. Enter these fields for the user

Email

The email of the user. This email will be used to send the user an invitation email.

Role

The role for the new user. There is one option, Tenant Admin

Invitation Expires In

Select the number of days the invitation to the new user is valid.

Modifying Users

  1. Navigate to the Directory menu option, and select Users.

  2. Click on the Actions menu for the user, and select Edit.

  3. Make changes to the fields for the user, as necessary, and then click Save.

Deleting Users

  1. Navigate to the Directory menu option, and select Users.

  2. Click on the Actions menu for the user, and select Delete.

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