What's New in Release 7.9.0

HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric 7.9.0 is a data-storage platform from Hewlett Packard Enterprise that offers a multimodal, subscription-based, hybrid-cloud experience for the enterprise.

IMPORTANT
The predecessor of the HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric is the HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric – Customer Managed platform. See Comparing the Data Fabric Platforms. To view information for the customer-managed Data Fabric platform, see this website.

New Features for Release 7.9.0

Following are some new features and capabilities that distinguish release 7.9.0 from the previous release (7.8.0):
New Feature or Capability Supported on See for more information . . .
DF SaaS? Customer Managed?
Support for user-defined roles Yes No Administering Identities**

acl*
Support for C API Librdkafka for HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric Streams No Yes HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric Streams C Applications*

HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric Streams C Client 2.0.2 Release Notes*
Updates to Insight services Yes Yes Configuring Data Fabric to Track User Behavior**

insight*

setloglevel insight*
Support for RHEL 9.4 Yes Yes Operating System Support Matrix

Operating System Support Matrix*
Remove nodes from a fabric Yes No Removing Nodes (On-premises Deployment)**

installer clusterremovenode*
Identity access management Yes No Administering IAM Policies**

*Indicates a link to the HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric – Customer Managed documentation.

**Requires using the Data Fabric UI. With release 7.3.0 and later, you can use the Data Fabric UI on customer-managed clusters. To understand the limitations and benefits of doing so, see Data Fabric UI.

Welcome to the HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric

Release 7.8.0 introduces an HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric that is:
  • Managed as a service
  • Subscription-based
  • Designed to make data accessible

The single logical view integrates files, objects, and streaming data and features consumption-based pricing. A global namespace enables deployments to join a single fabric no matter where the data is located.

Managed As a Service

With the HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric platform, HPE manages the configuration, upgrade, and lifecycle of the platform – as long as the platform is connected.

Deploy to the Cloud or On-Premises

Release 7.8.0 of the HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric provides a high-performance file system for files, binary tables, objects, and streaming files that can be deployed quickly on:
  • Amazon Web Services (AWS)
  • Microsoft Azure
  • Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
  • Your on-premises infrastructure
The Data Fabric simplifies how you manage petabyte-scale data, enabling on-premises files to be transferred as native S3 objects to the cloud, where upstream apps can transform the data. Results can be stored either on-premises or on the cloud as objects. The Data Fabric makes it easy to migrate workloads across clouds or on-premise installations without the need for format changes.

Storage Tiers and Consumption

With the HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric, the amount of storage you use determines your monthly charges for the service. HPE offers licenses for the following storage tiers:
  • 1 TB
  • 10 TB
  • 100 TB
  • 1 PB
The storage tier is a baseline for consumption. You select a storage tier when you purchase a license and confirm the tier when you create a fabric. You can consume more storage than your specified storage tier, but rates are higher when your consumption exceeds the specified tier. For current rate information, contact your HPE sales representative.

The Data Fabric UI enables you to monitor your consumption and provides estimates of your monthly charges.

Comparing the Data Fabric Platforms

The as-a-service HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric leverages the strengths of its predecessor, the HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric – Customer Managed platform. The as-a-service platform also improves on its predecessor in many ways. The following table compares the platforms:
Feature HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric – Customer Managed
Distributed File System Yes Yes
Global Namespace (GNS) Yes No
Object Support Yes Yes
Table Support Yes Yes
Event Stream Support Yes Yes
NFSv4 Support* Yes Yes
Container Storage Interface (CSI) Support Yes Yes
Database Support Yes Yes
Client Support Yes Yes
Single Sign-On (SSO) Support Yes Yes (release 7.3.0 and later)
Rolling Upgrades Managed by HPE User managed
Billing and Licensing Consumption-only and some form of term (term-only not supported) Consumption and Term
Air-Gap Support Yes Yes
Graphical User Interface Data Fabric UI or Control System Data Fabric UI or Control System
maprcli Command Line Yes Yes
Scale (number of nodes per fabric / cluster) See note** Thousands of nodes
EEP (HPE Ezmeral Ecosystem Pack) No Yes
OpenTelemetry (OTel) Yes Yes
*NFSv3 is not supported.

**For cloud deployments, the nodes and instances are predetermined based on the storage tier that you select during installation. While new fabrics can be added at any time, adding nodes after fabric creation is not currently supported for cloud deployments. For on-premises deployments, you determine the number of nodes at create time. You can add nodes later by using the steps in Adding Nodes (On-premises Deployment).

Terminology

Some terms used to describe the new HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric are different from terms used to describe the HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric – Customer Managed platform. The following table highlights some terminology differences:
Term Definition Comparable HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric – Customer Managed Term
Data Fabric UI The new user interface for managing the HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric. See Data Fabric UI. Control System
fabric A software-defined storage system that provides multi-modal access to data. Fabrics help you manage your data, making it possible to access, integrate, model, analyze, and provision your data seamlessly. Multiple fabrics share a common global namespace. cluster
global namespace A data plane that spans all of your Data Fabric deployments and includes all of the as-a-service fabrics in your enterprise. See Global Namespace (GNS). cross-cluster security
HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric Now refers to the consumption-based, as-a-service Data Fabric platform. Data Fabric deployments that are not consumption based and not provided as-a-service are now referred to as "customer managed." HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric – Customer Managed