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S3 configuration overview

Contributors netapp-ahibbard netapp-aoife netapp-forry netapp-thomi netapp-aherbin

Beginning with ONTAP 9.8, you can enable an ONTAP Simple Storage Service (S3) object storage server in an ONTAP cluster.

ONTAP supports two on-premises use case scenarios for serving S3 object storage:

  • FabricPool tier to a bucket on local cluster (tier to a local bucket) or remote cluster (cloud tier).

  • S3 client app access to a bucket on the local cluster or a remote cluster.

Beginning with ONTAP 9.14.1, you can enable an S3 object storage server on an SVM in a mirrored or unmirrored aggregate in MetroCluster IP and FC configurations.

Beginning with ONTAP 9.12.1, you can enable an S3 object storage server on an SVM in an unmirrored aggregate in a MetroCluster IP configuration. For more information on the limitations of unmirrored aggregates in MetroCluster IP configurations, see Considerations for unmirrored aggregates.

You should use these procedures if you want to configure S3 object storage in the following way:

  • You want to provide S3 object storage from an existing cluster running ONTAP.

    ONTAP S3 is appropriate if you want S3 capabilities on existing clusters without additional hardware and management. However, NetApp StorageGRID software continues to be the NetApp flagship solution for object storage. For more information, see the StorageGRID documentation.

  • You have cluster administrator privileges, not SVM administrator privileges.

S3 configuration with System Manager and the ONTAP CLI

You can configure and manage ONTAP S3 with System Manager and the ONTAP CLI. When you enable S3 and create buckets using System Manager, ONTAP selects best-practice defaults for simplified configuration. If you need to specify configuration parameters, you might want to use the ONTAP CLI. If you configure the S3 server and buckets from the CLI, you can still manage them with System Manager if desired, or vice-versa.

When you create an S3 bucket using System Manager, ONTAP configures a default performance service level that is the highest available on your system. For example, on an AFF system, the default setting would be Extreme. Performance service levels are predefined adaptive Quality of Service (QoS) policy groups. Instead of one of the default service levels, you can specify a custom QoS policy group or no policy group.

Predefined adaptive QoS policy groups are:

  • Extreme: Used for applications that expect the lowest latency and highest performance.

  • Performance: Used for applications with modest performance needs and latency.

  • Value: Used for applications for which throughput and capacity are more important than latency.

  • Custom: Specify a custom QoS policy or no QoS policy.

If you select Use for tiering, no performance service levels are selected, and the system tries to select low-cost media with optimal performance for the tiered data.

ONTAP tries to provision this bucket on local tiers that have the most appropriate disks, satisfying the chosen service level. However, if you need to specify which disks to include in the bucket, consider configuring S3 object storage from the CLI by specifying the local tiers (aggregate). If you configure the S3 server from the CLI, you can still manage it with System Manager if desired.

If you want the ability to specify which aggregates are used for buckets, you can only do so using the CLI.

Configuring S3 buckets on Cloud Volumes ONTAP

If you want to serve buckets from Cloud Volumes ONTAP, it is strongly recommended that you manually select the underlying aggregates to ensure that they are using one node only. Using aggregates from both nodes can impact performance, because the nodes will be in geographically separated availability zones and hence susceptible to latency issues. Therefore, in Cloud Volumes ONTAP environments, you should configure S3 buckets from the CLI.

Otherwise, S3 servers on Cloud Volumes ONTAP are configured and maintained the same in Cloud Volumes ONTAP as in on-premises environments.