Configuring your expanded StorageGRID Webscale system

After completing an expansion, you must perform additional integration and configuration steps.

1. Complete the following configuration tasks for each type of grid node you added during the expansion:

   Type of grid node	Configuration tasks
   Storage Nodes	Verify the information lifecycle management (ILM) storage pool configuration. You must verify that the expansion Storage Nodes are included in a storage pool used by a rule in the active ILM policy. Otherwise, the new storage will not be used by the StorageGRID Webscale system. For information on configuring ILM storage pools, rules, and policies, see the Administrator Guide. Verify that the Storage Node is active. You must verify that the Storage Nodes you add are ingesting objects. For more information, see "Verifying that the Storage Node is active."
   Admin Nodes	Copy the Admin Node database. Optionally, copy the Admin Node database from the primary Admin Node to the expansion Admin Node if you want to keep the attribute and audit information consistent on each Admin Node. For more information, see "Copying the Admin Node database." Copy the audit logs. Optionally, copy the existing audit logs from the primary Admin Node to the expansion Admin Node if you want to keep the historical log information consistent on each Admin Node. For more information, see "Copying the audit logs." Configure access to audit shares. Optionally, you can configure access to the system for auditing purposes, either through a Common Internet File System (CIFS) or Network File System (NFS ) file share. For more information, see the Administrator Guide. Change the preferred sender for email notifications. Optionally, you can update your configuration to make the expansion Admin Node the preferred sender. Otherwise, an existing Admin Node configured as the preferred sender continues to send notifications and AutoSupport messages. For information on configuring the preferred sender, see the Administrator Guide.
   Archive Nodes	Configure the Archive Node's connection to the targeted external archival storage system. When you complete the expansion, Archive Nodes are in an alarm state until you configure connection information through the ARC > Target component. For more information, see the Administrator Guide. Update the ILM policy. You must update your ILM policy in order to archive object data through the new Archive Node. For more information, see the Administrator Guide. Configure custom alarms. You should establish custom alarms for the attributes that are used to monitor the speed and efficiency of object data retrieval from Archive Nodes. For more information, see the Administrator Guide.

2. Configure the Domain Name System (DNS).
   If you have been specifying DNS settings separately for each grid node, you must add custom per-node DNS settings for the new nodes. See information about modifying the DNS configuration for a single grid node in the Recovery and Maintenance Guide.

   The best practice is for the grid-wide DNS server list to contain some DNS servers that are accessible locally from each site. If you just added a new site, add new DNS servers for the site to the grid-wide DNS configuration.

   Attention: Provide two to six IP addresses for DNS servers. You should select DNS servers that each site can access locally in the event of network islanding. This is to ensure an islanded site continues to have access to the DNS service. After configuring the grid-wide DNS server list, you can further customize the DNS server list for each node. For more information, see information about modifying the DNS configuration in the Recovery and Maintenance Guide.
3. If required, update the Network Time Protocol (NTP) external sources list.

   For some expansions, you must update the NTP configuration to ensure time synchronization is available. For example:

   • If you added a new site, you might need to add new NTP sources that are accessible to that site.
   • If you chose to configure the NTP settings separately for each grid node, you must manually update the NTP settings.

   If you do need to update the NTP sources list, make it the last step of your expansion.

   Attention: Make sure that at least two nodes at each site can access at least four external NTP sources. If only one node at a site can reach the NTP sources, timing issues will occur if that node goes down. In addition, designating two nodes per site as primary NTP sources ensures accurate timing if a site is network islanded from the rest of the grid.

   For more information, see the Recovery and Maintenance Guide.