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Frequently asked questions for Astra Control Center

Contributors netapp-dbagwell
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This FAQ can help if you're just looking for a quick answer to a question.

Overview

The following sections provide answers to some additional questions that you might come across as you use Astra Control Center. For additional clarifications, please reach out to astra.feedback@netapp.com

Access to Astra Control Center

What's the Astra Control URL?

Astra Control Center uses local authentication and a URL specific to each environment.

For the URL, in a browser, enter the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) you set in the spec.astraAddress field in the astra_control_center.yaml custom resource (CR) file when you installed Astra Control Center. The email is the value that you set in the spec.email field in the astra_control_center.yaml CR.

Licensing

I am using an evaluation license. How do I change to the full license?

You can easily change to a full license by obtaining the NetApp license file (NLF) from NetApp.

Steps

  1. From the left navigation, select Account > License.

  2. In the license overview, to the right of the license information, select the Options menu.

  3. Select Replace.

  4. Browse to the license file you downloaded and select Add.

I am using an evaluation license. Can I still manage apps?

Yes, you can test out the managing apps functionality with an evaluation license (including the embedded evaluation license that is installed by default). There is no difference in capabilities or features between an evaluation license and a full license; the evaluation license simply has a shorter lifespan. Refer to Licensing for more information.

Registering Kubernetes clusters

I need to add worker nodes to my Kubernetes cluster after adding to Astra Control. What should I do?

New worker nodes can be added to existing pools. These will be automatically discovered by Astra Control. If the new nodes are not visible in Astra Control, check if the new worker nodes are running the supported image type. You can also verify the health of the new worker nodes by using the kubectl get nodes command.

How do I properly unmanage a cluster?

  1. Unmanage the applications from Astra Control.

  2. Unmanage the cluster from Astra Control.

What happens to my applications and data after removing the Kubernetes cluster from Astra Control?

Removing a cluster from Astra Control will not make any changes to the cluster's configuration (applications and persistent storage). Any Astra Control snapshots or backups taken of applications on that cluster will be unavailable to restore. Persistent storage backups created by Astra Control remain within Astra Control, but they are unavailable for restore.

Warning Always remove a cluster from Astra Control before you delete it through any other methods. Deleting a cluster using another tool while it's still being managed by Astra Control can cause problems for your Astra Control account.

Is NetApp Astra Trident automatically uninstalled from a cluster when I unmanage it?
When you unmanage a cluster from Astra Control Center, Astra Trident isn't automatically uninstalled from the cluster. To uninstall Astra Trident, you'll need to follow these steps in the Astra Trident documentation.

Managing applications

Can Astra Control deploy an application?

Astra Control doesn't deploy applications. Applications must be deployed outside of Astra Control.

What happens to applications after I stop managing them from Astra Control?

Any existing backups or snapshots will be deleted. Applications and data remain available. Data management operations will not be available for unmanaged applications or any backups or snapshots that belong to it.

Can Astra Control manage an application that is on non-NetApp storage?

No. Although Astra Control can discover applications that are using non-NetApp storage, it can't manage an application that's using non-NetApp storage.

Should I manage Astra Control itself?

Astra Control Center is not shown by default as an application that you can manage, but you can back up and restore an Astra Control Center instance using another Astra Control Center instance.

Do unhealthy pods affect app management?

No, the health of pods doesn't affect app management.

Data management operations

My application uses several PVs. Will Astra Control take snapshots and backups of these PVs?

Yes. A snapshot operation on an application by Astra Control includes snapshot of all the PVs that are bound to the application's PVCs.

Can I manage snapshots taken by Astra Control directly through a different interface or object storage?

No. Snapshots and backups taken by Astra Control can be managed only with Astra Control.

Astra Control Provisioner

How are Astra Control Provisioner's storage provisioning features different from those in Astra Trident?

Astra Control Provisioner, as part of Astra Control, supports a superset of storage provisioning features that are unavailable in open-source Astra Trident. These features are in addition to all features that are available to the open-source Trident.

Is Astra Control Provisioner replacing Astra Trident?

In coming Astra Control updates, Astra Control Provisioner will replace Astra Trident as storage provisioner and orchestrator in the Astra Control architecture. As such, it's highly recommended that Astra Control users enable Astra Control Provisioner. Astra Trident will continue to remain open source and be released, maintained, supported, and updated with new CSI and other features from NetApp.

Do I have to pay for Astra Trident?

No. Astra Trident will continue to be open source and free to download.

Can I use the storage management and provisioning features in Astra Control without installing and using all of Astra Control?

Yes, you can upgrade to Astra Trident 23.10 or later and enable Astra Control Provisioner functionality even if you do not want to consume the complete feature set of Astra Control data management functionality.

How can I transition from being an existing Trident user to Astra Control to use advanced storage management and provisioning functionality?

If you are an existing Trident user (this includes users of Astra Trident in the public cloud), you need to acquire an Astra Control license first. After you do, you can download the Astra Control Provisioner bundle, upgrade Astra Trident, and enable Astra Control Provisioner functionality.

How do I know if Astra Control Provisioner has replaced Astra Trident on my cluster?

After Astra Control Provisioner is installed, the host cluster in the Astra Control UI will show an ACP version rather than Trident version field and current installed version number.

A screenshot depicting the ACP version location in UI

If you don't have access to the UI, you can confirm successful installation using the following methods:

Astra Trident operator

Verify the trident-acp container is running and that acpVersion is 23.10.0 with a status of Installed:

kubectl get torc -o yaml

Response:

status:
  acpVersion: 23.10.0
  currentInstallationParams:
    ...
    acpImage: <my_custom_registry>/trident-acp:23.10.0
    enableACP: "true"
    ...
  ...
  status: Installed
tridentctl

Confirm that Astra Control Provisioner has been enabled:

./tridentctl -n trident version

Response:

+----------------+----------------+-------------+ | SERVER VERSION | CLIENT VERSION | ACP VERSION | +----------------+----------------+-------------+ | 23.10.0 | 23.10.0 | 23.10.0. | +----------------+----------------+-------------+