The best way to keep computer systems of any sort running smoothly has always been to keep current with updates to the underlying software that runs everything below the surface.
Oracle ZFS Storage systems, both on-premises appliances and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure ZFS Storage – High Availability (ZFS-HA) instances, benefit a great deal from having their software updated on a regular basis. The Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance Kit (AK) software has a new release each month, with each release bringing new features, bug fixes, and/or security remediations.
Administrators of ZFS-HA instances running in OCI should be making sure that those instances aren’t left out of an update or patching schedule. OCI compatibility and performance enhancements are progressing at a very rapid pace, and regular updates ensure that you get the most out of the ZFS-HA instances. Because the ZFS-HA instances in OCI are running exactly the same software as the on-premises ZFS Storage Appliances, the same update package works on either type of system.
Clustered ZFS systems can be updated with little to no interruption to the storage clients by moving all shared resources to one controller and applying the update to the other. Once the update has been installed and the updated controller is rebooted, the shared resources are moved to the updated controller and the installation process is repeated. Finally the shared resources are moved to their original state.
Because replication between ZFS Storage systems is so widely used, features that could cause incompatibilty with other systems are handled through Deferred Updates. These Deferred Updates can then be applied at the appropriate time across systems to ensure compatibility. There is no interruption of service needed to apply Deferred Updates.
OS8.8.54
OS8.8.54 has just been released, and it’s worth looking at the new features and fixes that have become available in the last few months.
- S3 Multi-part Uploads – This has been a very popular request from customers who use software that requires S3-compatible buckets and further increases our S3 compatibility.
- Root password removal for replication target configuration – Part of an ongoing security effort to remove root as the default administrative account on ZFS Storage systems
- User lockout after repeated failed login attempts – Another part of our ongoing security efforts
- Anonymous access to public object store buckets – Because anonymous FTP access is so last century (but still supported)
- Improved Unicode support – delivered as a Deferred Update
- Prevent duplicate replication targets when using hostname and IP address
- Space reclamation for thin provisioned LUNs – Enabling space reclamation on a LUN will allow the client to issue the SCSI UNMAP command to return free space to the storage pool
- Multiple improvements for the OCI-based ZFS Storage – High Availability instances
It’s worth noting that the biggest driver of new features in ZFS Storage is customer requests. If you’re an Oracle ZFS Storage user and there’s a feature yould like to see in ZFS, contact your Oracle representative and have them put you in touch with the ZFS Storage product management team.
Full details of what’s included in each release as well as the software download and installation instructions are always available at the My Oracle Support website in note 2021771.1, Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance: Software Updates.