This section explains the main functionality of Azure Native Qumulo (ANQ) and the differences between ANQ v2 and ANQ v1, provides a feature comparison between ANQ and Qumulo on other platforms and ANQ's known limitations and compliance posture, gives an overview of deploying the service in Azure, and lists the supported Azure Regions for the service.
For detailed instructions, see Deploying and Viewing Information about Your Azure Native Qumulo Instance.
What is Azure Native Qumulo?
ANQ is a fully managed service that provisions a Qumulo file system and creates a resource (for managing the file system) under your Azure subscription. ANQ provides the same multi-protocol support, interfaces, and functionality as Qumulo on premises.
ANQ makes it possible to configure file protocols, quotas, replication, and other features regardless of underlying infrastructure or storage and without tracking resource quotas or costs. The service receives the latest updates and features continuously and, if any issues occur, replaces compute and storage resources automatically.
Names and Versions
In this guide, we refer to the features and functionality of Qumulo Core as Azure Native Qumulo (ANQ) or the service.
Following ANQ’s initial launch, we configured the Qumulo file system in Azure to have significant flexibility and performance improvements. This configuration appears in the Azure Portal as ANQ v2. For more information, see Feature Comparison with Qumulo on Other Platforms.
- For a limited time, you can select the original ANQ v1 configuration in the Azure Portal (after this time, ANQ v2 remains the only available configuration).
- For help with expanding ANQ v1 capacity, email Azure Native Qumulo Support.
Feature Comparison with Qumulo on Other Platforms
The following table compares the features of ANQ with those of Qumulo on other platforms.
Because ANQ is a fully managed service, direct access to hosts with SSH is unavailable. To configure the service, you can use:
qq
CLI—from a remote machine- Qumulo Core Web UI—by using any of the service's IP addresses
Feature | ANQ v2 | ANQ v1 | Qumulo on AWS as an AMI | Qumulo on Premises |
---|---|---|---|---|
Automatic deployment | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Automatic infrastructure replacement | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
Automatic updates | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Availability in Cloud Marketplace | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
Customer support | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Integration with Azure Portal | ✓ | |||
Payment for pre-provisioned file system capacity | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
Payment for used storage space only | ✓ | |||
Performance scales elastically at any capacity | ✓ | |||
Performance scales with provisioned capacity | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
Qumulo Core features | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Simple and fast deployment under 15 Minutes | ✓ |
Known Limitations
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IPv6 Addresses: Currently, Azure Networking features don’t support IPv6 addresses.
-
Initial Authentication over SMB: When you deploy the service initially, all users can use the SMB protocol. However, the
admin
user can authenticate over all protocols except over SMB.To allow the
admin
user to authenticate over the SMB protocol, change theadmin
user’s password. -
File Systems Larger than 1 PB: This limitation applies only to ANQ v1.
To deploy ANQ v1 instances larger than 1 PB by using the Azure Portal, email Azure Native Qumulo Support.
Qumulo Compliance Posture
For information about Qumulo’s third-party attestations, including FIPS 140-2 Level 1, GDPR, HIPAA, and SOC 2 Type II, see Qumulo Trust Center.
Deploying Azure Native Qumulo
This section outlines the process of configuring and deploying ANQ. For detailed instructions, see Deploying and Viewing Information about Your Azure Native Qumulo Instance.
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You specify the following configuration.
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Regional Settings: The availability zone and region. For more information, see Supported Azure Regions
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Networking Settings: The virtual network in the same region. For more information, see Virtual Networking Prerequisites
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Usable Capacity: For ANQ v1 instances, the available file system capacity (in TB).
Note
Because ANQ v2 instances use the Azure Blob Store capacity limit (in EB), it isn’t necessary to configure usable capacity in advance.
-
-
When Qumulo creates your ANQ instance, it deploys and configures the following Azure resources:
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Managed Resource Group: This group contains the networking resources that the service deploys.
When you create your service instance, you can specify an existing resource group or create a new one.
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Delegated Subnet: The delegated subnet that the service uses to provision endpoints for your virtual network.
When you create your service instance, you can specify an existing delegated subnet or create a new one..
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Qumulo Service Resource: The Azure resource that represents one instance of the service.
You can use this resource to manage and view the service configuration.
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Marketplace SaaS Resource: The Qumulo Marketplace SaaS resource that you select.
Azure uses this resource for billing purposes.
Tip
To automate the creation of ANQ instances for long-term use cases and for short-term components of automated storage workflows, use Azure Resource Manager. -
Supported Azure Regions
The following table lists regions in US, Canada, Europe, and the UK that ANQ supports.
Geographical Location | Azure Region | ANQ v2 | ANQ v1 |
---|---|---|---|
US (Arizona) | West US 3 | ✓ | ✓ |
US (California) | West US | ✓ | |
US (Illinois) | North Central US | ✓ | |
US (Iowa) | Central US | ✓ | ✓ |
US (Texas) | South Central US | ✓ | ✓ |
US (Virginia) | East US | ✓ | ✓ |
US (Virginia) | East US 2 | ✓ | ✓ |
US (Washington) | West US 2 | ✓ | ✓ |
Canada (Toronto) | Canada Central | ✓ | ✓ |
Europe (Frankfurt) | Germany West Central | ✓ | ✓ |
Europe (Gavle) | Sweden Central | ✓ | ✓ |
Europe (Ireland) | North Europe | ✓ | ✓ |
Europe (Netherlands) | West Europe | ✓ | ✓ |
Europe (Oslo) | Norway East | ✓ | ✓ |
Europe (Paris) | France Central | ✓ | ✓ |
Europe (Zurich) | Switzerland North | ✓ | ✓ |
UK (London) | UK South | ✓ | ✓ |
Usage Metering and Billing for Azure Native Qumulo
Once an hour, ANQ reports a metering event to Azure Marketplace for each deployed instance.
ANQ v1 and ANQ v2 use different dimensions for metering.
ANQ v1 Metering for Total Available Capacity
Qumulo provisions ANQ v1 instances with a total available capacity (to increase this capacity, you can contact the Qumulo Care team).
Qumulo performs metering on a single dimension—the total available capacity that your instance reports.
ANQ v2 Metering for Used Capacity and Throughput
Qumulo doesn’t provision ANQ v2 instances with a total available capacity. Instead, it performs metering on two dimensions:
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Used capacity
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Used throughput
Note
Because the throughput for an instance can vary significantly within a given hour, Qumulo samples the used throughput each minute. It rounds the computed throughput value to 1 GBps and then multiplies it by the used capacity during the given minute. For more information about pay-as-you-go price estimates, see the Pricing and Performance Calculator.