This guide is intended for the IT administrator or person responsible for installing the File IQ Appliance on the Microsoft Azure platform.
General Information
This section provides general information about the File IQ Appliance, as well as its technical specifications.
File IQ
The File IQ feature is designed to provide insights and analytics on your file data usage patterns. File IQ enables you to quickly take advantage of several important capabilities, including:
File Usage Analytics: Track usage and collaboration patterns across users, departments, file types, volumes, and more. Gain visibility to optimize storage, plan capacity, and facilitate capacity-based chargeback.
Health Monitoring: Monitor system component metrics to proactively identify resource contention and capacity limits so administrators can take preventative measures.
Forensic Capabilities: Perform historical analysis of file, user, or application activity when troubleshooting issues or investigating information security events.
Automated Reporting: Leverage prebuilt reports and dashboards that deliver actionable intelligence to technical and business users and support chargeback reporting.
Key Terms
The following terms are helpful for understanding the File IQ Appliance:
Cache: The local storage of the File IQ Appliance. All Volume metadata accessed regularly is kept locally in the File IQ Appliance cache. If the requested metadata is not locally resident, it is staged into the cache and provided for the request.
Cloud storage: Internet-based, highly protected, unlimited storage.
Event Hubs: A cloud-native data streaming service used to forward events between components of the File IQ Solution.
Grafana: Grafana is a multi-platform open-source analytics and interactive visualization web application. It provides charts, graphs, and alerts for the web when connected to supported data sources.
Nasuni Edge Appliance (NEA): The virtual or physical Nasuni appliance that integrates with your infrastructure via CIFS (SMB), NFS, FTP/SFTP, or HTTPS/REST protocols. The Nasuni Edge Appliance can be mapped as a network drive.
Nasuni Edge Appliance user interface: The Web-based graphical user interface with which you configure and manage the Nasuni Edge Appliance. The Nasuni Edge Appliance user interface is accessible with supported Web browsers, including Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Apple Safari, and Google Chrome.
File IQ: The File IQ Appliance contains the database, Grafana server, event processing, and volume scanning capabilities that the File IQ Solution uses to give insight into Nasuni Edge Appliance and Volume usage across your Nasuni deployments.
Nasuni Management Console (NMC): The Web-accessible appliance with which you can configure and manage multiple Nasuni Edge Appliances. The Nasuni Management Console is accessible with supported Web browsers, including Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Apple Safari, and Google Chrome.
Nasuni Orchestration Center (NOC): Nasuni’s zero-maintenance control path built on elastic, multi-region cloud services that enables file data to be shared across locations at any scale and without version conflict. The NOC, also referred to as the Nasuni Account Dashboard, provides you with access to File IQ Serial Numbers, which are used to install File IQ.
File IQ Dashboard: A custom dashboard deployed within the File IQ Appliance-hosted Grafana to display information gathered by the File System Metadata Service (FSMS) and the File System Event Processor (FSEP).
File IQ Service: The File IQ Service collects audit events on the NEA and forwards them to the File IQ Appliance via the Azure EventHub.
Note: The audit events collected by the File IQ Service are independent of the standard auditing feature enabled on the NEAs.
Share/export: An access point to a folder on a volume that can be shared or exported on your network. Access to a CIFS (SMB) share can be customized on a user-level or group-level basis. You can create many shares or exports on a volume for different purposes or audiences.
Volume: A set of files and directories (CIFS (SMB), NFS, and FTP/SFTP).
File IQ Solution Specifications
This section contains specifications for configuring the File IQ Appliance.
Supported Web Browsers
The File IQ Appliance supports the following Web browsers:
Virtual Machine Requirements
For virtual machine requirements on an already deployed File IQ appliance running version 10.0 and below, proceed directly to Verifying Size Requirements.
The File IQ Appliance must meet minimum specifications starting from the 10.1 release. Each installation of the File IQ Appliance should adhere to these specifications and follow the actions required for specific sizing, as outlined in the following scenarios:
New Installation of File IQ without any Prior Installations of File IQ
If this is a new installation of File IQ without any prior installations of File IQ, follow one of these sets of steps:
If the File IQ installation is licensed for the Basic version of File IQ.
Install the File IQ Appliance using the minimum specification.
Connect the Volumes until all Volumes are processed at least once.
Connect NEAs to the File IQ using the Nasuni Portal or your Nasuni Account.
Otherwise, if the File IQ installation is licensed for the Premium version of File IQ.
Install the File IQ Appliance using the minimum specification.
Connect the Volumes until all Volumes are processed at least once.
Run the sizing tool at https://FILE-IQ-FQDN:8443/niq/retention_configuration to validate the correct size.
If necessary, make any recommended sizing adjustments to the Virtual Machine.
Connect NEAs to the File IQ using the Nasuni Portal.
Wait for 7 calendar days of NEA activity to occur within the organization.
Run the sizing tool at https://FILE-IQ-FQDN:8443/niq/retention_configuration to validate the correct size.
If necessary, make any recommended sizing adjustments to the Virtual Machine.
New Installation of File IQ with a Prior Installation of File IQ
If this is a new installation of File IQ and you have a previous installation of File IQ, follow one of these sets of steps:
If the File IQ installation is licensed for the Basic version of File IQ.
Use the manual Sizing Tool to determine the right virtual machine requirements for your organization by taking into account Volume and Event estimates from the existing Grafana dashboard content.
Use the File IQ Events dashboard > Edge Appliance Activity panel and Volumes Summary dashboard > Volume Summary panel to derive the inputs for the Sizing Tool.
Install the File IQ Appliance using the Virtual Machine specification derived from the Sizing Tool.
Connect the Volumes until all Volumes are processed at least once.
Connect NEAs to the File IQ using the Nasuni Portal.
Otherwise, if the File IQ installation is licensed for the Premium version of File IQ.
Use the manual Sizing Tool to determine the right virtual machine requirements for your organization by taking into account Volume and Event estimates from the existing Grafana dashboard content.
Use the File IQ Events dashboard > Edge Appliance Activity panel and Volumes Summary dashboard > Volume Summary panel to derive the inputs for the Sizing Tool.
Install the File IQ Appliance using the specification from the Sizing Tool.
Connect the Volumes until all Volumes are processed at least once.
Run the sizing tool at https://FILE-IQ-FQDN:8443/niq/retention_configuration to validate the correct size.
If necessary, make any recommended sizing adjustments to the Virtual Machine.
Connect NEAs to the File IQ using the Nasuni Portal.
Run the sizing tool at https://FILE-IQ-FQDN:8443/niq/retention_configuration to validate the correct size.
If necessary, make any recommended sizing adjustments to the Virtual Machine.
Upgrade to an Existing Installation of File IQ
If this is an upgrade to an existing installation of File IQ, follow these steps:
If the File IQ installation is licensed for the Basic version of File IQ
Run the File IQ Status tool at https://FILE-IQ-FQDN:8443/niq/status to validate the health of your File IQ installation. For more information, see File IQ Health Status.
If necessary, make any of the tool’s recommended changes to the Virtual Machine and/or Nasuni systems.
Upgrade the File IQ Appliance.
Run the File IQ Status tool at https://FILE-IQ-FQDN:8443/niq/status to validate the health of your File IQ installation. For more information, see File IQ Health Status.
If necessary, make any of the tool’s recommended changes to the Virtual Machine and/or Nasuni systems.
Otherwise, if the File IQ installation is licensed for the Premium version of File IQ.
Run the File IQ Status tool at https://FILE-IQ-FQDN:8443/niq/status to validate the health of your File IQ installation. For more information, see File IQ Health Status.
If necessary, make any of the tool’s recommended changes to the Virtual Machine and/or Nasuni systems.
Upgrade the File IQ Appliance.
Run the sizing tool at https://FILE-IQ-FQDN:8443/niq/retention_configuration to validate the correct size.
If necessary, make any recommended sizing adjustments to the Virtual Machine.
Verifying Size Requirements
The NMC has a health check for File IQ that indicates whether sizing needs to be adjusted as a result of any of the previous steps, regardless of whether the license is Basic or Premium.
To determine the right virtual machine requirements for the Basic license, follow these steps:
Open the manual Sizing Tool.
Navigate to the File IQ Events dashboard.
Use the information from the Edge Appliance Activity panel to fill in the Sizing Tool fields.
Navigate to the Volumes Summary dashboard and use the Volume Summary panel to fill in the Sizing Tool fields.
The Sizing Tool displays your minimum sizing requirements.
Note: If needed, contact your Nasuni Account Manager for assistance using the Sizing Tool.
To determine the right virtual machine requirements for the Premium license, use the sizing tool at https://FILE-IQ-FQDN:8443/niq/retention_configuration to determine the appropriate virtual machine requirements for your organization.
Minimum Specifications
The minimum specifications for the File IQ Appliance are as follows:
Item | Size | Notes |
---|---|---|
vCPUs | 16 | - |
Memory | 32 GiB | - |
Nasuni Cache Disk | 569 GB | MB/s 150 ; IOPS 2,300 |
Nasuni COW Disk | 64 GB | MB/s 150 ; IOPS 2,300 |
File IQ DB Disk | 1.1 TB | MB/s 150 ; IOPS 5,000 |
VM Size | D16as_v5 | - |
On Azure, all disks are Premium SSD for performance reasons (use Premium SSD v2 where available)
On Azure, for 4TB disks, use 4095 GB in order to benefit from host caching
On Azure, only Generation 2 images are supported
Supported Azure Regions
The File IQ Appliance must be deployed in one of the following regions:
Australia Central | East US 2 | South Central US |
Australia Central 2 | France Central | South India |
Australia East | France South | Southeast Asia |
Australia Southeast | Germany North | Spain Central |
Brazil South | Germany West Central | Sweden Central |
Brazil Southeast | Israel Central | Sweden South |
Central India | Italy North | Switzerland North |
Central US | Japan East | Switzerland West |
China East | Japan West | UAE Central |
China East 2 | Korea Central | UAE North |
China East 3 | Korea South | UK South |
China North | North Central US | UK West |
China North 2 | North Europe | West Central US |
China North 3 | Norway East | West Europe |
East Asia | Norway West | West India |
East Canada | Poland Central | West US |
East Canada | South Africa North | West US 2 |
East US | South Africa West | West US 3 |
The deciding factor on choice of region relates to the availability of Azure Event Hub in that region, see Products available by region.
Note: Azure GovCloud regions cannot be used by File IQ currently.
Installing on the Microsoft Azure Platform
This chapter explains how to install the File IQ Solution on the Microsoft Azure platform.
Tip: For information about preventing accidental or malicious data deletion, see Appendix B, “Deletion Security ”.
Tip: This document is about deploying virtual machines. It does not cover configuring a storage account for use with Nasuni volumes.
Warning: DO NOT attempt to restore from a virtual machine snapshot or backup. Attempting to restore from a virtual machine snapshot or backup puts the IQ Appliance in an unknown state in relation to the Nasuni Orchestration Center (NOC) and requires a recovery process. This might result in data loss.
Tip: You should leverage your cloud provider's role-based access and identity access management features as part of your security strategy. Based on your policies, such features can limit or prohibit administrative access to the cloud account.
Important: Nasuni appliances do not use the Microsoft Azure agent, so any functionality that requires the agent (such as the Run command or code injection) is unavailable.
Important: File IQ Appliances must be configured with operational DNS servers and a time server (internal or external) within your environment. The File IQ Appliance is configured with a default time server time.nasuni.com. If you need to use a different time server, the procedure to change the default time server is documented in the Nasuni Edge Appliance Time Configuration section of the Nasuni Edge Administration guide.
Note: The vendor changes their interfaces occasionally with little notice to the users. The exact screens and text on these platforms might change at any time.
Tip: Check out the File IQ Installation and Configuration videos for a general reference on the File IQ installation process. Your specific hypervisor installation will include unique steps not included in this video reference series.
Day 1 File IQ Installation Checklist
To complete a day 1 File IQ installation, follow this checklist:
Step | Action |
1 | Complete the 1. Before you Begin section in this document. Your Account Manager can assist you with this item. |
2 | Complete the 2. Installing File IQ using the Azure Marketplace section in this document. |
3 | Complete the 3. Running the File IQ Appliance First Boot Wizard section in this document. |
4 | Complete the 4a. Set the Escrow Passphrase for the File IQ Appliance section in this document. For File IQ Appliances on 10.0 and below, always complete the 4b. Add the File IQDB to the File IQ Appliance section in this document. |
5 | Complete the 5. Connect the Nasuni Volumes to the File IQ Appliance section in this document. |
6 | Complete the 6. Disabling Quality of Service (QoS) for the File IQ Appliance section in this document. |
7 | Complete the 7. Enabling the File IQ and configuring File IQ Service section in this document. |
8 | Complete the 8. Accessing the File IQ Dashboards section in this document. |
9 | For more information, see the following sections: |
1. Before You Begin
The following items should be readily available to help you navigate the File IQ installation and setup process. It is recommended that you complete these requirements before starting or have a way to fulfill them during the installation process.
Note: File IQ does not support a proxy server.
Item | Description |
---|---|
Contact Nasuni | Contact your Account Manager to enable the File IQ license and configure your account for the File IQ Appliance. |
Virtual Machine Requirements | Process the Virtual Machine Requirements section above to ensure you have the necessary sizing information before proceeding to installation or upgrade. The main information used for the Virtual Machine requirements will be:
Important: File IQ does not support disk striping on the Cache or File IQ DB disks. |
Azure Login | Authentication and Authorization to your organization’s Azure Account are needed to create the File IQ Virtual Machine. |
Azure Region | The Azure region that you wish to install the File IQ Appliance into. |
Azure network details for the File IQ virtual machine (VM) | When installing the File IQ virtual machine in Azure, the following items are required for the virtual machine:
Each organization has its own requirements for networking the virtual machine. Nasuni recommends defining this before you start the installation process. |
NMC Login | Authentication and authorization to your organization’s Nasuni Management Console to configure the File IQ for your environment. |
Nasuni Portal or NOC Login | Authentication and authorization to your organization’s Nasuni Portal or Nasuni Orchestration Center account to retrieve your File IQ Serial Number and Authorization Code, and to configure the File IQ. |
Volumes list | Use at least one volume when setting up File IQ. Note: Some customers may not use this feature and will not require this item for setup. |
NEAs list | You need at least one Nasuni Edge Appliance to configure sending activity to the File IQ virtual machine. Ideally, pick an NEA from which you can mount volumes to generate traffic and see it in the File IQ dashboards. The NEA must be running version 9.14.3 or later. Note: Some customers may not use this feature and will not require this item for setup. |
File IQ Serial Number and Authorization Code | From the Nasuni Portal To locate the File IQ Appliance Serial Number from the Nasuni Portal, navigate to Setup > Serial Numbers > File IQ. It is paired with an associated Authorization Code (Auth Code). Configuration of the File IQ Appliance and NEAs for File IQ can be found by navigating to Appliance Services > File IQ Configuration. From Account.nasuni.com The File IQ Appliance Serial Number is located in your Nasuni Account. It is paired with an Authorization Code (Auth Code), which is located in a table at the bottom of the page. Note: Configuration of the File IQ Appliance and NEAs for File IQ can also be found in this location of your Nasuni Account. If the File IQ Config menu or File IQ Serial Numbers are unavailable, contact your Nasuni Account Manager to confirm that the File IQ License is correctly configured for your account. Note: To enable a single sign-on user to access the File IQ Config menu, follow these steps: 1. Log in to account.nasuni.com. |
File IQ username and password | The first boot setup of the File IQ Appliance requires a new username and password. These values are specific to the File IQ Appliance only. |
File IQ hostname | When you go through the First Boot Wizard for the File IQ appliance, you must provide a hostname for the machine. Note: Hostnames longer than 15 characters cannot be added to Active Directory services. |
File IQ network details | You must provide the machine's network details when you go through the First Boot Wizard for the File IQ Appliance. |
Grafana password | The default password for the Grafana viewer account must be changed during the first usage. Nasuni recommends having a new password ready that aligns with your corporate processes and procedures. |
Active Directory Credentials | The File IQ Appliance must connect to the same Active Directory domains as the NEAs and volumes configured in the File IQ Appliance. The following information might be necessary:
|
NEA Firewall requirements | The Nasuni Edge Appliance requires access to the Azure Event Hub when you enable File IQ. All network ports and access requirements for the File IQ Service on the NEA are documented in the Firewall and Port Requirements in the Nasuni Edge Appliance section. Before enabling the File IQ on the NEA, complete the NEA Firewall Requirements for File IQ Service. Important: File IQ Service does not support a proxy server. |
File IQ Firewall requirements | When you enable File IQ, the Nasuni Edge Appliance requires access to the Azure Event Hub. The File IQ Appliance section of the Firewall and Port Requirements documents all network ports and access requirements for the File IQ Service on the NEA. Before you activate File IQ on the File IQ Appliance, complete the File IQ Firewall Requirements for File IQ. Important: File IQ does not support a proxy server. |
2. Installing File IQ Using the Azure Marketplace
To deploy the File IQ appliance using a virtual machine in Microsoft Azure, use the Azure Marketplace.
Alternatively, to deploy the File IQ appliance using the Azure Virtual Hard Disk, see Appendix C: Installing File IQ using the Azure Virtual Hard Disk.
Important: Nasuni does not have access to your Microsoft Azure account; you must create and maintain your own Microsoft Azure account. To create an account, go to the Microsoft Azure site.
Important: To access Active Directory-enabled volumes, the File IQ Appliance must access the same Active Directory domains as the other Nasuni Edge Appliances connected to the volume. This requires either access to a Domain Controller running in Azure or the necessary network connectivity, such as a VPN connection or Azure ExpressRoute, to an on-premises Domain Controller. Azure Active Directory is not currently supported.
Caution: For Installation of the Virtual Machine, port 443 must be open to *.blob.core.windows.net, to perform required Azure virtual machine validation checks during boot and normal operations.
Caution: Do not install Azure extensions. They adversely affect File IQ Appliances.
Important: Nasuni appliances do not use the Microsoft Azure agent, so any functionality that requires the agent (such as the Run command or code injection) is unavailable.
Note: Nasuni supports Microsoft Azure generation 2 (UEFI) virtual machines.
To install File IQ from the Azure Marketplace, navigate to the File IQ offer on the Azure Marketplace and create the Virtual Machine for File IQ from that location. You do not need to upload the Virtual Hard Disk file and create an image as part of the process.
To begin the installation of File IQ using the Azure Marketplace, follow these steps:
Log in to the Azure portal: portal.azure.com.
Click the search field at the top of the page.
Enter the search term ‘Marketplace’ and press Enter twice.
In the Search services and Marketplace field, type “File IQ”. Ensure that the Azure services only checkbox is deselected. Press Enter once.
The File IQ offering is displayed in the search results.Click Create. Then, from the dropdown list, select the version that you want to create.
The Create a virtual machine pane appears.To select an existing Resource Group, click Select existing and then select an existing Resource Group from the list.
Alternatively, click Create new to create a new Resource Group. Enter a Name for the new Resource Group and click OK.Enter a Virtual machine name for this virtual machine. The name must be 1 to 64 characters long, using only letters, numbers, hyphens, periods, and underscores. It must also be unique in the resource group.
From the Region dropdown list, select the region for the virtual machine.
Note: Not all VM sizes are available in all Regions.Tip: Legal requirements or your organization’s policies might require data placement in a specific region, or prevent replication outside the region.
(Optional) To specify availability options from the dropdown menu, select the “Availability zone” if that is your organization’s policy.
For Size, click See all sizes. The Select a VM size pane appears. Choose the VM size suggested by the File IQ Sizing Tool or a higher VM type, considering vCPUs and RAM, and click Select.
Important: Do not use a burstable VM.
If available, for Authentication type, select Password.
Enter a Username for the user of this virtual machine.
Note: This value is not used and does not provide access to the virtual machine.
Enter a Password. Passwords must be at least 13 characters and satisfy complexity requirements.
Note: This value is not used and does not provide access to the virtual machine.
Confirm the password.
Note: This value is not used and does not provide access to the virtual machine.
Click Next: Disks. The Disks pane appears.
From the “OS disk type” dropdown, select Premium SSD or Premium SSD v2 if available. Use the default disk size.
Create a cache disk by following this procedure:
Click Create and attach a new disk. The Create a new disk pane appears.
Enter a Name for the disk, giving it a suffix of ‘_cache’. The name must begin with a letter or a number; end with a letter, a number, or an underscore; and contain only letters, numbers, underscores, periods, or hyphens.
For Size, click Change size. The Select a disk size pane appears.
From the Storage type dropdown, select Premium SSD or Premium SSD v2, if available.
Enter the Custom disk size that matches the outputs of the File IQ Cache Disk from the Virtual Machine Requirements section in the 1. Before you Begin section above.
Select the Performance tier option that matches the Nasuni Cache Disk IOPS and MB/s values from the Virtual Machine Requirements section in the 1. Before you Begin section above.
Click OK.
The disk details are saved, and you return to the Create a new disk pane.
Click OK.
The disk details are saved, and you return to the Create a virtual machine pane.
Host caching can improve performance under some circumstances.
Note: Host caching is not supported for disks 4 TiB (4096 GiB) and larger. For this reason, we recommend using 4095 GiB if the File IQ Sizing Tool recommends 4 TiB or 4096 GiB. For the recently created ‘_cache’ disk, select the Host caching from the following choices:
Read/Write: Use host caching for both read and write operations. Nasuni recommends enabling Read/Write host caching.
None: Do not use host caching.
Read Only: Use host caching only for read operations.
Create the CoW disk
Following steps 14 and 15 above.
When setting the Name use a suffix of ‘_cow’.
When setting the Custom disk size option match the Nasuni COW Disk Size value from the Virtual Machine Requirements section in the 1. Before you Begin section above.
When setting the Performance tier option match the File IQ DB Disk IOPS and MB/s values from the Virtual Machine Requirements section in the 1. Before you Begin section above.
Create the File IQ Database disk
Important: This step is only applicable to File IQ Appliances from the 10.1 release forward
Follow the steps 14 and 15 above.
When setting the Name use a suffix of ‘_fiqdb’.
When setting the Custom disk size option match the File IQ DB Disk Size value from the Virtual Machine Requirements section in the 1. Before you Begin section above.
When setting the Performance tier option match the File IQ DB Disk IOPS and MB/s values from the Virtual Machine Requirements section in the 1. Before you Begin section above.
Important: The File IQ Appliance relative sizes are important during installation because the NEA (on which the File IQ Appliance is built) allocates disks to various roles based on size. Nasuni recommends using suffixes for the data disks, so that the names of the disk indicate their expected roles based on their initial sizes. The File IQ DB Disk is the largest, the Cache Disk is the next largest and then the COW Disk.
Click Next: Networking. The Network Interface pane appears.
Enter the corresponding fields from the Azure network details for the File IQ virtual machine (VM) entry in the 1. Before you Begin section above.
Configure the other settings as appropriate for your solution, including, but not limited to, security group and virtual private cloud.
Click Next: Management. The Management pane appears.
Ensure that Auto-shutdown is set to Off.
For Identity, configure a managed identity to match your desired settings.
Click Next: Monitoring. The Monitoring pane appears.
For Monitoring, ensure that Boot diagnostics is enabled, and select an appropriate storage account. This can aid in troubleshooting.
Configure the other settings as appropriate.
Click Next: Advanced. The Advanced pane appears. Configure to match your desired settings.
Click Next: Tags. Optionally, create tags for your use.
Click Next: Review + create. The Review + create pane appears.
Review all settings. If any settings must be changed, click Previous and change the setting.
If the settings are correct, click Create to begin the virtual machine creation process.When the virtual machine is created, it appears in the list of virtual machines with the status of Created, and deployment begins.
When the deployment is finished, the virtual machine's status changes to OK. Click Go to resource.
Alternatively, click Home in the top left. Click Virtual machines, followed by clicking the new virtual machine.
3. Running the File IQ Appliance First Boot Wizard
To access the newly installed File IQ Appliance, follow this procedure:
Click Home, followed by Virtual machines. (If this does not appear in the list at the top, click More Services or All Services to view more services.) The Virtual machines pane appears.
From the Virtual machines list, click the virtual machine created above. The Overview pane for this virtual machine appears.
If a public IP address was configured, copy the Public IP address.
If a public IP address was not configured, get a private IP address. If a public IP address is not configured, you must use the private IP address assigned to the VM.Note: If the IP address string is blank, click Start. The virtual machine starts, and the IP address appears. It might take a few minutes for the virtual machine to start. You might need to refresh the page to see the IP address appear.
Navigate to the First Boot Wizard for the File IQ Appliance by opening a new browser window.
To access the File IQ Appliance, enter the address in this form: https://<IP address>, where <IP address> is the IP address from step 3 immediately above this step.
The File IQ Appliance user interface appears.
Enter the Hostname you defined in the File IQ Hostname. This was defined in the 1. Before you Begin section above.
Complete the remainder of the System Settings defined in the File IQ Network Details as part of the 1. Before you Begin section above.
Click Continue. The Review the Network Settings pane appears.
If all fields are correct, click Continue. The next pane confirms if the File IQ Appliance is Configuring Network Settings. If the File IQ Appliance does not automatically reconnect, try refreshing the page and checking if the File IQ Appliance’s IP address has changed. If so, update the browser address bar.
The Nasuni Filer Software Update pane appears. Click Continue.
Enter the File IQ Serial Number and Authorization Code obtained under the File IQ Serial Number and Authorization Code as part of the 1. Before you Begin section above.
Click Continue. The Add a New Nasuni Filer to your account pane appears.
Note: If you get an Invalid serial number or access code provided during this step, it is because you have used a NEA Serial Number instead of an File IQ Serial Number. Nasuni recommends double-checking your Serial Number and trying again. See the 1. Before you Begin section for the correct location to the File IQ Serial Number and Authorization Code values.
Enter Install New Filer into the Confirmation textbox.
Click Continue. The Accept the Terms of Service and License Agreement pane appears.
Accept the Terms of Service and click Continue. The Enter or accept Filer Name pane appears.
Click Continue. The Nasuni Management Console Detected pane appears.
Enable the Join NMC Management checkbox and click Continue. The Enter a username and password for Administration of this Filer pane appears.
Enter your NMC local account Username and Password, and then Confirm Password. These were obtained in the File IQ Username and Password section of the 1. Before you Begin section above.
Click Continue, the First Boot Wizard is complete, and the File IQ Appliance Management window appears.
3.a. Joining the File IQ Appliance to Active Directory
If the volumes you want to scan are protected by Active Directory, you must join your File IQ Appliance to the Active Directory domains to secure these volumes.
Note: The configuration of Active Directory can vary based on different factors, and your specific configuration might require additional settings that are not mentioned in this section. If you encounter any issues while connecting to Active Directory, reach out to your Nasuni Account Manager for assistance.
Follow this procedure to join Active Directory:
Open a Web Browser and access the File IQ Appliance. Enter the address in this form: https://<IP address>:8443, where <IP address> is the IP address from step 3 in the previous section. The File IQ Appliance user interface appears.
Ensure that the hostname of your File IQ Appliance is shorter than 15 characters:
From the Configuration menu, select Network Configuration under the Networking section.
Verify that the hostname in Hostname or FQDN is 15 characters or less.
If required, shorten the hostname and click Save Network Configuration.
Enter your Nasuni admin account details, confirm, and wait for the File IQ Appliance to apply the new settings.
Enter the IP address for your primary DNS server in the Primary DNS server text box. You must enter a valid hostname or IP address.
From the Configuration menu, select Network Configuration under the Networking section.
In Settings Source, under System Settings, select DHCP with Custom DNS.
Leave the Search Domain empty.
Set the Primary DNS server to your Active Directory PDC’s IP address.
Click Save Network Configuration. You must enter your Nasuni admin account details, confirm, and wait for the appliance to apply the new settings.
Join the File IQ Appliance to Active Directory by following these steps:
From the Configuration menu, select Directory Services under the CIFS & Directory Services section.
Enter the fully qualified Active Directory domain name in the Domain entry field.
Unless instructed by your Nasuni Account Manager, do not change any other fields.
Click Continue. The Confirm/Authenticate Directory Service dialog box appears.
In the Confirm/Authenticate Directory Service dialog box, enter your Active Directory administrator username and password and click Submit.
Wait until the joining process is complete and the Volume Selection page is displayed.
Select all volumes you wish to access from the File IQ appliance and click Continue.
Wait until the volume configuration is complete and the Domain Configuration page is displayed.
Enable all the trusted domains you wish to monitor users from and click Continue.
Wait until the trusted domain configuration is complete and the “Complete the Configuration” page is displayed.
Click Finish to finish the Active Directory configuration.
The display then returns to the Directory Services page and displays Active Directory domain information.
You have successfully joined Active Directory.
4a. Set the Escrow Passphrase for the File IQ Appliance (10.0+)
Important: In order to use DR capabilities a backup of the File IQ Appliance configuration needs to happen. Setting the escrow passphrase enables the backup.
Note: In order to use the Nasuni File IQ Database backup feature DR needs to be configured for the File IQ Appliance.
To set the escrow key for the File IQ Appliance, follow this procedure:
Log in to the Nasuni Management Console associated with the File IQ Appliance.
Click Filers.
Click Escrow Passphrase. The Filer Escrow Passphrase pane appears.
Select the File IQ Appliance entry in the table and click Edit 1 Filer. The Set Escrow Passphrase dialog box appears.
Enter the same passphrase for both Escrow Passphrase and Confirm Passphrase.
Click Set Passphrase. The dialog box closes and returns to the Filer Escrow Passphrase pane.
If you do not use the Nasuni Escrow Service, instead of setting an escrow passphrase, you can upload your own encryption keyfile and set it as a recovery backup key:
Log in to the File IQ appliance web UI.
From the Configuration menu, select Encryption Keys.
Click Upload Encryption Keys.
Choose your externally generated OpenPGP keyfile.
Enter the Key Passphrase, if the keyfile has been secured with a passphrase.
Click Import Key.
Make sure the key has been imported, and click "Set backup key" to set it as a recovery backup key.
4b. Add the File IQDB Disk to the File IQ Appliance
Important: These steps are only applicable to File IQ Appliances prior to the 10.1 release.
Before enabling the File IQ Appliance, add another disk for the File IQ Database, by following this procedure:
Log in to the Nasuni Management Console associated with the File IQ Appliance.
Click Filers.
Click Shutdown & Reboot.
The Shutdown and Reboot pane appears.
For the File IQ Appliance, click the associated Shutdown/Reboot action.
The Initiate Shutdown/Reboot of File IQ Appliance pane appears.
Enter ‘Change Filer Power State’ into the Confirmation Phrase textbox.
Select Shut down immediately. Click Shutdown.
The Shutdown and Reboot pane appears. Wait until the Status column for the File IQ Appliance changes to a checkmark before proceeding; at that point, the File IQ Appliance is shut down.
Log in to the Azure portal: portal.azure.com.
Click Home, followed by Virtual machines. (If this does not appear in the list located at the top, click More Services or All Services to view more services.)
The Virtual machines pane appears.
Click the File IQ Appliance virtual machine in the list.
The virtual machine pane opens.
Click Stop to stop the virtual machine. The Stop this virtual machine dialog box appears. Click Yes.
The virtual machine stops.
From the Settings section on the left navigation, click Disks.
The Disks pane appears.
Click Create and attach a new disk. A new disk entry appears for inline editing of the Data disks table.
Enter a Name for the disk with a suffix of ‘_fiqdb’. The name must begin with a letter or a number; end with a letter, a number, or an underscore; and contain only letters, numbers, underscores, periods, or hyphens.
From the Storage type dropdown, select Premium SSD or Premium SSD v2, if available.
Enter the Size (GiB) that matches the outputs of the File IQ DB Disk Size from the Virtual Machine Requirements section in the 1. Before you Begin section above.
Enter the Max IOPS that matches the outputs of the File IQ DB Disk Size from the Virtual Machine Requirements section in the 1. Before you Begin section above.
Enter the Max throughput (MB/s) that matches the outputs of the File IQ DB Disk Size from the Virtual Machine Requirements section in the 1. Before you Begin section above.
Host caching can improve performance under some circumstances.
Note: Host caching is not supported for disks 4 TiB (4096 GiB) and larger. For this reason, we recommend using 4095 GiB if the File IQ Sizing Tool recommends 4 TiB or 4096 GiB. For the recently created ‘_fiqdb’ disk, select the “Host caching” from the following choices:
Read/Write: Use host caching for both read and write operations. Nasuni recommends enabling Read/Write host caching.
None: Do not use host caching.
Read Only: Use host caching only for read operations.
Click Apply. The disk details are saved and applied to the Virtual Machine. Wait for the prompt for completion to display ‘Updated virtual machine’ in the top right corner of the page.
From the top section on the left navigation, click Overview. On the top control bar, click Start.
The File IQ Appliance Virtual Machine starts.
5. Connect the Nasuni Volumes to the File IQ Appliance
Important: For the Basic version of File IQ a maximum of 19 volumes can be connected to a File IQ Appliance for metadata analysis. For the Premium version of File IQ a maximum of 47 volumes can be connected to a File IQ Appliance for metadata analysis. If these limits are exceeded, then the metadata analysis stops until the number of connected volumes for metadata analysis falls within the specific range.
Note: The File IQ Appliance Administration UI Status > Subscription Status pane will not accurately reflect the Max Volumes / Filer values based on the settings above. You should ignore the value Max Volumes / Filer in the Status > Subscription Status pane.
Note: You might see a "File IQ unhealthy" alert displayed prior to enabling the File IQ service in step 7. This alert is expected and resolves itself after a successful File IQ service enablement.
To share and connect a volume to the File IQ Appliance for metadata analysis, follow this procedure:
Log in to the Nasuni Management Console associated with the File IQ Appliance.
Set up remote access for the Volume by following this procedure:
Click Volumes.
Click Remote Access. The Volume Remote Access Setting pane appears.
Select the volumes that you want to share. These should match the Volumes in the Volumes List section in the 1. Before you Begin section above.
Click Edit Volumes. The Edit Volume Remote Access Settings dialog box appears.
Ensure that the Enabled toggle is set to On.
For Remote Access Permissions, select Custom.
For the File IQ Appliance entry in the Custom Remote Access Permissions section, select Read Only.
Caution: Ensure that you change only the Remote Access entry for the File IQ appliance to Read Only. Be sure to leave the Remote Access entries for the other volumes unchanged.Unselect all sharing options and click Save Remote Access Settings. The Volume Remote Access Setting pane appears.
Wait until the Status for each of the selected volumes changes to a checkmark before proceeding.
Connect the Volumes to the File IQ Appliance by following these steps:
Click Volumes.
Click Connect Volume. The Remotely Accessible Volumes pane appears.
Click Refresh Connections and wait for the process to complete.
For the volumes for which you set up remote access to the File IQ Appliance (step 2 above), click Edit Connections. The Connect/Disconnect Volume dialog box appears.
In the Filers section, enable the File IQ Appliance checkbox.
In the Storage Access section, select Skip creating storage access point.
In the Inherit Setting section, untick the three inherit setting checkboxes.
Click Save Connections. The dialog box closes and returns to the Remotely Accessible Volumes pane.
Wait until the Status column for the Volume changes to a checkmark before proceeding.
Disable Snapshot Schedule for the FILE IQ Appliance and volume pairs by following one of these sets of steps:
For volumes not managed by GFA, follow these steps:
Click Volumes.
Click Snapshot Schedule.
The Volume Snapshot Schedule pane appears.
Expand the volumes for which you configured remote access in step 2.
For each expanded select each item that is a File IQ Appliance.
Click Edit Volumes.
The Snapshot Schedule dialog box appears.
Click Select/Deselect all until all of the Days turn from color to grey.
Click Save Configuration.
The changes are saved.
Note: The changes might take up to 10 minutes to apply.
For volumes managed by GFA, follow these steps:
Click Volumes.
Click Snapshot Schedule.
The Volume Snapshot Schedule pane appears.
Select the volumes for which you configured remote access in step 2.
For each selected volume, expand its list to display the associated NEAs and File IQ Appliances.
Deselect each item that is not a File IQ Appliance.
Click Edit Volumes.
The Snapshot Schedule dialog box appears.
Set the Enablement Window to On.
Deselect all until all the Days turn from color to grey.
Click Save Configuration. The changes are saved.
Note: The changes might take up to 10 minutes to apply.
Disable Sync Schedule for the File IQ Appliance and Volumes pairs by following these steps:
Click Volumes.
Click Sync Schedule.
The Sync Schedule pane appears.
Select a volume for which you configured remote access in step 2.
Expand the volume's list to display the associated NEAs and File IQ Appliances.
Deselect each item that is not a File IQ Appliance.
Click Edit Volumes.
The Sync Schedule dialog box appears.
Click Select/Deselect all until all of the Days turn from colored to grey.
Click Save Schedule.
The changes are saved.
The changes might take up to 10 minutes to apply.
Note: Repeat steps c-h in this section for each Volume connected to File IQ.
6. Disabling Quality of Service (QoS) for the File IQ Appliance
It is recommended to disable the Quality of Service (QoS) for the File IQ Appliance as the main workloads involve synchronization of content to the File IQ Appliance and the system wants to ensure this happens as quickly as possible.
To disable the Quality of Service (QoS) for the File IQ Appliance, follow these steps:
Log in to the Nasuni Management Console associated with the File IQ Appliance.
Click Filers.
Click Quality of Service. The Filer Quality of Service pane appears.
Select the File IQ Appliance entry in the table and click Edit Filers. The Quality of Service Settings dialog box appears.
For all existing Quality of Service rules, click Delete.
Click Save Rules. The dialog box closes and returns to the Filer Quality of Service pane.
7.Enabling the File IQ Appliance and Configuring File IQ Service
By default, your File IQ service is turned off on the File IQ Appliance. Additionally, the File IQ Service on the NEA is off and is not configured to use any File IQ Appliance.
This section outlines how to enable your File IQ Product on the File IQ Appliance and then configure one or more NEAs to send activity information to the File IQ Appliance.
The Nasuni Portal or Nasuni Orchestration Center (NOC) User Interface is used to enable File IQ on the File IQ Appliance and the NEA.
Use this section to perform the following:
Enable the File IQ Product on the new File IQ Appliance.
Enable File IQ Service and Assign the File IQ Appliance for the NEA.
Before getting started, ensure that the following items from the 1. Before You Begin section are complete for this specific area:
NMC Login
NEA(s) List
Note: Before proceeding, confirm that the NMC, File IQ Appliance, and NEA(s) are all started and running.
a. Enabling the File IQ on the New File IQ Appliance
Use either the Nasuni Portal or the Nasuni Orchestration Center to enable File IQ on the File IQ Appliance.
Nasuni Portal
To enable the File IQ Appliance from the Nasuni Portal, follow these steps:
Log in to the Nasuni Portal.
Navigate to Appliance Services > File IQ Configuration.
Click on the File IQ Appliance in the table list. The checkbox becomes Enabled.
From the Enable/Disable drop-down menu, click on Enable Selected. The State changes to Enabled for the File IQ Appliance in the table list.
This action is automatically saved.
Nasuni Orchestration Center
To enable the File IQ Appliance from the Nasuni Orchestration Center (NOC) UI, follow these steps:
Log in to Nasuni Orchestration Center.
Click the File IQ Config tab. The File IQ pane appears.
In the Configuration section, select the Disabled toggle for the new File IQ Appliance. The toggle becomes enabled, and the label changes to Enabled.
Click Save.
The configuration change is stored.
b. Enabling File IQ Service and Assigning the File IQ Appliance for the NEA
Important: The Nasuni Edge Appliance(s) that are used for data migration or third-party integration purposes should not be enabled to send events to File IQ Appliance(s).
In this section, enable the File IQ Service for each of the NEAs that you have chosen to report activity to the File IQ Appliance. You should have defined each NEA as part of the NEAs List entry in the 1. Before you Begin section above.
Use either the Nasuni Portal or the Nasuni Orchestration Center to enable the File IQ service and assign the File IQ Appliance for the NEA.
Nasuni Portal
To enable the File IQ Service and assign the File IQ Appliance for each of these Nasuni Edge Appliances from the Nasuni Portal, follow these steps:
Log in to Nasuni Portal.
Navigate to Appliance Services > File IQ Configuration
Click on the Edge entry in the Configuration items on the left of the page
Click on the Edge name in the table list. The checkbox becomes Enabled.
From the Enable/Disable drop down menu click on Enable Selected. The State changes to Enabled for the Edge name in the table list.
This action is automatically saved.
Click on the Assign/Unassign File IQ button. The File IQ Assignment panel appears.
From the drop down list select the name of the File IQ Appliance that you want to assign the previously selected Edge entries.
Click Save.
Nasuni Orchestration Center
To enable the File IQ Service and assign the File IQ Appliance for each of these Nasuni Edge Appliances from the Nasuni Orchestration Center, follow these steps:
Log in to Nasuni Orchestration Center.
Click the File IQ Config tab. The File IQ pane appears.
In the Enable File IQ Service on appliances section, click the Disabled toggle for the specific NEAs. The toggle becomes enabled, and its label changes to Enabled.
For the same NEAs, from the Assign File IQs to NEAs dropdown menu, select the new File IQ Appliance.
The dropdown shows the new File IQ Appliance as assigned to the NEAs.Click Save.
The configuration change is stored.
c. Forcing the Configuration to be Applied to the File IQ Appliance and Nasuni Edge Appliance
After the configuration is saved, it can take up to 1 hour for the configuration to become active on the File IQ Appliance and NEAs. Instead, you can force the configuration to immediately refresh using the Refresh License feature in the NMC so that you can move on to 8. Accessing the File IQ Dashboards immediately.
To force the configuration to become active, follow these steps:
Log in to the Nasuni Management Console associated with your account.
Click Filers.
Click Refresh License. The Refresh Subscription License pane appears.
Select the same File IQ Appliance and NEAs that you used in steps a. and b. above, and click Update Filers. The Refresh Subscription License dialog box appears.
Click Refresh License. The dialog box closes, and you return to the Refresh Subscription License pane. Wait until the Status column for the values you selected in step 4 has changed to a checkmark before proceeding.
Important: The initial scanning of your volume files begins immediately. This process can take a while, depending on the number of files and directories to be scanned initially. It can take on the order of 1 hour per million files and directories for this first scan.
Subsequent scans occur every 24 hours after the initial scan. Subsequent scans are much faster, because they only deal with changes to the existing volumes. To view the progress of the Volume scans use the System Status dashboard > Volume Scan Detailed Status panel and Service Support dashboard > Volume Scan State Logs panel.
8.Accessing the File IQ Dashboards
The results of scanning the selected volumes appear in numerical and graphical form on the File IQ Dashboards. For details about File IQ Dashboards, see File IQ Dashboards.
The File IQ Dashboards contain all the information for NEA activity and volume metadata that the File IQ Appliance receives and produces.
To access the File IQ Dashboards, follow this procedure:
Open a new browser window.
Enter the address in this form:
https://<FILE-IQ-FQDN>:3000where <FILE-IQ-FQDN> is the FQDN of the File IQ Appliance, assigned in 3. Running the File IQ Appliance First Boot Wizard. The File IQ Dashboard user interface appears.
In the Email or username field, enter “Viewer”.
Caution: Do not rename the Grafana viewer account. The Initialization program expects the viewer account to be present. If the viewer account is not present, the Initialization of the viewer account recreates the viewer account with the default password.
In the Password field, enter “nasuni_IQ_2024!”.
Note: Nasuni highly recommends updating the default password for the Grafana viewer account during the first usage.
Click Log in. The system logs you into the File IQ Dashboard, and the Home page appears.
It is important to change the default password. To change the password, follow this procedure:
Click the avatar icon at the top right of the File IQ Dashboard. A context menu is displayed.
In the context menu, click Change password. The Change Password pane appears.
In the Old Password textbox, enter the original default password “nasuni_IQ_2024!”.
Enter the new password into the New password and Confirm password text boxes. Click Change Password.
The password is saved, and a dialog appears in the top right corner with the text User password changed.Click Home in the top left corner to return to the Home page.
9. Nasuni File IQ Status and File IQ Appliance Health
This section describes the Nasuni File IQ Status tool that is shipped with the File IQ Appliance.
a. File IQ Status Tooling
The File IQ Status tool, shipped with the File IQ Appliance, offers key insights into the operational health of the File IQ Appliance installation. At any point during the setup of the File IQ Appliance or afterward, the File IQ Status displays the health of key sections of the File IQ Appliance.
Each line has three possible status values:
Healthy: Indicated by a Green tick symbol. No action is required in this case.
Unhealthy: Indicated by a Red x symbol. Action is required in this case.
Informational: Indicated by a Yellow triangle with an exclamation point inside. Action may be required depending on the organization’s use case for File IQ.
Note: Informational items do not cause a health check to return as an error condition.
The Unhealthy and Information points are accompanied by a detailed text on the problem space and links to the Nasuni documentation to address them.
As the installation of File IQ progresses, it is recommended to run File IQ Status to ensure the setup is functional. Depending on when you run the File IQ Status tool, warnings and errors may be expected. For example, before enabling File IQ on the NOC or Portal, it is expected that the check for this does not pass.
b. File IQ Appliance Health
The File IQ Appliance reports its health to the NMC and uses the File IQ Status Tooling as the basis for the information. If the NMC reports a File IQ Appliance as unhealthy, the File IQ Status tool provides the customer with the cause of the problem, as well as remediation materials.
To view the current health of the File IQ Appliance in the NMC, follow this procedure:
Log in to the Nasuni Management Console (NMC) associated with your account.
Click Filers.
Click the name of the File IQ Appliance in the table at the bottom of the page. The File IQ Appliance Details pane appears.
The Health section is displayed at the bottom right of the pane.
c. File IQ Status Messaging
The list of health items that the File IQ Status can provide is outlined in the following table:
Name | Description | Since version | Health Item * | Premium Only ** |
---|---|---|---|---|
Nasuni File IQ Enabled in NOC | Indicates that the File IQ appliance has been enabled in the Nasuni Portal UI or NOC UI. | 10.0 | Yes | No |
Nasuni File IQ database filesystem created | Indicates that the file system for the File IQ DB has been created. | 10.0 | Yes | No |
Nasuni Appliance filesystem sizes | Indicates that the size of the disks on the File IQ Appliance meet the expected size ratios. | 9.15 | Yes | No |
Nasuni File IQ sizing | Indicates that the virtual machine is sized appropriately based on the data stored in the system at the time the tool is run. | 10.1 | Yes | No |
Nasuni File IQ database filesystem usage | Indicates that there is a problem with the File IQ DB disk has adequate space. When the File IQ disk is ≥90% full it will show unhealthy. When the File IQ DB disk reaches ≥85% full it will show as an information point. | 9.15 | Yes | No |
Nasuni File IQ database created | Indicates that the File IQ Database has been created on the File IQ Appliance. | 9.15 | Yes | No |
Nasuni File IQ database running | Indicates that that File IQ Database service is running successfully. | 9.15 | Yes | No |
Nasuni File IQ Appliance connected to Directory Service | Indicates that the File IQ Appliance is connected to an Active Directory service. | 9.15 | No | No |
Nasuni volumes mounted | Indicates that volumes have been connected to the File IQ Appliance for metadata analysis. | 9.15 | Yes | No |
Nasuni volumes mounted Read-only | Indicates that the volumes connected to the File IQ Appliance for metadata analysis are connected as Read Only. | 9.15 | Yes | No |
Nasuni File IQ event queue created | Indicates that the File IQ Appliance has successfully created the Event Queue required for communicating with the NEAs for activity data. | 9.15 | No | No |
Nasuni File IQ event queue connectivity | Indicates that the File IQ Appliance has successfully connected to the Event Queue required for communicating with the NEAs for activity data. | 9.15 | No | No |
Nasuni audit events received | Indicates that the File IQ Appliance is successfully receiving activity data from one or more NEAs. | 9.15 | No | No |
Nasuni volumes have snapshot and sync disabled | Indicates that all of the volumes connected to the File IQ Appliance for metadata analysis have their sync and snap schedules disabled. | 10.0 | No | No |
Nasuni File IQ system memory size check | Indicates that there has been no recent cores for the File IQ process and that the File IQ Appliance recently has not experienced an Out of Memory (OOM) situation. | 10.1 | Yes | Yes |
Nasuni File IQ cache usage | Indicates that the Cache disk on the File IQ Appliance has adequate space. | 10.0 | Yes | No |
Nasuni File IQ Event Hub Partitions check | Indicates that the Event Queue processing is utilizing all of the capacity available to the system. | 10.0 | Yes | No |
Nasuni File IQ Database Backup Configuration | Indicates the File IQ Database backup is configured and enabled on the system. | 10.1 | Yes | No |
Nasuni File IQ Database Backup Status | Indicates that the File IQ Database backup has been successfully run on the File IQ Appliance. | 10.1 | Yes | No |
Nasuni File IQ Database Backup Available | Indicates that the File IQ Database backup is accessible in the cloud storage. | 10.1 | Yes | No |
Nasuni File IQ Database WAL Archiving Status | Indicates that the File IQ Database backup of the Write Ahead Logs (WAL) is keeping up with the workload on the File IQ Appliance. | 10.1 | Yes | No |
Nasuni Appliance Backup Key set up | Indicates that the Escrow Passphrase has been set for the File IQ Appliance. | 10.1 | Yes | No |
Nasuni Appliance Backup available | Indicates that the File IQ Appliance’s configuration has been backed up to the NOC and it is in a DR ready state. | 10.1 | Yes | No |
Nasuni File IQ Reporting Service running | Indicates that the Reporting Service is running on the File IQ Appliance. | 10.1 | Yes | Yes |
Nasuni File IQ Reporting cron job configured | Indicates that the cron job that schedules the Reports has been configured on the File IQ Appliance. | 10.1 | Yes | Yes |
Nasuni File IQ Report staging volume configured | Indicates that a Volume has been connected to the File IQ Appliance to store reports and the Reporting Service has been configured to use this Volume to store the reports that the service generates. | 10.1 | Yes | Yes |
Nasuni File IQ Report staging path configured | Indicates that an absolute directory path on the volume used by the Reporting Service has been configured and checked for ability to store reports. | 10.1 | Yes | Yes |
Nasuni File IQ Report execution failures during previous 24 hours | Indicate that the Reporting Service has had no failures in executing reports within the past 24 hours. | 10.1 | Yes | Yes |
Nasuni File IQ Single Sign-On Configuration | Indicates that the SSO feature has been configured for the File IQ Dashboard. | 10.1 | Yes | Yes |
Nasuni File IQ Single Sign-On health check | Indicates that the SSO feature for the File IQ Dashboard is passing the health checks which ensures that the feature is operational. | 10.1 | Yes | Yes |
* The Health Item indicates whether this item may raise a health problem to the NMC.
** The Health Item varies between the Basic and Premium versions of the File IQ Appliance.
Appendix A: Firewall Configuration
The File IQ Appliance and Nasuni Edge Appliance both require access to the Microsoft Azure Event Hub API. For configuration instructions, see Firewall and Port Requirements.
Appendix B: Deletion Security
The Microsoft Azure cloud storage platform offers several safeguards to prevent or mitigate unwanted deletion. You might choose to employ some or all these safeguards. For more information, see Security Recommendations for Blob storage.
Storage Redundancy
Carefully consider the best redundancy options for your data and your organization. Considerations might include legally mandated locations for data, as well as geographic proximity to other resources.
Toward this end, Microsoft offers locally redundant storage (LRS), zone-redundant storage (ZRS), geo-redundant storage (GRS), and geo-zone-redundant storage (preview) (GZRS). For details, see Azure Storage redundancy.
Locking Resources
Lock a subscription, a resource group, or a resource to prevent other users in your organization from accidentally deleting or modifying critical resources. You can set the lock level to CanNotDelete or ReadOnly.
CanNotDelete: Authorized users can still read and modify a resource, but they cannot delete the resource.
In the portal, this lock is called Delete.ReadOnly: Authorized users can read a resource, but they cannot modify or delete. Applying this lock is similar to restricting all authorized users to the permissions granted by the Reader role.
In the portal, this lock is called Read-only.
A resource inherits any lock from its parent.
To create or delete management locks, you must have access to Microsoft.Authorization/* or Microsoft.Authorization/locks/* actions. Of the built-in roles, only the Owner role and the User Access Administrator role are granted those actions.
For more information, see Lock resources to prevent unexpected changes.
Attaching to a VM
Azure prevents the deletion of a disk that is attached to a VM. It also prevents the deletion of containers and storage accounts with a page blob attached to a VM.
In addition, leased blobs cannot be deleted without breaking the lease first. Leased blobs that are not attached to a VM prevent deletion of the blob but do not prevent deletion of the container or storage account.
These features protect disks, containers, storage accounts, and blobs from unwanted deletion.
For more information, see Troubleshoot storage resource deletion errors.
“Soft Delete” Helps Recover Deleted Data
Soft delete enables you to recover your data when blobs or blob snapshots are deleted. This protection extends to blob data that is erased due to an overwrite.
When data is deleted, it transitions to a soft deleted state instead of being permanently erased.
When soft delete is on, and you overwrite data, a soft deleted snapshot is generated to save the state of the overwritten data.
You can configure the amount of time soft deleted data is recoverable before it is permanently expired.
Soft delete is off by default. Nasuni recommends enabling soft delete with a retention period of 30 days.
Soft delete does not save your data in cases of container or account deletes.
For more information, see Soft delete for blobs.
Appendix C: Installing File IQ using the Azure Virtual Hard Disk
The File IQ Appliance can be deployed from a Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) file downloaded from the Nasuni Orchestration Center (NOC). This is an alternative to using the Azure Marketplace option. There are two steps to installing the File IQ Appliance from the VHD file:
Create an image from the Azure Virtual Hard Disk file.
Installing the File IQ Appliance using an image.
Important: These steps assume that you have uploaded the File IQ Azure VHD file to a Storage Account Blob container in Azure before starting the process. The Storage Account Blob container must be in the same region where you want to create the File IQ Virtual Machine.
Creating an image from the Azure Virtual Hard Disk file
To install the VHD file on Azure as a Virtual Machine, Nasuni recommends creating an image from the VHD file so that the image acts as a template and can be deployed multiple times.
To create an image of the installation software, follow this procedure:
Log in to the Azure portal: portal.azure.com.
Click Home, then click Images. (If Images do not appear in the list located at the top, click More Services or All Services to view more services). The Images pane appears.
Click + Create. The Create image pane appears.
From the Subscription dropdown list, select your subscription.
To select an existing Resource Group, click Select existing and then select an existing Resource Group from the list.
Alternatively, create a new Resource Group by clicking Create new, entering a Name for the new Resource Group, and clicking OK.Enter a Name for this image. The name must begin with a letter or a number; end with a letter, a number, or an underscore; and contain only letters, numbers, underscores, periods, or hyphens.
From the Region dropdown list, select the region where you deployed the File IQ Azure VHD.
(Optional) Specify Zone resiliency.
For the VM generation, select the VM Generation as follows:
Note: Azure generations are described here.
Note: The File IQ sizing tool suggests all virtual machine sizes as generation 2.
For Storage blob, click Browse. Navigate to the Storage Account Blob container that contains the VHD file, and click Select. The path to the uploaded VHD file appears in the Storage blob field.
From the Account type dropdown list, select Premium SSD, or the option most appropriate for your performance requirements.
From the Host caching dropdown list, select Read/write.
Click Review + create, followed by Create. The image creation process begins.
When the image creation is completed, the status displays Your deployment is complete. Click Go to resource to go back to the Images page.
The image appears in the list of images. If the image does not appear in the list, refresh the page.
Installing the File IQ Appliance using an image
After creating the image from the VHD file, use the created image to deploy the File IQ Virtual Machine.
To create the virtual machine, follow this procedure:
Log in to the Azure portal: portal.azure.com
Click Home, then click Images. (If Images does not appear in the list located at the top, click More Services or All Services to view more services.)
The Images pane appears.From the list of images, click the image created as part of the previous section, which opens the Image pane.
Click + Create VM. The Create virtual machine pane appears.
Follow the section 2. Installing File IQ using the Azure Marketplace, starting at step 6.
In the Basics step of the Create a virtual machine wizard, there is a License Type dropdown field. Select the value Other from the options.
Appendix D: Controlling the Microsoft Azure VM
Virtual platforms allow you to control various aspects of your File IQ Appliance. This chapter presents procedures for these control functions. Because these controls depend on third-party virtual platforms, follow the procedures for your specific virtual platform.
Note: The vendor changes their interfaces occasionally with little notice to the users. The exact screens and text on these platforms might change at any time.
Starting the Microsoft Azure VM
Start a stopped Microsoft Azure VM of the File IQ Appliance on the virtual platform.
To start a stopped Microsoft Azure VM, follow these steps:
Navigate to the Microsoft Azure dashboard and click Virtual Machines in the left-hand column.
A list of virtual machines appears.Select the virtual machine.
Navigate to the top of the screen and click Start. The state changes to Starting, followed by Running, and the virtual machine starts.
Status of the Microsoft Azure VM
You can view the status of the Microsoft Azure VM of the File IQ Appliance on the virtual platform.
To view the status of the Microsoft Azure VM of the File IQ Appliance, follow these steps:
Navigate to the Microsoft Azure dashboard and click Virtual Machines, located in the left column.
Select the virtual machine from the list.
The virtual machine page appears.Click Monitoring.
Information appears, including graphs of activity, status, DNS name, public virtual IP address, and details about the disks.
Shutting down the Microsoft Azure VM
The Microsoft Azure VM of the File IQ Appliance can be shut down from the virtual platform.
Note: You can also shut down the File IQ Appliance using the Shutdown or Power button available on every page. If you shut down the virtual machine this way, it is not deprovisioned in Azure, and the virtual machine still incurs costs as if it were running.
To shut down the Microsoft Azure VM, follow these steps:
Log in to the Nasuni Management Console associated with the File IQ Appliance.
Click the Filers menu item.
Click Shutdown & Reboot. The Shutdown and Reboot pane appears.
For the File IQ Appliance, click the associated Shutdown/Reboot action.
The Initiate Shutdown/Reboot of File IQ Appliance pane appears.
Enter ‘Change Filer Power State’ into the Confirmation Phrase textbox.
Select the Option to Shut down immediately. Click Shutdown.
The Shutdown and Reboot pane appears. Wait until the Status column for the File IQ Appliance changes to a checkmark before proceeding; at that point, the File IQ Appliance is shut down.
Navigate to the Microsoft Azure dashboard and click Virtual Machines in the left-hand column. A list of virtual machines appears.
Select the virtual machine.
Navigate to the top of the screen and click Stop. The state changes to Stopping, then to Stopped. The virtual machine shuts down.
Appendix E: Uninstalling the Microsoft Azure VM
This section describes uninstalling the File IQ Appliance from the Microsoft Azure platform.
Note: The vendor changes their interfaces occasionally with little notice to the users. The exact screens and text on these platforms might change at any time.
To uninstall the File IQ Appliance on the Microsoft Azure platform, follow these steps:
Navigate to the Microsoft Azure dashboard page and click Virtual Machines in the left-hand column.
A list of virtual machines appears.Select the virtual machine.
Navigate to the top of the screen and select Delete.
Caution: Deleting a File IQ Appliance deletes the Microsoft Azure VM and may delete all data. Any data not preserved via a snapshot is permanently lost.
A dialog box appears, confirming whether you are sure you want to delete the virtual machine.
Click Delete.
Deleting the virtual machine might not delete the data disks associated with it.
To delete the data disks, follow these steps:
Navigate to the Home page and click Disks.
A list of disks appears. File IQ disks are ones where the suffix ends in ‘_fiqdb’. Select the disk to delete from the list. The Attached To entry should be blank.
Click the name of the disk that you want to delete.
Navigate to the top of the page and click Delete.
Two menu choices display. Select Delete the associated VHD.
A dialog box appears, confirming if you want to delete the disk. Click Yes.
To delete additional data disks, repeat steps 2-6.
Appendix F: Resizing the File IQ Disks
This section describes how to resize the File IQ Appliance disks from the Microsoft Azure portal.
Note: Vendors occasionally change their interfaces with little notice to users. The exact screens and text on these platforms might change at any time.
Important: Disks can only be increased in size.
Prerequisites:
The File IQ Instance installation is complete.
The File IQ disks are correctly named using the suggested suffixes(such as ‘_fiqdb’). For more information, see step 17 of 2. Installing File IQ Using the Azure Marketplace.
To resize the File IQ Azure disks, follow these steps:
Log in to the Nasuni Management Console associated with the File IQ Appliance.
Click Filers.
Click Shutdown & Reboot. The Shutdown and Reboot pane appears.
For the File IQ Appliance, click the associated Shutdown/Reboot action. The Initiate Shutdown/Reboot of File IQ Appliance pane appears.
Enter ‘Change Filer Power State’ into the Confirmation Phrase textbox.
Select Shut down immediately, and click Shutdown. The Shutdown and Reboot pane appears.
Wait until the File IQ Appliance's Status column changes to a checkmark before proceeding.
In the Azure portal, navigate to the File IQ Appliance’s page by entering its name in the search box.
On the left-hand side panel, click Help, followed by Serial Console.
Wait until you see the final “reboot: Power down” message.
On the left-hand side panel, choose Overview and refresh the page.
Fully shut down the virtual machine by clicking on the Stop button in the top toolbar and clicking Yes.
Wait until the notification under the bell icon in the top right corner shows that the machine has stopped:
At that point, the appliance is shut down.
On the left-hand side panel, click Settings, followed by Disks to view your list of disks.
The list of disks is displayed.
For each of the disks displayed in the list that you want to resize, execute the following steps:
Click on the disk name. The disk configuration page opens.
On the left-hand side panel, select Settings and then Size & Performance.
Update the following:
The Storage type. Nasuni recommends the following:
Using Premium SSD v2 for both the File IQ cache disk and File IQ DB disks.
Using Premium SSD for both the Operating System and COW disks.
Depending on the storage type, select one of the following:
Premium SSD v2
The disk Size. Use the File IQ Sizing Tool to estimate the size of the Nasuni Cache and File IQ DB disks.
The disk's IOPS value. Use the File IQ Sizing Tool to set this value.
The disk Throughput value (MB/s).
Important: Premium SSD v2 disks do not support Host Caching, and you may see this error if you try to convert a disk to Premium SSD v2 if host caching is enabled for this disk:
To disable Host Caching:Navigate back up the Settings and Disks page of the virtual machine.
Select None in the Host Caching drop-down for the disk you want to update.
Click Apply and wait until the notification under the bell icon in the top-right corner indicates that the virtual machine has been updated.
Navigate back to the disk configuration page for this disk and reconfigure your disk.
Premium SSD
The disk Size. Use the File IQ Sizing Tool to estimate the size of the Nasuni Cache and File IQ DB disks.
The disk's Performance Tier value. Use the File IQ Sizing Tool to set this value.
For these two values, you can either select a default configuration or use custom values.
Click Save. Wait until the notification under the bell icon in the top right corner shows “Successfully updated disk”.
Click on your instance name on the top breadcrumbs, or alternatively, enter its name in the search box and click the matching virtual machine result.
On the left-hand side panel, choose Overview.
Click Start in the top button bar. It might take a few minutes for the instance to start.
Note: To view the updated information, click the bell icon to expand the notification panel.
The File IQ Appliance Virtual Machine starts.