EMC World 2014 is around the corner. If you plan to be in Las Vegas, Nevada on May 5-8 for this event, you have the opportunity to try out the EMC^® Isilon^® OneFS operating system in person.

There will be three labs hosted by EMC Isilon that are available throughout the conference, where you can test drive new features and functionality in OneFS using real data.

• Isilon Cluster Setup, Configuration, and Management (HOL 29)
  An introductory lab that demonstrates how to create a storage cluster, join the cluster to an Active Directory domain, navigate the OneFS web administration interface, and create and manage directories or shares.
• Isilon OneFS 7.1 Enhancements (HOL 30)
  An intermediate lab that explores the enterprise-ready enhancements built into OneFS 7.1.
• Deploying Hadoop with EMC Isilon and VMware (HOL 28)
  An advanced lab that walks you through the process of deploying and using your first Hadoop cluster. Learn how to use VMware Big Data Extensions to deploy a small Hadoop cluster with an EMC Isilon NAS storage cluster.

Anyone can sign up for the labs and attend at any time. All labs are self-paced and Isilon representatives will be available to answer any questions you might have. For lab hours and information about how to register, visit the EMC World vPass website.

Take a test drive with OneFS 7.1

This blog has covered several of the enhancements and features included in OneFS 7.1. If you’re curious about OneFS 7.1 and want to take it for a test drive, visit the OneFS 7.1 Enhancements (HOL 30) lab. Here’s a closer look at the following features will be covered in this lab session:

• Role based access control
• EMC Isilon SmartDedupe™
• EMC Isilon SyncIQ™
• Audting

Role Based Access Control

Role based access control (RBAC) in OneFS 7.1 enables you to control configuration-level access of your Isilon cluster through roles and privileges. OneFS 7.1 comes with built-in administrator roles: SecurityAdmin, SystemAdmin, AuditAdmin, and VMwareAdmin. You can also create custom roles with assigned privileges and add users and groups to those roles.

In this lab, you will learn how to:

• View built-in roles
• Create a custom role
• Add privileges to a role
• Add a user to a role

If you are unable to attend EMC World, but would like an RBAC demonstration, watch the following video, “Technical Demo: Role Based Access Control.”

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EMC Isilon SmartDedupe™

When you want to save space on your EMC Isilon cluster, use EMC Isilon SmartDedupe™ to remove, or deduplicate, redundant data. SmartDedupe deduplicates data by scanning an Isilon cluster for identical data blocks. When it finds redundant data blocks, it moves one data block to a shadow store. It then deletes the duplicate block from the original file and replaces it with a pointer to the shadow store. For more information, watch the video, “Enterprise Features of EMC Isilon OneFS 7.1: SmartDedupe.”

The deduplication process is performed through jobs that are managed in the same way you manage other cluster maintenance jobs. It is recommended that you run deduplication jobs when clients are not modifying data on the cluster. This maximizes the amount of space you can save. It is also recommended that you run a deduplication job every ten days.

To begin the deduplication process, first determine how much space you can save on specified directories by running a DedupeAssessment job and viewing a DedupeAssessment report (Figure 1). You can then run a Dedupe job on those directories to then remove redundant data and place it in the shadow store.

In the OneFS 7.1 Enhancements (HOL 30) lab, you will learn how to:

1. Start a DedupeAssessment job
2. View active jobs
3. View the deduplication assessment report
4. Activate the SmartDedupe license
5. Start a Dedupe job
6. View the deduplication report

EMC Isilon SyncIQ™

For data protection and disaster recovery, EMC Isilon SyncIQ™ replicates data from one Isilon cluster to another. In the event of disaster scenario where your original cluster goes down, you can retrieve replicated data stored on your backup cluster.

To replicate data using SyncIQ, first create a SyncIQ policy in OneFS. The policy specifies the source directory and backup/target cluster, and when to run the replication job. In OneFS 7.1, there is a new policy option available that enables OneFS to replicate data whenever the source directory is modified (Figure 2). This enhancement ensures that data is replicated as soon as a change occurs, independent of the replication job schedule.

In the OneFS 7.1 Enhancements (HOL 30) lab, you will learn how to:

1. Activate a SyncIQ license
2. Configure a SyncIQ policy
3. Verify that the SyncIQ policy successfully synchronized between a source and target cluster

Auditing

OneFS 7.1 can audit system configuration and SMB protocol access events on your Isilon cluster. To start collecting auditing information, simply enable configuration change auditing or SMB protocol access auditing in either the OneFS web administration interface or the OneFS command-line interface (Figure 3). System configuration changes and changes performed on files and folders through the SMB protocol are recorded in an auditing log. Protocol auditing logs can be exported to Varonis DatAdvantage® or other third-party vendors that support the EMC Common Event Enabler (CEE) framework. For more information, watch the video, “Enterprise Features of EMC Isilon OneFS 7.1: Auditing”.

In the OneFS 7.1 Enhancements (HOL 30) lab, you will learn how to:

1. Enable auditing
2. Make an access zone into an audited zone
3. Add an audit event, which will modify the audited zone to audit different events
4. Generate an event
5. View and locate audit logs
6. View event forwarding
7. View the AuditAdmin role
8. Open DatAdvantage and view user statistics and event details

For more information

For more details about these features, refer to OneFS 7.1 release notes, OneFS 7.1 Web Administration Guide, and the OneFS 7.1 CLI Administration Guide.

For more information about Isilon sessions and labs at EMC World, visit the EMC World 2014 vPass website to browse the EMC World Session Catalog for more information.