Installing an Eon Mode database on premises with FlashBlade

You have two options on how to install an Eon Mode database on premises with Pure Storage FlashBlade as your S3-compatible communal storage:

• Using the admintools Command Line: Use the Vertica admintools command line, and complete all the steps in this topic.

• Using Management Console: Execute the steps in Creating an Eon Mode database on premises with FlashBlade in MC.

Step 1: create a bucket and credentials on the Pure Storage FlashBlade

To use a Pure Storage FlashBlade appliance as a communal storage location for an Eon Mode database you must have:

• The IP address of the FlashBlade appliance. You must also have the connection port number if your FlashBlade is not using the standard port 80 or 443 to access the bucket. All of the nodes in your Vertica cluster must be able to access this IP address. Make sure any firewalls between the FlashBlade appliance and the nodes are configured to allow access.

• The name of the bucket on the FlashBlade to use for communal storage.

• An access key and secret key for a user account that has read and write access to the bucket.

See the Pure Storage support site for instructions on how to create the bucket and the access keys needed for a communal storage location.

Step 2: install Vertica on your cluster

To install Vertica:

1. Ensure your nodes are configured properly by reviewing all of the content in the Before you install Vertica section.

2. Use the install_vertica script to verify that your nodes are correctly configured and to install the Vertica binaries on all of your nodes. Follow the steps under Installing using the command line to install Vertica.

   Note

   These installation steps are the same ones you follow to install Vertica in Enterprise Mode. The difference between Eon Mode and Enterprise Mode on-premises databases is how you create the database, not how you install the Vertica software.

Step 3: create an authorization file

Before you create your Eon Mode on-premises database, you must create an authorization file that admintools will use to authenticate with the FlashBlade storage.

1. On the Vertica node where you will run admintools to create your database, use a text editor to create a file. You can name this file anything you wish. In these steps, it is named auth_params.conf. The location of this file isn't important, as long as it is readable by the Linux user you use to create the database (usually, dbadmin).

   Important

   The auth_params.conf file contains the secret key to access the bucket containing your Eon Mode database's data. This information is sensitive, and can be used to access the raw data in your database. Be sure this file is not readable by unauthorized users. After you have created your database, you can delete this file.

2. Add the following lines to the file:

   awsauth = FlasbBlade_Access_Key:FlashBlade_Secret_Key
   awsendpoint = FlashBladeIp:FlashBladePort
   

   Note

   You do not need to supply a port number in the awsendpoint setting if you are using the default port for the connection between Vertica and the FlashBlade (80 for an unencrypted connection or 443 for an encrypted connection).

3. If you are not using TLS encryption for the connection between Vertica and the FlashBlade, add the following line to the file:

   awsenablehttps = 0
   

4. Save the file and exit the editor.

This example auth_params.conf file is for an unencrypted connection between the Vertica cluster and a FlashBlade appliance at IP address 10.10.20.30 using the standard port 80.

awsauth = PIWHSNDGSHVRPIQ:339068001+e904816E02E5fe9103f8MQOEAEHFFVPKBAAL
awsendpoint = 10.10.20.30
awsenablehttps = 0

Step 4: choose a depot path on all nodes

Choose or create a directory on each node for the depot storage path. The directory you supply for the depot storage path parameter must:

• Have the same path on all nodes in the cluster (i.e. /home/dbadmin/depot).

• Be readable and writable by the dbadmin user.

• Have sufficient storage. By default, Vertica uses 60% of the filesystem space containing the directory for depot storage. You can limit the size of the depot by using the --depot-size argument in the create_db command. See Configuring your Vertica cluster for Eon Mode for guidelines on choosing a size for your depot.

The admintools create_db tool will attempt to create the depot path for you if it doesn't exist.

Step 5: create the Eon on-premises database

Use the admintools create_db tool to create the database. You must pass this tool the following arguments:

Some common optional arguments include:

To view all arguments for the create_db tool, run the command:

admintools -t create_db --help

The following example demonstrates creating a three-node database named verticadb, specifying the depot will be stored in the home directory of the dbadmin user.

$ admintools -t create_db -x auth_params.conf \
  --communal-storage-location=s3://verticadbbucket \
  --depot-path=/home/dbadmin/depot --shard-count=6 \
  -s vnode01,vnode02,vnode03 -d verticadb -p 'YourPasswordHere'

Step 6: disable streaming limitations

After creating the database, disable the AWSStreamingConnectionPercentage configuration parameter. This setting is unnecessary for an Eon Mode on-premises install with communal storage on Set Snippet Variable Value in Topic. This configuration parameter controls the number of connections to the object store that Vertica uses for streaming reads. In a cloud environment, this setting helps avoid having streaming data from the object store use up all of the available file handles. It leaves some file handles available for other object store operations. Due to the low latency of on-premises object stores, this option is unnecessary. Set it to 0 to disable it.

The following example shows how to disable this parameter using ALTER DATABASE...SET PARAMETER:

=> ALTER DATABASE DEFAULT SET PARAMETER AWSStreamingConnectionPercentage = 0;
ALTER DATABASE

Deciding whether to disable the depot

The FlashBlade object store's performance is fast enough that you may consider disabling the depot in your Vertica database. If you disable the depot, you can get by with less local storage on your nodes. However, there is always a performance impact of disabling the depot. The exact impact depends mainly on the types of workloads you run on your database. The performance impact can range from a 30% to 4000% decrease in query performance. Only consider disabling the depot if you will see a significant benefit from reducing the storage requirements of your nodes. Before disabling the depot on a production database, always run a proof of concept test that executes the same workloads as your production database.

To disable the depot, set the UseDepotForReads configuration parameter to 0. The following example demonstrates disabling this parameter using ALTER DATABASE...SET PARAMETER:

=> ALTER DATABASE DEFAULT SET PARAMETER UseDepotForReads = 0;
ALTER DATABASE