DELL 3.8.0.x ECS Elastic Cloud Storage User Guide

September 4, 2024
Dell

DELL 3.8.0.x ECS Elastic Cloud Storage

Highlights

  • ECS 3.8.0.4 is available.
  • Site Contact Information Update & Product Updates.
  • ECS Troubleshooting Guide is now available for customers.
  • xDoctor tool is customer downloadable and installable. NEW VERSION

Target Code

Dell Technologies Total Customer Experience (TCE) team regularly monitors the quality and stability of supported code versions across the active customer install base. This data is used to guide what code version is recommended for customers to run to be most stable with the lowest risk. Customers on older code should upgrade to the target code version (or later).

ECS 3.8.0.x (with minimum patch ECS 3.8.0.2) declared Target Code
The TCE team, comprised of key Engineering and Services leadership, recommends the adoption of ECS 3.8.0.x, which achieved target code status in August 2023. It continues to be the best-performing code across all actively supported code versions. The recommendation is to upgrade to the latest patch of the target code, which is currently ECS 3.8.0.4.
You can find a full list of Dell product target codes at: Target-Revisions- and-Runtime-Hours (dell.com)
For information on how upgrades are performed, please refer to the following Knowledge Base (KB) article: KB 14729: ECS Upgrade Planning

Code Recommendations, Published End of Standard Support (EOSS), and Versioning Information

Have you upgraded to the Target Code (or newer) yet?

  • Upgrading to the Target Code (or newer) is important. Customers on newer code enjoy greater functionality and fewer outages/service requests.
  • Upgrading to the Target Code (or newer) ensures that you can take advantage of the newest features, functionality, fixes, and security enhancements. For ECS that means code level 3.8.0.4.
  • To learn more about the Target Codes, please refer to the Target Revisions document.

Published End of Standard Support (EOSS)
This table provides the published EOSS dates for all ECS versions:

Version| General Availability (GA) Date| Published EOSS
---|---|---
3.8.0.4| November 2023| December 2025
3.8.0.3| August 2023| December 2025
3.8.0.2| April 2023| December 2025
3.8.0.1| December 2022| December 2025
3.7.0.6| May 2023| February 2025
3.7.0.5| February 2023| February 2025
3.7.0.4| November 2022| February 2025
3.7.0.3| September 2022| February 2025
3.7.0.2| May 2022| February 2025
3.7.0.1| April 2022| February 2025
3.7.0.0| February 2022| February 2025
3.6.2.x| August 2021| August 2024
3.6.1.x| February 2021
| February 2024
3.6.0.x and below| Various| EOSS

  • Various General Availability (GA) dates for patches.

Additional information on EOSS dates for Dell products can be found by searching for the specific Dell product within the Support by Product section from the Online Support site.

Versioning Information

  • This table provides information on the ECS versioning convention:
Release Digit Release Type Description
First ( X.x.x.x) Major Release with functionality that provides

substantial generational or architectural changes in the product.

Second (x. X.x.x)

|

Minor

| Release that delivers new incremental functionality to the existing product generation, in addition to fixes for defects.

Third (x.x. X.x)

|

Service Packs

| Release that delivers fixes for important defects, fixes to Security Vulnerabilities, and included fixes delivered by preceding patches and hotfixes.
Fourth (x.x.x. X )| Patches| Release that cumulatively delivers fixes to security vulnerabilities and critical customer-found issues.

Release Information – ECS 3.8.0.x (Latest and Target Code)

ECS 3.8.0.x Release Highlights
Reasons to Upgrade:

  • Improved Stability
  • Improved Performance
  • Improved Security
  • Tech Refresh Enhancements
    • Node Evacuation
    • Node Extend

Key Features in 3.8.0.x: (in addition to the existing features from the previous versions)

  • Data movement (Copy-to-Cloud)
  • IAM STS GetFederationToken
  • Extended key management interoperability protocol (KMIP) Support
  • Object lock enhancements for ADO
  • Memory upgrade expansion
  • SSH key rotation Improvements
  • Firmware upgrade using the service console
  • Simplified bucket delete
  • Priority task coordinator
  • Metadata search acceleration
  • Partial listings
  • HDFS protocol support

Release Notes

Online Support Page

Additional Resources

Connectivity

Secure Connect Gateway
The Secure Connect Gateway technology is the next-generation consolidated connectivity solution from Dell Technologies Services. Support Assist Enterprise and Secure Remote Services capabilities are integrated into Secure Connect Gateway technology. Our Secure Connect Gateway 5.1 technology is delivered as an appliance and a stand-alone application and provides a single solution for your entire Dell portfolio supporting servers, networking, data storage, data protection, hyper-converged, and converged solutions. For more details refer to the Getting Started Guide and FAQs, which are great resources to start with.

Note: If you are having issues getting connected, please make sure to contact customer support.

SRS Customers Will Lose Connectivity as of June 2023

  • Effective June 15, 2023, all versions of Secure Remote Services (SRS) will reach end of service life and will be replaced with Secure Connect Gateway (SCG). Upon reaching end of service life, support (including remediation and mitigation of security vulnerabilities) will be discontinued, and Secure Remote Services clients may no longer be able to connect.
  • Effective immediately, Secure Remote Services will strive to provide remediation for critical security vulnerabilities only. This may leave Secure Remote Services exposed to lesser severity vulnerabilities which Dell Technologies will no longer remediate or mitigate for customers. Dell Technologies therefore recommends upgrading to Secure Connect Gateway immediately to ensure that you remain current with security and quality updates.
  • Secure Connect Gateway, introduced in 2021, provides customers with the benefits of the latest technologies. Upgrading to Secure Connect Gateway requires a few steps due to technology and security changes that Dell Technologies has made over time.

To upgrade to Secure Connect Gateway

  • First, ensure you are running the latest release of Secure Remote Services version 3.52.
  • Follow the instructions in the banner to upgrade to Secure Connect Gateway.
  • Click here for additional upgrade details.

Should you choose to keep Secure Remote Services beyond the June 15, 2023, end-of-service life date, please note that you are responsible for any security vulnerabilities experienced.

Site Contact Information Update & Product Updates

Keeping your Site’s contact information updated is vital to receive important updates.

Dell Technical Advisories (DTAs)

  • Dell published no ECS DTAs in the last 90 days.

Dell Security Advisories (DSAs)

  • Dell published the following ECS DSAs in the last 90 days:
DSA Title Date
DSA-2023-400 Dell ECS Security Update for Dell ECS 3.8.0.4 Multiple
Vulnerabilities November 2023

ECS Capacity Dashboard

A common topic of interest for ECS customers is how to understand their capacity usage. ECS Knowledge Base (KB) article 20748 has been updated with a new video that explains how to interpret the data on the Capacity Dashboard.
Additionally, in response to feedback about multiple capacity-related Service Requests (SRs) being created, changes have been made to ECS capacity alerting dial-homes as follows:

  • Starting October 2022, Symptom Code 1111 will no longer open Service Requests.
  • Instead, an automated email will be sent to the asset’s main contact, informing them that they have reached 65-70% of their capacity usage.
  • Refer to the “Site Contact Information Update & Product Updates” section to update your contact details. This will ensure you get automated emails to the asset’s main contact.

ECS Troubleshooting Guide

This new customer document will assist in basic troubleshooting steps for ECS. It will walk through what to look for in the UI initially (not all-inclusive), as well as some basic CLI read-only commands. It also covers the Advanced Monitoring (Grafana) UI that was introduced in ECS 3.4.0.0.
To download the latest version of the ECS Troubleshooting Guide:

  1. Log into the Dell Support Site and search for “ECS Troubleshooting Guide” using the top search bar.
  2. To download the guide, click “Manuals & Documentation” under the “Resources” section on the left side of the page, and the “ECS Troubleshooting Guide” will appear for download.

A new version, ECS Troubleshooting Guide 1.15, has been released in April 2023. It is recommended to follow the latest published version.

xDoctor Tool

xDoctor is a tool used by Dell Customer Support to monitor, report on, and troubleshoot the health of your ECS Appliance. Keeping xDoctor updated to the most current version enables Dell Customer Support to quickly detect and resolve issues with your ECS Appliance.
To download the latest version of xDoctor:

  1. Log into the Dell Support Site and search for xDoctor using the top search bar.
  2. To download the xDoctor code and Release Notes: Click “Downloads & Drivers” under the “Resources” section on the left side of the page, and the latest xDoctor version xDoctor4ECS 4.8-xx will appear for download, as well as the Release Notes.

A new version, xDoctor4ECS-4.8-94.2, has been released on November 17, 2023. It is recommended to upgrade to the latest xDoctor version at the earliest opportunity.

Disks as Customer Replaceable Unit (CRU)

A new feature starting with ECS 3.5.x.x is disks as Customer Replaceable Unit (CRU) for Gen3 racks. This new feature enables customers to replace failed disks without having to schedule an onsite visit with a Dell Technologies technician to manually remove the disks from the ECS VDC. Customers are now able to manage failed disks from the ECS user interface anytime.
Additional Resources

New Knowledgebase (KB) Articles

Article Number Title
220323 ECS: xDoctor: RAP072:

xDoctor reports hardware event – The system inlet temperature is greater than the upper critical threshold.
220197| ECS: xDoctor: Convert Deprecated Email Rules into one CER (Customer Email Rule)
219870| ECS: Unable to write to a bucket during Temporary Site Outage
220402| ECS: Error Message Displayed When Opening the ECS UI “ERR_SSL_KEY_USAGE_INCOMPATIBLE”
220311| ECS: How to disable CAS access to a node

Top Service Topics

Article Number Title
216334 ECS: Code Upgrade

Recommendation
180322| ECS: Minimum requirements for triggering Permanent Site Outage (PSO), Temporary Site Outage (TSO), and Remove VDC from a Replication Group in ECS

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Published January 2024
Dell believes the information in this publication is accurate as of its publication date.
The information is subject to change without notice.
THE INFORMATION IN THIS PUBLICATION IS PROVIDED “AS-IS.“ DELL MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PUBLICATION AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. USE, COPYING, AND DISTRIBUTION OF ANY DELL SOFTWARE DESCRIBED IN THIS PUBLICATION REQUIRES AN APPLICABLE SOFTWARE LICENSE.
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