BlueXP tiering documentation

BlueXP tiering
NetApp
June 11, 2024

This PDF was generated from https://docs.netapp.com/us-en/bluexp-tiering/index.html on June 11, 2024.

Always check docs.netapp.com for the latest.
Table of Contents
BlueXP tiering documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
What’s new with BlueXP tiering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
9 August 2023 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
4 July 2023 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
3 April 2023 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
5 March 2023 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
6 December 2022. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
6 November 2022. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
19 September 2022 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3 August 2022 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Get started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Learn about BlueXP tiering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Tier on-prem data to the cloud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Set up licensing for BlueXP tiering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
BlueXP tiering technical FAQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Use BlueXP tiering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Managing data tiering for your clusters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Managing object storage used for data tiering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Measure network latency and throughput performance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Get an overview of data tiering from your clusters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Monitor the status of tiering alerts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Reference. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Supported S3 storage classes and regions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Supported Azure Blob access tiers and regions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Supported Google Cloud storage classes and regions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Knowledge and support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Register for support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Get help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Legal notices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Copyright . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Trademarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Patents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Privacy policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Open source. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
BlueXP tiering documentation

1
What’s new with BlueXP tiering
Learn what’s new in BlueXP tiering.

9 August 2023
Use a custom prefix for the bucket name where tiered data is stored
In the past you needed to use the default "fabric-pool" prefix when defining the bucket name, for example,
fabric-pool-bucket1. Now you can use a custom prefix when naming your bucket. This functionality is available
only when tiering data to Amazon S3. Learn more.

Search for a cluster across all BlueXP Connectors

If you are using multiple Connectors to manage all the storage systems in your environment, some clusters on
which you want to implement tiering may be in different Connectors. If you are not sure which Connector is
managing a certain cluster, you can search across all Connectors using BlueXP tiering. Learn more.

4 July 2023
Now you can adjust the bandwidth used to upload inactive data to object storage
When you activate BlueXP tiering, ONTAP can use an unlimited amount of network bandwidth to transfer the
inactive data from volumes in the cluster to object storage. If you notice that tiering traffic is affecting normal
user workloads, you can throttle the amount of bandwidth that can be used during the transfer. Learn more.

Tiering event for "low tiering" is displayed in the Notification Center

The tiering event "Tier additional data from cluster <name> to object storage to increase your storage
efficiency" now appears as a notification when a cluster is tiering less than 20% of its cold data - including
clusters that are tiering no data.

This notification is a "Recommendation" to help make your systems more efficient and to save on storage
costs. It provides a link to the BlueXP tiering total cost of ownership and savings calculator to help you
calculate your cost savings.

3 April 2023
Licensing tab has been removed
The Licensing tab has been removed from the BlueXP tiering interface. All licensing for Pay-as-you-go
(PAYGO) subscriptions are accessed from the BlueXP tiering On-Premises Dashboard now. There is also a
link from that page to the BlueXP digital wallet so that you can view and manage any BlueXP tiering bring-
your-own-licenses (BYOL).

Tiering tabs have been renamed and have updated content

The "Clusters Dashboard" tab has been renamed to "Clusters", and the "On-Prem Overview" tab has been
renamed to "On-Premises Dashboard". These pages have added some information that will help you evaluate
if you can optimize your storage space with additional tiering configuration.

2
5 March 2023
Now you can generate a tiering report for your volumes
You can download a report from the Tier Volumes page so you can review the tiering status of all the volumes
on the clusters you are managing. BlueXP tiering generates a .CSV file that you can review and send to other
people in your company as needed. See how to download the tiering report.

6 December 2022
Connector outbound internet access endpoint changes
Because of a change in BlueXP tiering, you need to change the following Connector endpoints for successful
BlueXP tiering operation:

Old endpoint New endpoint

https://cloudmanager.cloud.netapp.com https://api.bluexp.netapp.com
https://*.cloudmanager.cloud.netapp.com https://*.api.bluexp.netapp.com

See the full list of endpoints for your AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure cloud environment.

6 November 2022
Drag and drop to enable BlueXP tiering to Azure Blob, Google Cloud Storage, and
StorageGRID
If the Azure Blob, Google Cloud Storage, or StorageGRID tiering destination exists as a working environment
on the Canvas, you can drag your on-prem ONTAP working environment onto the destination to initiate the
Tiering setup wizard.

19 September 2022
Tiering wizard enables you to configure AWS PrivateLink when tiering to S3
storage
In previous releases it was very time-consuming to provide this secure way of connecting your cluster to an S3
bucket through a VPC endpoint. Now you can follow the prerequisite steps to configure your system for a
private connection using a VPC endpoint interface, and then you can select the PrivateLink during the Tiering
setup wizard in the Networking page.

Review the requirements and steps to tier inactive data to Amazon S3.

Drag and drop to enable BlueXP tiering to Amazon S3

If the Amazon S3 tiering destination exists as a working environment on the Canvas, you can drag your on-
prem ONTAP working environment onto the destination to initiate the Tiering setup wizard.

3
Choose the tiering behavior when removing the mirror object store in a
MetroCluster configuration
When removing the mirror object store from a MetroCluster configuration, you’ll be prompted whether you want
to remove the primary object store as well. You can choose to keep the primary object store attached to the
aggregate, or to remove it.

3 August 2022
Ability to configure additional object stores for other aggregates in your cluster
The Cloud Tiering UI has added a new set of pages for object storage configuration. You can add new object
stores, connect multiple object stores to an aggregate for FabricPool Mirroring, swap the primary and mirror
object stores, delete object store connections to aggregates, and more. Learn more about the new object
storage functionality.

Cloud Tiering license support for MetroCluster configurations

Cloud Tiering licenses can now be shared with your clusters that are in MetroCluster configurations. You no
longer have to use the deprecated FabricPool licenses for these scenarios. This makes it easier to use the
"floating" Cloud Tiering licenses on more of your clusters. See how to license and configure these types of
clusters.

4
Get started
Learn about BlueXP tiering
NetApp’s BlueXP tiering service extends your data center to the cloud by automatically
tiering inactive data from on-premises ONTAP clusters to object storage. This frees
valuable space on the cluster for more workloads, without making changes to the
application layer. BlueXP tiering can reduce costs in your data center and enables you to
switch from a CAPEX model to an OPEX model.
The BlueXP tiering service leverages the capabilities of FabricPool. FabricPool is a NetApp Data Fabric
technology that enables automated tiering of data to low-cost object storage. Active (hot) data remains on the
local tier (on-premises ONTAP aggregates), while inactive (cold) data is moved to the cloud tier — all while
preserving ONTAP data efficiencies.

Originally supported on AFF, FAS, and ONTAP Select systems with all-SSD aggregates, starting with ONTAP
9.8 you can tier data from aggregates consisting of HDDs in addition to high-performance SSDs. See the
considerations and requirements for using FabricPool for details.

BlueXP tiering can be configured for single-node clusters, HA-configured clusters, clusters in Tiering Mirror
configurations, and MetroCluster configurations using FabricPool Mirror. BlueXP tiering licenses are shared
among all of your clusters.

Use the BlueXP tiering TCO calculator to see how much money you can save.

Features
BlueXP tiering offers automation, monitoring, reports, and a common management interface:

• Automation makes it easier to set up and manage data tiering from on-prem ONTAP clusters to the cloud
• You can choose the default cloud provider storage class/access tier, or use lifecycle management to assign
a more cost-effective tier to older tiered data
• You can create connections to additional object stores that can be used for other aggregates in your cluster
• Using the UI you can drag object stores to an aggregate for tiering and for FabricPool mirroring
• A single pane of glass removes the need to independently manage FabricPool across several clusters
• Reports show the amount of active and inactive data on each cluster
• A tiering health status helps you identify and correct issues as they occur
• If you have Cloud Volumes ONTAP systems, you’ll find them in the Clusters page so you get a full view of
data tiering in your hybrid cloud infrastructure

For more details about the value that BlueXP tiering provides, check out the BlueXP tiering page on the
BlueXP website.

Cloud Volumes ONTAP systems are read-only from BlueXP tiering. You set up tiering for Cloud
Volumes ONTAP systems from the working environment in BlueXP.

5
Supported object storage providers
You can tier inactive data from an on-premises ONTAP system to the following object storage providers:

• Amazon S3
• Microsoft Azure Blob
• Google Cloud Storage
• NetApp StorageGRID
• S3-compatible object storage (for example, MinIO)

BlueXP tiering licenses can also be shared with your clusters that are tiering data to IBM Cloud Object Storage.
The FabricPool configuration must be set up using System Manager or the ONTAP CLI, but licensing for this
type of configuration is completed using BlueXP tiering.

You can tier data from NAS volumes to the public cloud or to private clouds, like StorageGRID.
When tiering data that is accessed by SAN protocols, NetApp recommends using private clouds
due to connectivity considerations.

Object storage tiers

ONTAP clusters can tier inactive data to a single object store, or to multiple object stores. When you set up
data tiering, you have the choice to add a new bucket/container or to select an existing bucket/container, along
with a storage class or access tier.

• Learn about supported AWS S3 storage classes

• Learn about supported Azure Blob access tiers
• Learn about supported Google Cloud storage classes

BlueXP tiering uses the cloud provider default storage class/access tier for your inactive data. However, you
can apply a lifecycle rule so that the data automatically transitions from the default storage class to another
storage class after a certain number of days. This can help keep your costs down by moving very cold data to
less expensive storage.

You can’t select lifecycle rules for data tiered to StorageGRID or S3-compatible storage.

Pricing and licenses

Pay for BlueXP tiering through a pay-as-you-go subscription, an annual subscription, a bring-your-own BlueXP
tiering license, or a combination. A 30-day free trial is available for your first cluster if you don’t have a license.

There are no charges when tiering data to StorageGRID. Neither a BYOL license or PAYGO registration is
required.

View pricing details.

Since BlueXP tiering preserves the storage efficiencies of the source volume, you pay the cloud provider object
storage costs for the tiered data after ONTAP efficiencies (for the smaller amount of data after deduplication
and compression have been applied).

6
30-day free trial

If you don’t have a BlueXP tiering license, a 30-day free trial of BlueXP tiering starts when you set up tiering to
your first cluster. After the 30-day free trial ends, you’ll need to pay for BlueXP tiering through a pay-as-you-go
subscription, annual subscription, a BYOL license, or a combination.

If your free trial ends and you haven’t subscribed or added a license, then ONTAP no longer tiers cold data to
object storage. All previously tiered data remains accessible; meaning you can retrieve and use this data.
When retrieved, this data is moved back to the performance tier from the cloud.

Pay-as-you-go subscription

BlueXP tiering offers consumption-based licensing in a pay-as-you-go model. After subscribing through your
cloud provider’s marketplace, you pay per GB for data that’s tiered—there’s no up-front payment. You are
billed by your cloud provider through your monthly bill.

You should subscribe even if you have a free trial or if you bring your own license (BYOL):

• Subscribing ensures that there’s no disruption of service after your free trial ends.

When the trial ends, you’ll be charged hourly according to the amount of data that you tier.

• If you tier more data than allowed by your BYOL license, then data tiering continues through your pay-as-
you-go subscription.

For example, if you have a 10 TB license, all capacity beyond the 10 TB is charged through the pay-as-
you-go subscription.

You won’t be charged from your pay-as-you-go subscription during your free trial or if you haven’t exceeded
your BlueXP tiering BYOL license.

Learn how to set up a pay-as-you-go subscription.

Annual contract

BlueXP tiering offers an annual contract when tiering inactive data to Amazon S3 or Azure. It’s available in 1-,
2-, or 3-year terms.

Annual contracts are not currently supported when tiering to Google CLoud.

Bring your own license

Bring your own license by purchasing a BlueXP tiering license from NetApp (previously known as a "Cloud
Tiering" license). You can purchase 1-, 2-, or 3-year term licenses and specify any amount of tiering capacity
(starting at a minimum of 10 TiB). The BYOL BlueXP tiering license is a floating license that you can use
across multiple on-premises ONTAP clusters. The total tiering capacity that you define in your BlueXP tiering
license can be used by all of your on-prem clusters.

After you purchase a BlueXP tiering license, you’ll need use the BlueXP digital wallet in BlueXP to add the
license. See how to use a BlueXP tiering BYOL license.

As noted above, we recommend that you set up a pay-as-you-go subscription, even if you have purchased a
BYOL license.

7
 Starting August 2021 the old FabricPool license was replaced by the Cloud Tiering license.
Read more about how the BlueXP tiering license is different than the FabricPool license.

How BlueXP tiering works

BlueXP tiering is a NetApp-managed service that uses FabricPool technology to automatically tier inactive
(cold) data from your on-premises ONTAP clusters to object storage in your public cloud or private cloud.
Connections to ONTAP take place from a Connector.

The following image shows the relationship between each component:

At a high level, BlueXP tiering works like this:

1. You discover your on-prem cluster from BlueXP.

2. You set up tiering by providing details about your object storage, including the bucket/container, a storage
class or access tier, and lifecycle rules for the tiered data.
3. BlueXP configures ONTAP to use the object storage provider and discovers the amount of active and
inactive data on the cluster.
4. You choose the volumes to tier and the tiering policy to apply to those volumes.
5. ONTAP starts tiering inactive data to the object store as soon as the data has reached the thresholds to be
considered inactive (see Volume tiering policies).
6. If you have applied a lifecycle rule to the tiered data (only available for some providers), older tiered data is
assigned to a more cost-effective tier after a certain number of days.

8
Volume tiering policies

When you select the volumes that you want to tier, you choose a volume tiering policy to apply to each volume.
A tiering policy determines when or whether the user data blocks of a volume are moved to the cloud.

You can also adjust the cooling period. This is the number of days that user data in a volume must remain
inactive before it is considered "cold" and moved to object storage. For tiering policies that allow you to adjust
the cooling period, the valid values are 2 to 183 days when using ONTAP 9.8 and later, and 2 to 63 days for
earlier ONTAP versions; 2 to 63 is the recommended best practice.

No Policy (None)
Keeps the data on a volume in the performance tier, preventing it from being moved to the cloud tier.

Cold snapshots (Snapshot only)

ONTAP tiers cold Snapshot blocks in the volume that are not shared with the active file system to object
storage. If read, cold data blocks on the cloud tier become hot and are moved to the performance tier.

Data is tiered only after an aggregate has reached 50% capacity and when the data has reached the
cooling period. The default number of cooling days is 2, but you can adjust this number.

Re-heated data is written back to the performance tier only if there is space. If the
performance tier capacity is more than 70% full, blocks continue to be accessed from the
cloud tier.

Cold user data & snapshots (Auto)

ONTAP tiers all cold blocks in the volume (not including metadata) to object storage. The cold data includes
not just Snapshot copies, but also cold user data from the active file system.

If read by random reads, cold data blocks on the cloud tier become hot and are moved to the performance
tier. If read by sequential reads, such as those associated with index and antivirus scans, cold data blocks
on the cloud tier stay cold and are not written to the performance tier. This policy is available starting with
ONTAP 9.4.

Data is tiered only after an aggregate has reached 50% capacity and when the data has reached the
cooling period. The default number of cooling days is 31, but you can adjust this number.

Re-heated data is written back to the performance tier only if there is space. If the
performance tier capacity is more than 70% full, blocks continue to be accessed from the
cloud tier.

All user data (All)

All data (not including metadata) is immediately marked as cold and tiered to object storage as soon as
possible. There is no need to wait 48 hours for new blocks in a volume to become cold. Note that blocks
located in the volume prior to the All policy being set require 48 hours to become cold.

If read, cold data blocks on the cloud tier stay cold and are not written back to the performance tier. This
policy is available starting with ONTAP 9.6.

Take the following into consideration before you choose this tiering policy:

• Tiering data immediately reduces storage efficiencies (inline only).

• You should use this policy only if you are confident that cold data on the volume will not change.

9
 • Object storage is not transactional and will result in significant fragmentation if subjected to change.
• Consider the impact of SnapMirror transfers before assigning the All tiering policy to source volumes in
data protection relationships.

Because data is tiered immediately, SnapMirror will read data from the cloud tier rather than the
performance tier. This will result in slower SnapMirror operations—possibly slowing other SnapMirror
operations later in queue—even if they are using different tiering policies.

• BlueXP backup and recovery is similarly affected by volumes set with a tiering policy. See tiering policy
considerations with BlueXP backup and recovery.

All DP user data (Backup)

All data on a data protection volume (not including metadata) is immediately moved to the cloud tier. If read,
cold data blocks on the cloud tier stay cold and are not written back to the performance tier (starting with
ONTAP 9.4).

This policy is available for ONTAP 9.5 or earlier. It was replaced with the All tiering policy
starting with ONTAP 9.6.

Tier on-prem data to the cloud

Tiering data from on-premises ONTAP clusters to Amazon S3
Free space on your on-prem ONTAP clusters by tiering inactive data to Amazon S3.

Quick start

Get started quickly by following these steps. Details for each step are provided in the following sections in this
topic.

Identify the configuration method you’ll use

Choose whether you’ll connect your on-premises ONTAP cluster directly to AWS S3 over the public internet, or
whether you’ll use a VPN or AWS Direct Connect and route traffic through a private VPC Endpoint interface to
AWS S3.

See the available connection methods.

Prepare your BlueXP Connector

If you already have a Connector deployed in your AWS VPC or on your premises, then you’re all set. If not,
then you’ll need to create a Connector to tier ONTAP data to AWS S3 storage. You’ll also need to customize
network settings for the Connector so that it can connect to AWS S3.

See how to create a Connector and how to define required network settings.

Prepare your on-premises ONTAP cluster

Discover your ONTAP cluster in BlueXP, verify that the cluster meets minimum requirements, and customize
network settings so the cluster can connect to AWS S3.

10
See how to get your on-premises ONTAP cluster ready.

Prepare Amazon S3 as your tiering target

Set up permissions for the Connector to create and manage the S3 bucket. You’ll also need to set up
permissions for the on-premises ONTAP cluster so it can read and write data to the S3 bucket.

See how to set up permissions for the Connector and for your on-prem cluster.

Enable BlueXP tiering on the system

Select an on-prem working environment, click Enable for the Tiering service, and follow the prompts to tier
data to Amazon S3.

See how to enable Tiering for your volumes.

Set up licensing
After your free trial ends, pay for BlueXP tiering through a pay-as-you-go subscription, an ONTAP BlueXP
tiering BYOL license, or a combination of both:

• To subscribe from the AWS Marketplace, go to the BlueXP Marketplace offering, click Subscribe, and then
follow the prompts.
• To pay using a BlueXP tiering BYOL license, contact us if you need to purchase one, and then add it to
your account from the BlueXP digital wallet.

Network diagrams for connection options

There are two connection methods you can use when configuring tiering from on-premises ONTAP systems to
AWS S3.

• Public connection - Directly connect the ONTAP system to AWS S3 using a public S3 endpoint.
• Private connection - Use a VPN or AWS Direct Connect and route traffic through a VPC Endpoint interface
that uses a private IP address.

The following diagram shows the public connection method and the connections that you need to prepare
between the components. You can use a Connector that you’ve installed on your premises, or a Connector that
you’ve deployed in the AWS VPC.

11
The following diagram shows the private connection method and the connections that you need to prepare
between the components. You can use a Connector that you’ve installed on your premises, or a Connector that
you’ve deployed in the AWS VPC.

Communication between a Connector and S3 is for object storage setup only.

12
Prepare your Connector

The BlueXP Connector is the main software for BlueXP functionality. A Connector is required to tier your
inactive ONTAP data.

Creating or switching Connectors

If you already have a Connector deployed in your AWS VPC or on your premises, then you’re all set. If not,
then you’ll need to create a Connector in either of those locations to tier ONTAP data to AWS S3 storage. You
can’t use a Connector that’s deployed in another cloud provider.

• Learn about Connectors

• Deploying a Connector in AWS
• Installing a Connector on a Linux host

Connector networking requirements

• Ensure that the network where the Connector is installed enables the following connections:
◦ An HTTPS connection over port 443 to the BlueXP tiering service and to your S3 object storage (see
the list of endpoints)
◦ An HTTPS connection over port 443 to your ONTAP cluster management LIF
• Ensure that the Connector has permissions to manage the S3 bucket
• If you have a Direct Connect or VPN connection from your ONTAP cluster to the VPC, and you want
communication between the Connector and S3 to stay in your AWS internal network (a private
connection), you’ll need to enable a VPC Endpoint interface to S3. See how to set up a VPC endpoint
interface.

Prepare your ONTAP cluster

Your ONTAP clusters must meet the following requirements when tiering data to Amazon S3.

ONTAP requirements

Supported ONTAP platforms

• When using ONTAP 9.8 and later: You can tier data from AFF systems, or FAS systems with all-SSD
aggregates or all-HDD aggregates.
• When using ONTAP 9.7 and earlier: You can tier data from AFF systems, or FAS systems with all-SSD
aggregates.

Supported ONTAP versions

• ONTAP 9.2 or later
• ONTAP 9.7 or later is required if you plan to use an AWS PrivateLink connection to object storage

Supported volumes and aggregates

The total number of volumes that BlueXP tiering can tier might be less than the number of volumes on your
ONTAP system. That’s because volumes can’t be tiered from some aggregates. Refer to the ONTAP
documentation for functionality or features not supported by FabricPool.

BlueXP tiering supports FlexGroup volumes starting with ONTAP 9.5. Setup works the same as
any other volume.

13
Cluster networking requirements

• The cluster requires an inbound HTTPS connection from the Connector to the cluster management LIF.

A connection between the cluster and the BlueXP tiering service is not required.

• An intercluster LIF is required on each ONTAP node that hosts the volumes you want to tier. These
intercluster LIFs must be able to access the object store.

The cluster initiates an outbound HTTPS connection over port 443 from the intercluster LIFs to Amazon S3
storage for tiering operations. ONTAP reads and writes data to and from object storage — the object
storage never initiates, it just responds.

• The intercluster LIFs must be associated with the IPspace that ONTAP should use to connect to object
storage. Learn more about IPspaces.

When you set up BlueXP tiering, you are prompted for the IPspace to use. You should choose the IPspace
that these LIFs are associated with. That might be the "Default" IPspace or a custom IPspace that you
created.

If you use are using a different IPspace than "Default", then you might need to create a static route to get
access to the object storage.

All intercluster LIFs within the IPspace must have access to the object store. If you can’t configure this for
the current IPspace, then you’ll need to create a dedicated IPspace where all intercluster LIFs have access
to the object store.

• If you are using a Private VPC Interface Endpoint in AWS for the S3 connection, then in order for
HTTPS/443 to be used, you’ll need to load the S3 endpoint certificate into the ONTAP cluster. See how to
set up a VPC endpoint interface and load the S3 certificate.
• Ensure that your ONTAP cluster has permissions to access the S3 bucket.

Discover your ONTAP cluster in BlueXP

You need to discover your on-premises ONTAP cluster in BlueXP before you can start tiering cold data to
object storage. You’ll need to know the cluster management IP address and the password for the admin user
account to add the cluster.

Learn how to discover a cluster.

Prepare your AWS environment

When you set up data tiering for a new cluster, you’re prompted whether you want the service to create an S3
bucket or if you want to select an existing S3 bucket in the AWS account where the Connector is set up. The
AWS account must have permissions and an access key that you can enter in BlueXP tiering. The ONTAP
cluster uses the access key to tier data in and out of S3.

By default, the tiering service creates the bucket for you. If you want to use your own bucket, you can create
one before you start the tiering activation wizard and then select that bucket in the wizard. See how to create
S3 buckets from BlueXP. The bucket must be used exclusively for storing inactive data from your volumes - it
cannot be used for any other purpose. The S3 bucket must be in a region that supports BlueXP tiering.

14
 If you are planning to configure BlueXP tiering to use a lower cost storage class where your
tiered data will transition to after a certain number of days, you must not select any lifecycle
rules when setting up the bucket in your AWS account. BlueXP tiering manages the lifecycle
transitions.

Set up S3 permissions

You’ll need to configure two sets of permissions:

• Permissions for the Connector so it can create and manage the S3 bucket.
• Permissions for the on-premises ONTAP cluster so it can read and write data to the S3 bucket.

Steps
1. Connector permissions:
◦ Confirm that these S3 permissions are part of the IAM role that provides the Connector with
permissions. They should have been included by default when you first deployed the Connector. If not,
you’ll need to add any missing permissions. See the AWS Documentation: Editing IAM policies for
instructions.
◦ The default bucket that BlueXP tiering creates has a prefix of "fabric-pool". If you want to use a different
prefix for your bucket, you’ll need to customize the permissions with the name you want to use. In the
S3 permissions you’ll see a line "Resource": ["arn:aws:s3:::fabric-pool*"]. You’ll need to
change "fabric-pool" to the prefix that you want to use. For example, if you want to use "tiering-1" as
the prefix for your buckets, you’ll change this line to "Resource": ["arn:aws:s3:::tiering-
1*"].

If you want to use a different prefix for buckets that you’ll use for additional clusters in this same
BlueXP account, you can add another line with the prefix for other buckets. For example:

"Resource": ["arn:aws:s3:::tiering-1*"]
"Resource": ["arn:aws:s3:::tiering-2*"]

If you are creating your own bucket and do not use a standard prefix, you should change this line to
"Resource": ["arn:aws:s3:::*"] so that any bucket is recognized. However, this may expose
all your buckets instead of those you have designed to hold inactive data from your volumes.

2. Cluster permissions:
◦ When activating the service, the Tiering wizard will prompt you to enter an access key and secret key.
These credentials are passed to the ONTAP cluster so that ONTAP can tier data to the S3 bucket. For
that, you’ll need to create an IAM user with the following permissions:

"s3:ListAllMyBuckets",
"s3:ListBucket",
"s3:GetBucketLocation",
"s3:GetObject",
"s3:PutObject",
"s3:DeleteObject"

See the AWS Documentation: Creating a Role to Delegate Permissions to an IAM User for details.

15
 3. Create or locate the access key.

BlueXP tiering passes the access key on to the ONTAP cluster. The credentials are not stored in the
BlueXP tiering service.

AWS Documentation: Managing Access Keys for IAM Users

Configure your system for a private connection using a VPC endpoint interface

If you plan to use a standard public internet connection, then all the permissions are set by the Connector and
there is nothing else you need to do. This type of connection is shown in the first diagram above.

If you want to have a more secure connection over the internet from your on-prem data center to the VPC,
there’s an option to select an AWS PrivateLink connection in the Tiering activation wizard. It’s required if you
plan to use a VPN or AWS Direct Connect to connect your on-premises system through a VPC Endpoint
interface that uses a private IP address. This type of connection is shown in the second diagram above.

1. Create an Interface endpoint configuration using the Amazon VPC console or the command line. See
details about using AWS PrivateLink for Amazon S3.
2. Modify the security group configuration that’s associated with the BlueXP Connector. You must change the
policy to "Custom" (from "Full Access"), and you must add the required S3 Connector permissions as
shown earlier.

If you’re using port 80 (HTTP) for communication to the private endpoint, you’re all set. You can enable
BlueXP tiering on the cluster now.

If you’re using port 443 (HTTPS) for communication to the private endpoint, you must copy the certificate
from the VPC S3 endpoint and add it to your ONTAP cluster, as shown in the next 4 steps.

3. Obtain the DNS name of the endpoint from the AWS Console.

16
4. Obtain the certificate from the VPC S3 endpoint. You do this by logging into the VM that hosts the BlueXP
Connector and running the following command. When entering the DNS name of the endpoint, add
“bucket” to the beginning, replacing the “*”:

[ec2-user@ip-10-160-4-68 ~]$ openssl s_client -connect bucket.vpce-

0ff5c15df7e00fbab-yxs7lt8v.s3.us-west-2.vpce.amazonaws.com:443
-showcerts

5. From the output of this command, copy the data for the S3 certificate (all data between, and including, the
BEGIN / END CERTIFICATE tags):

Certificate chain
0 s:/CN=s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com`
i:/C=US/O=Amazon/OU=Server CA 1B/CN=Amazon
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
MIIM6zCCC9OgAwIBAgIQA7MGJ4FaDBR8uL0KR3oltTANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQsFADBG
…
…
GqvbOz/oO2NWLLFCqI+xmkLcMiPrZy+/6Af+HH2mLCM4EsI2b+IpBmPkriWnnxo=
-----END CERTIFICATE-----

6. Log into the ONTAP cluster CLI and apply the certificate you copied using the following command
(substitute your own storage VM name):

17
 cluster1::> security certificate install -vserver <svm_name> -type
server-ca
Please enter Certificate: Press <Enter> when done

Tier inactive data from your first cluster to Amazon S3

After you prepare your AWS environment, start tiering inactive data from your first cluster.

What you’ll need

• An on-premises working environment.
• An AWS access key for an IAM user who has the required S3 permissions.

Steps
1. Select the on-prem ONTAP working environment.
2. Click Enable for the Tiering service from the right panel.

If the Amazon S3 tiering destination exists as a working environment on the Canvas, you can drag the
cluster onto the working environment to initiate the setup wizard.

3. Define Object Storage Name: Enter a name for this object storage. It must be unique from any other
object storage you may be using with aggregates on this cluster.
4. Select Provider: Select Amazon Web Services and click Continue.

18
5. Complete the sections in the Tiering Setup page:
a. S3 Bucket: Add a new S3 bucket or select an existing S3 bucket, select the bucket region, and click
Continue.

When using an on-prem Connector, you must enter the AWS Account ID that provides access to the
existing S3 bucket or new S3 bucket that will be created.

The fabric-pool prefix is used by default because the IAM policy for the Connector enables the instance
to perform S3 actions on buckets named with that exact prefix. For example, you could name the S3
bucket fabric-pool-AFF1, where AFF1 is the name of the cluster. You can define the prefix for the
buckets used for tiering as well. See setting up S3 permissions to make sure you have AWS
permissions that recognize any custom prefix you plan to use.

b. Storage Class: BlueXP tiering manages the lifecycle transitions of your tiered data. Data starts in the
Standard class, but you can create a rule to apply a different storage class to the data after a certain
number of days.

Select the S3 storage class that you want to transition the tiered data to and the number of days before
the data is assigned to that class, and click Continue. For example, the screenshot below shows that
tiered data is assigned to the Standard-IA class from the Standard class after 45 days in object
storage.

If you choose Keep data in this storage class, then the data remains in the Standard storage class
and no rules are applied. See supported storage classes.

19
 Note that the lifecycle rule is applied to all objects in the selected bucket.

c. Credentials: Enter the access key ID and secret key for an IAM user who has the required S3
permissions, and click Continue.

The IAM user must be in the same AWS account as the bucket that you selected or created on the S3
Bucket page.

d. Networking: Enter the networking details and click Continue.

Select the IPspace in the ONTAP cluster where the volumes you want to tier reside. The intercluster
LIFs for this IPspace must have outbound internet access so that they can connect to your cloud
provider’s object storage.

Optionally, choose whether you’ll use an AWS PrivateLink that you have previously configured. See the
setup information above. A dialog box is displayed to help guide you through the endpoint
configuration.

You can also set the network bandwidth available to upload inactive data to object storage by defining
the "Maximum transfer rate". Select the Limited radio button and enter the maximum bandwidth that
can be used, or select Unlimited to indicate that there is no limit.

6. On the Tier Volumes page, select the volumes that you want to configure tiering for and launch the Tiering
Policy page:
◦
To select all volumes, check the box in the title row ( ) and click Configure volumes.
◦ To select multiple volumes, check the box for each volume ( ) and click Configure
volumes.

20
 ◦
To select a single volume, click the row (or icon) for the volume.

7. In the Tiering Policy dialog, select a tiering policy, optionally adjust the cooling days for the selected
volumes, and click Apply.

Learn more about volume tiering policies and cooling days.

Result
You’ve successfully set up data tiering from volumes on the cluster to S3 object storage.

What’s next?
Be sure to subscribe to the BlueXP tiering service.

You can review information about the active and inactive data on the cluster. Learn more about managing your
tiering settings.

You can also create additional object storage in cases where you may want to tier data from certain aggregates
on a cluster to different object stores. Or if you plan to use FabricPool Mirroring where your tiered data is
replicated to an additional object store. Learn more about managing object stores.

Tiering data from on-premises ONTAP clusters to Azure Blob storage

Free space on your on-prem ONTAP clusters by tiering inactive data to Azure Blob
storage.

Quick start

Get started quickly by following these steps, or scroll down to the remaining sections for full details.

21
 Prepare to tier data to Azure Blob storage
You need the following:

• An on-prem ONTAP cluster that’s running ONTAP 9.4 or later and has an HTTPS connection to Azure Blob
storage. Learn how to discover a cluster.
• A Connector installed in an Azure VNet or on your premises.
• Networking for a Connector that enables an outbound HTTPS connection to the ONTAP cluster in your
data center, to Azure storage, and to the BlueXP tiering service.

Set up tiering
In BlueXP, select an on-prem ONTAP working environment, click Enable for the Tiering service, and follow the
prompts to tier data to Azure Blob storage.

Set up licensing
After your free trial ends, pay for BlueXP tiering through a pay-as-you-go subscription, an ONTAP BlueXP
tiering BYOL license, or a combination of both:

• To subscribe from the Azure Marketplace, go to the BlueXP Marketplace offering, click Subscribe, and
then follow the prompts.
• To pay using a BlueXP tiering BYOL license, contact us if you need to purchase one, and then add it to
your account from the BlueXP digital wallet.

Requirements

Verify support for your ONTAP cluster, set up your networking, and prepare your object storage.

The following image shows each component and the connections that you need to prepare between them:

22
 Communication between the Connector and Blob storage is for object storage setup only. The
Connector can reside on your premises, instead of in the cloud.

Preparing your ONTAP clusters

Your ONTAP clusters must meet the following requirements when tiering data to Azure Blob storage.

Supported ONTAP platforms

• When using ONTAP 9.8 and later: You can tier data from AFF systems, or FAS systems with all-SSD
aggregates or all-HDD aggregates.
• When using ONTAP 9.7 and earlier: You can tier data from AFF systems, or FAS systems with all-SSD
aggregates.

Supported ONTAP version

ONTAP 9.4 or later

Cluster networking requirements

• The ONTAP cluster initiates an HTTPS connection over port 443 to Azure Blob storage.

ONTAP reads and writes data to and from object storage. The object storage never initiates, it just
responds.

Although ExpressRoute provides better performance and lower data transfer charges, it’s not required
between the ONTAP cluster and Azure Blob storage. But doing so is the recommended best practice.

• An inbound connection is required from the Connector, which can reside in an Azure VNet or on your

23
 premises.

A connection between the cluster and the BlueXP tiering service is not required.

• An intercluster LIF is required on each ONTAP node that hosts the volumes you want to tier. The LIF
must be associated with the IPspace that ONTAP should use to connect to object storage.

When you set up data tiering, BlueXP tiering prompts you for the IPspace to use. You should choose
the IPspace that each LIF is associated with. That might be the "Default" IPspace or a custom IPspace
that you created. Learn more about LIFs and IPspaces.

Supported volumes and aggregates

The total number of volumes that BlueXP tiering can tier might be less than the number of volumes on your
ONTAP system. That’s because volumes can’t be tiered from some aggregates. Refer to the ONTAP
documentation for functionality or features not supported by FabricPool.

BlueXP tiering supports FlexGroup volumes, starting with ONTAP 9.5. Setup works the same as
any other volume.

Discovering an ONTAP cluster

You need to create an on-prem ONTAP working environment in BlueXP before you can start tiering cold data.

Learn how to discover a cluster.

Creating or switching Connectors

A Connector is required to tier data to the cloud. When tiering data to Azure Blob storage, you can use a
Connector that’s in an Azure VNet or in your premises. You’ll either need to create a new Connector or make
sure that the currently selected Connector resides in Azure or on-prem.

• Learn about Connectors

• Deploying a Connector in Azure
• Installing a Connector on a Linux host

Verify that you have the necessary Connector permissions

If you created the Connector using BlueXP version 3.9.25 or greater, then you’re all set. The custom role that
provides the permissions that a Connector needs to manage resources and processes within your Azure
network will be set up by default. See the required custom role permissions and the specific permissions
required for BlueXP tiering.

If you created the Connector using an earlier version of BlueXP, then you’ll need to edit the permission list for
the Azure account to add any missing permissions.

Preparing networking for the Connector

Ensure that the Connector has the required networking connections. A Connector can be installed on-prem or
in Azure.

Steps
1. Ensure that the network where the Connector is installed enables the following connections:

24
 ◦ An HTTPS connection over port 443 to the BlueXP tiering service and to your Azure Blob object
storage (see the list of endpoints)
◦ An HTTPS connection over port 443 to your ONTAP cluster management LIF
2. If needed, enable a VNet service endpoint to Azure storage.

A VNet service endpoint to Azure storage is recommended if you have an ExpressRoute or VPN
connection from your ONTAP cluster to the VNet and you want communication between the Connector and
Blob storage to stay in your virtual private network.

Preparing Azure Blob storage

When you set up tiering, you need to identify the resource group you want to use, and the storage account and
Azure container that belong to the resource group. A storage account enables BlueXP tiering to authenticate
and access the Blob container used for data tiering.

BlueXP tiering supports tiering to any storage account in any region that can be accessed via the Connector.

BlueXP tiering supports only the General Purpose v2 and Premium Block Blob types of storage accounts.

If you are planning to configure BlueXP tiering to use a lower cost access tier where your tiered
data will transition to after a certain number of days, you must not select any lifecycle rules when
setting up the container in your Azure account. BlueXP tiering manages the lifecycle transitions.

Tiering inactive data from your first cluster to Azure Blob storage

After you prepare your Azure environment, start tiering inactive data from your first cluster.

What you’ll need

An on-premises working environment.

Steps
1. Select the on-prem ONTAP working environment.
2. Click Enable for the Tiering service from the right panel.

If the Azure Blob tiering destination exists as a working environment on the Canvas, you can drag the
cluster onto the Azure Blob working environment to initiate the setup wizard.

25
3. Define Object Storage Name: Enter a name for this object storage. It must be unique from any other
object storage you may be using with aggregates on this cluster.
4. Select Provider: Select Microsoft Azure and click Continue.
5. Complete the steps on the Create Object Storage pages:
a. Resource Group: Select a resource group where an existing container is managed, or where you’d
like to create a new container for tiered data, and click Continue.

When using an on-prem Connector, you must enter the Azure Subscription that provides access to the
resource group.

b. Azure Container: Select the radio button to either add a new Blob container to a storage account or to
use an existing container. Then select the storage account and choose the existing container, or enter
the name for the new container. Then click Continue.

The storage accounts and containers that appear in this step belong to the resource group that you
selected in the previous step.

c. Access Tier Lifecycle: BlueXP tiering manages the lifecycle transitions of your tiered data. Data starts
in the Hot class, but you can create a rule to apply the Cool class to the data after a certain number of
days.

Select the access tier that you want to transition the tiered data to and the number of days before the
data is assigned to that tier, and click Continue. For example, the screenshot below shows that tiered
data is assigned to the Cool class from the Hot class after 45 days in object storage.

If you choose Keep data in this access tier, then the data remains in the Hot access tier and no rules
are applied. See supported access tiers.

26
 Note that the lifecycle rule is applied to all blob containers in the selected storage account.

d. Cluster Network: Select the IPspace that ONTAP should use to connect to object storage, and click
Continue.

Selecting the correct IPspace ensures that BlueXP tiering can set up a connection from ONTAP to your
cloud provider’s object storage.

You can also set the network bandwidth available to upload inactive data to object storage by defining
the "Maximum transfer rate". Select the Limited radio button and enter the maximum bandwidth that
can be used, or select Unlimited to indicate that there is no limit.

6. On the Tier Volumes page, select the volumes that you want to configure tiering for and launch the Tiering
Policy page:
◦
To select all volumes, check the box in the title row ( ) and click Configure volumes.
◦ To select multiple volumes, check the box for each volume ( ) and click Configure
volumes.
◦
To select a single volume, click the row (or icon) for the volume.

7. In the Tiering Policy dialog, select a tiering policy, optionally adjust the cooling days for the selected
volumes, and click Apply.

Learn more about volume tiering policies and cooling days.

27
Result
You’ve successfully set up data tiering from volumes on the cluster to Azure Blob object storage.

What’s next?
Be sure to subscribe to the BlueXP tiering service.

You can review information about the active and inactive data on the cluster. Learn more about managing your
tiering settings.

You can also create additional object storage in cases where you may want to tier data from certain aggregates
on a cluster to different object stores. Or if you plan to use FabricPool Mirroring where your tiered data is
replicated to an additional object store. Learn more about managing object stores.

Tiering data from on-premises ONTAP clusters to Google Cloud Storage

Free space on your on-prem ONTAP clusters by tiering inactive data to Google Cloud
Storage.

Quick start

Get started quickly by following these steps, or scroll down to the remaining sections for full details.

Prepare to tier data to Google Cloud Storage

You need the following:

• An on-prem ONTAP cluster that’s running ONTAP 9.6 or later and has an HTTPS connection to Google
Cloud Storage. Learn how to discover a cluster.
• A service account that has the predefined Storage Admin role and storage access keys.
• A Connector installed in a Google Cloud Platform VPC.
• Networking for the Connector that enables an outbound HTTPS connection to the ONTAP cluster in your
data center, to Google Cloud Storage, and to the BlueXP tiering service.

Set up tiering
In BlueXP, select an on-prem working environment, click Enable for the Tiering service, and follow the prompts

28
to tier data to Google Cloud Storage.

Set up licensing
After your free trial ends, pay for BlueXP tiering through a pay-as-you-go subscription, an ONTAP BlueXP
tiering BYOL license, or a combination of both:

• To subscribe from the GCP Marketplace, go to the BlueXP Marketplace offering, click Subscribe, and then
follow the prompts.
• To pay using a BlueXP tiering BYOL license, contact us if you need to purchase one, and then add it to
your account from the BlueXP digital wallet.

Requirements

Verify support for your ONTAP cluster, set up your networking, and prepare your object storage.

The following image shows each component and the connections that you need to prepare between them:

Communication between the Connector and Google Cloud Storage is for object storage setup
only.

Preparing your ONTAP clusters

Your ONTAP clusters must meet the following requirements when tiering data to Google Cloud Storage.

29
Supported ONTAP platforms
• When using ONTAP 9.8 and later: You can tier data from AFF systems, or FAS systems with all-SSD
aggregates or all-HDD aggregates.
• When using ONTAP 9.7 and earlier: You can tier data from AFF systems, or FAS systems with all-SSD
aggregates.

Supported ONTAP versions

ONTAP 9.6 or later

Cluster networking requirements

• The ONTAP cluster initiates an HTTPS connection over port 443 to Google Cloud Storage.

ONTAP reads and writes data to and from object storage. The object storage never initiates, it just
responds.

Although a Google Cloud Interconnect provides better performance and lower data transfer charges, it’s
not required between the ONTAP cluster and Google Cloud Storage. But doing so is the recommended
best practice.

• An inbound connection is required from the Connector, which resides in a Google Cloud Platform VPC.

A connection between the cluster and the BlueXP tiering service is not required.

• An intercluster LIF is required on each ONTAP node that hosts the volumes you want to tier. The LIF
must be associated with the IPspace that ONTAP should use to connect to object storage.

When you set up data tiering, BlueXP tiering prompts you for the IPspace to use. You should choose
the IPspace that each LIF is associated with. That might be the "Default" IPspace or a custom IPspace
that you created. Learn more about LIFs and IPspaces.

Supported volumes and aggregates

The total number of volumes that BlueXP tiering can tier might be less than the number of volumes on your
ONTAP system. That’s because volumes can’t be tiered from some aggregates. Refer to the ONTAP
documentation for functionality or features not supported by FabricPool.

BlueXP tiering supports FlexGroup volumes. Setup works the same as any other volume.

Discovering an ONTAP cluster

You need to create an on-prem ONTAP working environment in BlueXP before you can start tiering cold data.

Learn how to discover a cluster.

Creating or switching Connectors

A Connector is required to tier data to the cloud. When tiering data to Google Cloud Storage, a Connector must
be available in a Google Cloud Platform VPC. You’ll either need to create a new Connector or make sure that
the currently selected Connector resides in GCP.

• Learn about Connectors

• Deploying a Connector in GCP

30
Preparing networking for the Connector

Ensure that the Connector has the required networking connections.

Steps
1. Ensure that the VPC where the Connector is installed enables the following connections:
◦ An HTTPS connection over port 443 to the BlueXP tiering service and to your Google Cloud Storage
(see the list of endpoints)
◦ An HTTPS connection over port 443 to your ONTAP cluster management LIF
2. Optional: Enable Private Google Access on the subnet where you plan to deploy the Connector.

Private Google Access is recommended if you have a direct connection from your ONTAP cluster to the
VPC and you want communication between the Connector and Google Cloud Storage to stay in your
virtual private network. Note that Private Google Access works with VM instances that have only internal
(private) IP addresses (no external IP addresses).

Preparing Google Cloud Storage

When you set up tiering, you need to provide storage access keys for a service account that has Storage
Admin permissions. A service account enables BlueXP tiering to authenticate and access Cloud Storage
buckets used for data tiering. The keys are required so that Google Cloud Storage knows who is making the
request.

The Cloud Storage buckets must be in a region that supports BlueXP tiering.

If you are planning to configure BlueXP tiering to use lower cost storage classes where your
tiered data will transition to after a certain number of days, you must not select any lifecycle
rules when setting up the bucket in your GCP account. BlueXP tiering manages the lifecycle
transitions.

Steps
1. Create a service account that has the predefined Storage Admin role.
2. Go to GCP Storage Settings and create access keys for the service account:
a. Select a project, and click Interoperability. If you haven’t already done so, click Enable
interoperability access.
b. Under Access keys for service accounts, click Create a key for a service account, select the
service account that you just created, and click Create Key.

You’ll need to enter the keys later when you set up BlueXP tiering.

Tiering inactive data from your first cluster to Google Cloud Storage

After you prepare your Google Cloud environment, start tiering inactive data from your first cluster.

What you’ll need

• An on-premises working environment.
• Storage access keys for a service account that has the Storage Admin role.

Steps

31
1. Select the on-prem ONTAP working environment.
2. Click Enable for the Tiering service from the right panel.

If the Google Cloud Storage tiering destination exists as a working environment on the Canvas, you can
drag the cluster onto the Google Cloud Storage working environment to initiate the setup wizard.

3. Define Object Storage Name: Enter a name for this object storage. It must be unique from any other
object storage you may be using with aggregates on this cluster.
4. Select Provider: Select Google Cloud and click Continue.
5. Complete the steps on the Create Object Storage pages:
a. Bucket: Add a new Google Cloud Storage bucket or select an existing bucket.
b. Storage Class Lifecycle: BlueXP tiering manages the lifecycle transitions of your tiered data. Data
starts in the Standard class, but you can create rules to apply different storage classes after a certain
number of days.

Select the Google Cloud storage class that you want to transition the tiered data to and the number of
days before the data is assigned to that class, and click Continue. For example, the screenshot below
shows that tiered data is assigned to the Nearline class from the Standard class after 30 days in object
storage, and then to the Coldline class after 60 days in object storage.

If you choose Keep data in this storage class, then the data remains in the that storage class. See
supported storage classes.

32
 Note that the lifecycle rule is applied to all objects in the selected bucket.

c. Credentials: Enter the storage access key and secret key for a service account that has the Storage
Admin role.
d. Cluster Network: Select the IPspace that ONTAP should use to connect to object storage.

Selecting the correct IPspace ensures that BlueXP tiering can set up a connection from ONTAP to your
cloud provider’s object storage.

You can also set the network bandwidth available to upload inactive data to object storage by defining
the "Maximum transfer rate". Select the Limited radio button and enter the maximum bandwidth that
can be used, or select Unlimited to indicate that there is no limit.

6. Click Continue to select the volumes that you want to tier.

7. On the Tier Volumes page, select the volumes that you want to configure tiering for and launch the Tiering
Policy page:
◦
To select all volumes, check the box in the title row ( ) and click Configure volumes.
◦ To select multiple volumes, check the box for each volume ( ) and click Configure
volumes.
◦
To select a single volume, click the row (or icon) for the volume.

33
 8. In the Tiering Policy dialog, select a tiering policy, optionally adjust the cooling days for the selected
volumes, and click Apply.

Learn more about volume tiering policies and cooling days.

Result
You’ve successfully set up data tiering from volumes on the cluster to Google Cloud object storage.

What’s next?
Be sure to subscribe to the BlueXP tiering service.

You can review information about the active and inactive data on the cluster. Learn more about managing your
tiering settings.

You can also create additional object storage in cases where you may want to tier data from certain aggregates
on a cluster to different object stores. Or if you plan to use FabricPool Mirroring where your tiered data is
replicated to an additional object store. Learn more about managing object stores.

Tiering data from on-premises ONTAP clusters to StorageGRID

Free space on your on-prem ONTAP clusters by tiering inactive data to StorageGRID.

Quick start

Get started quickly by following these steps, or scroll down to the remaining sections for full details.

Prepare to tier data to StorageGRID

You need the following:

• An on-prem ONTAP cluster that’s running ONTAP 9.4 or later, and a connection over a user-specified port
to StorageGRID. Learn how to discover a cluster.
• StorageGRID 10.3 or later with AWS access keys that have S3 permissions.
• A Connector installed on your premises.
• Networking for the Connector that enables an outbound HTTPS connection to the ONTAP cluster, to
StorageGRID, and to the BlueXP tiering service.

34
 Set up tiering
In BlueXP, select an on-prem working environment, click Enable for the Tiering service, and follow the prompts
to tier data to StorageGRID.

Requirements

Verify support for your ONTAP cluster, set up your networking, and prepare your object storage.

The following image shows each component and the connections that you need to prepare between them:

Communication between the Connector and StorageGRID is for object storage setup only.

Preparing your ONTAP clusters

Your ONTAP clusters must meet the following requirements when tiering data to StorageGRID.

Supported ONTAP platforms

• When using ONTAP 9.8 and later: You can tier data from AFF systems, or FAS systems with all-SSD
aggregates or all-HDD aggregates.
• When using ONTAP 9.7 and earlier: You can tier data from AFF systems, or FAS systems with all-SSD
aggregates.

Supported ONTAP version

ONTAP 9.4 or later

Licensing
A BlueXP tiering license isn’t required in your BlueXP account, nor is a FabricPool license required on the
ONTAP cluster, when tiering data to StorageGRID.

35
Cluster networking requirements
• The ONTAP cluster initiates an HTTPS connection over a user-specified port to the StorageGRID
Gateway Node (the port is configurable during tiering setup).

ONTAP reads and writes data to and from object storage. The object storage never initiates, it just
responds.

• An inbound connection is required from the Connector, which must reside on your premises.

A connection between the cluster and the BlueXP tiering service is not required.

• An intercluster LIF is required on each ONTAP node that hosts the volumes you want to tier. The LIF
must be associated with the IPspace that ONTAP should use to connect to object storage.

When you set up data tiering, BlueXP tiering prompts you for the IPspace to use. You should choose
the IPspace that each LIF is associated with. That might be the "Default" IPspace or a custom IPspace
that you created. Learn more about LIFs and IPspaces.

Supported volumes and aggregates

The total number of volumes that BlueXP tiering can tier might be less than the number of volumes on your
ONTAP system. That’s because volumes can’t be tiered from some aggregates. Refer to the ONTAP
documentation for functionality or features not supported by FabricPool.

BlueXP tiering supports FlexGroup volumes, starting with ONTAP 9.5. Setup works the same as
any other volume.

Discovering an ONTAP cluster

You need to create an on-prem ONTAP working environment in the BlueXP Canvas before you can start tiering
cold data.

Learn how to discover a cluster.

Preparing StorageGRID

StorageGRID must meet the following requirements.

Supported StorageGRID versions

StorageGRID 10.3 and later is supported.

S3 credentials
When you set up tiering to StorageGRID, you need to provide BlueXP tiering with an S3 access key and
secret key. BlueXP tiering uses the keys to access your buckets.

These access keys must be associated with a user who has the following permissions:

36
 "s3:ListAllMyBuckets",
"s3:ListBucket",
"s3:GetObject",
"s3:PutObject",
"s3:DeleteObject",
"s3:CreateBucket"

Object versioning
You must not enable StorageGRID object versioning on the object store bucket.

Creating or switching Connectors

A Connector is required to tier data to the cloud. When tiering data to StorageGRID, a Connector must be
available on your premises. You’ll either need to install a new Connector or make sure that the currently
selected Connector resides on-prem.

• Learn about Connectors

• Install and set up a Connector on premises
• Switch between Connectors

Preparing networking for the Connector

Ensure that the Connector has the required networking connections.

Steps
1. Ensure that the network where the Connector is installed enables the following connections:
◦ An HTTPS connection over port 443 to the BlueXP tiering service (see the list of endpoints)
◦ An HTTPS connection over port 443 to your StorageGRID system
◦ An HTTPS connection over port 443 to your ONTAP cluster management LIF

Tiering inactive data from your first cluster to StorageGRID

After you prepare your environment, start tiering inactive data from your first cluster.

What you’ll need

• An on-premises working environment.
• The FQDN of the StorageGRID Gateway Node, and the port that will be used for HTTPS communications.
• An AWS access key that has the required S3 permissions.

Steps
1. Select the on-prem ONTAP working environment.
2. Click Enable for the Tiering service from the right panel.

If the StorageGRID tiering destination exists as a working environment on the Canvas, you can drag the
cluster onto the StorageGRID working environment to initiate the setup wizard.

37
3. Define Object Storage Name: Enter a name for this object storage. It must be unique from any other
object storage you may be using with aggregates on this cluster.
4. Select Provider: Select StorageGRID and click Continue.
5. Complete the steps on the Create Object Storage pages:
a. Server: Enter the FQDN of the StorageGRID Gateway Node, the port that ONTAP should use for
HTTPS communication with StorageGRID, and the access key and secret key for an account that has
the required S3 permissions.
b. Bucket: Add a new bucket or select an existing bucket that starts with the prefix fabric-pool and click
Continue.

The fabric-pool prefix is required because the IAM policy for the Connector enables the instance to
perform S3 actions on buckets named with that exact prefix. For example, you could name the S3
bucket fabric-pool-AFF1, where AFF1 is the name of the cluster.

c. Cluster Network: Select the IPspace that ONTAP should use to connect to object storage and click
Continue.

Selecting the correct IPspace ensures that BlueXP tiering can set up a connection from ONTAP to
StorageGRID object storage.

You can also set the network bandwidth available to upload inactive data to object storage by defining
the "Maximum transfer rate". Select the Limited radio button and enter the maximum bandwidth that
can be used, or select Unlimited to indicate that there is no limit.

6. On the Tier Volumes page, select the volumes that you want to configure tiering for and launch the Tiering
Policy page:
◦
To select all volumes, check the box in the title row ( ) and click Configure volumes.
◦ To select multiple volumes, check the box for each volume ( ) and click Configure
volumes.
◦
To select a single volume, click the row (or icon) for the volume.

38
 7. In the Tiering Policy dialog, select a tiering policy, optionally adjust the cooling days for the selected
volumes, and click Apply.

Learn more about volume tiering policies and cooling days.

Result
You’ve successfully set up data tiering from volumes on the cluster to StorageGRID.

What’s next?
You can review information about the active and inactive data on the cluster. Learn more about managing your
tiering settings.

You can also create additional object storage in cases where you may want to tier data from certain aggregates
on a cluster to different object stores. Or if you plan to use FabricPool Mirroring where your tiered data is
replicated to an additional object store. Learn more about managing object stores.

Tiering data from on-premises ONTAP clusters to S3 object storage

Free space on your on-prem ONTAP clusters by tiering inactive data to any object
storage service which uses the Simple Storage Service (S3) protocol.
At this time, MinIO object storage has been qualified.

Customers who want to use object stores that are not officially supported as a cloud tier can do
so using these instructions. Customers must test and confirm that the object store meets their
requirements.

NetApp does not support, nor is liable, for any issues arising from any third-party Object Store
Service, specifically where it does not have agreed support arrangements with the third party
with whom the product originated. It is acknowledged and agreed that NetApp shall not be liable
for any associated damage or otherwise be required to provide support on that third-party
product.

Quick start

Get started quickly by following these steps, or scroll down to the remaining sections for full details.

39
 Prepare to tier data to S3-compatible object storage
You need the following:

• A source on-prem ONTAP cluster that’s running ONTAP 9.8 or later, and a connection over a user-
specified port to the destination S3-compatible object storage. Learn how to discover a cluster.
• The FQDN, Access Key, and Secret Key for the object storage server so that the ONTAP cluster can
access the bucket.
• A Connector installed on your premises.
• Networking for the Connector that enables an outbound HTTPS connection to the source ONTAP cluster,
to the S3-compatible object storage, and to the BlueXP tiering service.

Set up tiering
In BlueXP, select an on-prem working environment, click Enable for the Tiering service, and follow the prompts
to tier data to S3-compatible object storage.

Set up licensing
Pay for BlueXP tiering through a pay-as-you-go subscription from your cloud provider, a NetApp BlueXP tiering
bring-your-own-license, or a combination of both:

• To subscribe to the BlueXP PAYGO offering from the AWS Marketplace, Azure Marketplace, or GCP
Marketplace, click Subscribe and follow the prompts.
• To pay using a BlueXP tiering BYOL license, contact us if you need to purchase one, and then add it to
your account from the BlueXP digital wallet.

Requirements

Verify support for your ONTAP cluster, set up your networking, and prepare your object storage.

The following image shows each component and the connections that you need to prepare between them:

40
 Communication between the Connector and the S3-compatible object storage server is for
object storage setup only.

Preparing your ONTAP clusters

Your source ONTAP clusters must meet the following requirements when tiering data to S3-compatible object
storage.

Supported ONTAP platforms

You can tier data from AFF systems, or FAS systems with all-SSD aggregates or all-HDD aggregates.

Supported ONTAP version

ONTAP 9.8 or later

Cluster networking requirements

• The ONTAP cluster initiates an HTTPS connection over a user-specified port to S3-compatible object
storage (the port is configurable during tiering setup).

The source ONTAP system reads and writes data to and from object storage. The object storage never
initiates, it just responds.

• An inbound connection is required from the Connector, which must reside on your premises.

A connection between the cluster and the BlueXP tiering service is not required.

• An intercluster LIF is required on each ONTAP node that hosts the volumes you want to tier. The LIF
must be associated with the IPspace that ONTAP should use to connect to object storage.

When you set up data tiering, BlueXP tiering prompts you for the IPspace to use. You should choose
the IPspace that each LIF is associated with. That might be the "Default" IPspace or a custom IPspace
that you created. Learn more about LIFs and IPspaces.

41
Supported volumes and aggregates
The total number of volumes that BlueXP tiering can tier might be less than the number of volumes on your
ONTAP system. That’s because volumes can’t be tiered from some aggregates. Refer to the ONTAP
documentation for functionality or features not supported by FabricPool.

BlueXP tiering supports both FlexVol and FlexGroup volumes.

Discovering an ONTAP cluster

You need to create an on-prem ONTAP working environment in the BlueXP Canvas before you can start tiering
cold data.

Learn how to discover a cluster.

Preparing S3-compatible object storage

S3-compatible object storage must meet the following requirements.

S3 credentials
When you set up tiering to S3-compatible object storage, you’re prompted to create an S3 bucket or to
select an existing S3 bucket. You need to provide BlueXP tiering with an S3 access key and secret key.
BlueXP tiering uses the keys to access your bucket.

These access keys must be associated with a user who has the following permissions:

"s3:ListAllMyBuckets",
"s3:ListBucket",
"s3:GetObject",
"s3:PutObject",
"s3:DeleteObject",
"s3:CreateBucket"

Creating or switching Connectors

A Connector is required to tier data to the cloud. When tiering data to S3-compatible object storage, a
Connector must be available on your premises. You’ll either need to install a new Connector or make sure that
the currently selected Connector resides on-prem.

• Learn about Connectors

• Install and set up a Connector on premises
• Switch between Connectors

Preparing networking for the Connector

Ensure that the Connector has the required networking connections.

Steps
1. Ensure that the network where the Connector is installed enables the following connections:
◦ An HTTPS connection over port 443 to the BlueXP tiering service (see the list of endpoints)

42
 ◦ An HTTPS connection over port 443 to S3-compatible object storage
◦ An HTTPS connection over port 443 to your ONTAP cluster management LIF

Tiering inactive data from your first cluster to S3-compatible object storage

After you prepare your environment, start tiering inactive data from your first cluster.

What you’ll need

• An on-premises working environment.
• The FQDN of the S3-compatible object storage server and the port that will be used for HTTPS
communications.
• An access key and secret key that has the required S3 permissions.

Steps
1. Select the on-prem ONTAP working environment.
2. Click Enable for the Tiering service from the right panel.

3. Define Object Storage Name: Enter a name for this object storage. It must be unique from any other
object storage you may be using with aggregates on this cluster.
4. Select Provider: Select S3 Compatible and click Continue.
5. Complete the steps on the Create Object Storage pages:
a. Server: Enter the FQDN of the S3-compatible object storage server, the port that ONTAP should use
for HTTPS communication with the server, and the access key and secret key for an account that has
the required S3 permissions.
b. Bucket: Add a new bucket or select an existing bucket and click Continue.
c. Cluster Network: Select the IPspace that ONTAP should use to connect to object storage and click
Continue.

Selecting the correct IPspace ensures that BlueXP tiering can set up a connection from ONTAP to your
S3-compatible object storage.

You can also set the network bandwidth available to upload inactive data to object storage by defining

43
 the "Maximum transfer rate". Select the Limited radio button and enter the maximum bandwidth that
can be used, or select Unlimited to indicate that there is no limit.

6. On the Success page click Continue to set up your volumes now.

7. On the Tier Volumes page, select the volumes that you want to configure tiering for and click Continue:
◦
To select all volumes, check the box in the title row ( ) and click Configure volumes.
◦ To select multiple volumes, check the box for each volume ( ) and click Configure
volumes.
◦
To select a single volume, click the row (or icon) for the volume.

8. In the Tiering Policy dialog, select a tiering policy, optionally adjust the cooling days for the selected
volumes, and click Apply.

Learn more about volume tiering policies and cooling days.

Result
You’ve successfully set up data tiering from volumes on the cluster to S3-compatible object storage.

What’s next?
Be sure to subscribe to the BlueXP tiering service.

You can review information about the active and inactive data on the cluster. Learn more about managing your
tiering settings.

You can also create additional object storage in cases where you may want to tier data from certain aggregates
on a cluster to different object stores. Or if you plan to use FabricPool Mirroring where your tiered data is
replicated to an additional object store. Learn more about managing object stores.

44
Set up licensing for BlueXP tiering
A 30-day free trial of BlueXP tiering starts when you set up tiering from your first cluster.
After the free trial ends, you’ll need to pay for BlueXP tiering through a pay-as-you-go or
annual subscription from your cloud provider’s marketplace, a BYOL license from
NetApp, or a combination of both.
A few notes before you read any further:

• If you’ve already subscribed to the BlueXP subscription (PAYGO) in your cloud provider’s marketplace,
then you’re automatically subscribed to BlueXP tiering for on-premises ONTAP systems as well. You’ll see
an active subscription in the BlueXP tiering On-Premises dashboard tab. You won’t need to subscribe
again. You’ll see an active subscription in the BlueXP digital wallet.
• The BYOL BlueXP tiering license (previously known as a "Cloud Tiering" license) is a floating license that
you can use across multiple on-premises ONTAP clusters in your BlueXP account. This is different (and
much easier) than in the past where you purchased a FabricPool license for each cluster.
• There are no charges when tiering data to StorageGRID, so neither a BYOL license or PAYGO registration
is required. This tiered data doesn’t count against the capacity purchased in your license.

Learn more about how licensing works for BlueXP tiering.

30-day free trial

If you don’t have a BlueXP tiering license, a 30-day free trial of BlueXP tiering starts when you set up tiering to
your first cluster. After the 30-day free trial ends, you’ll need to pay for BlueXP tiering through a pay-as-you-go
subscription, annual subscription, a BYOL license, or a combination.

If your free trial ends and you haven’t subscribed or added a license, then ONTAP no longer tiers cold data to
object storage. All previously tiered data remains accessible; meaning you can retrieve and use this data.
When retrieved, this data is moved back to the performance tier from the cloud.

Use a BlueXP tiering PAYGO subscription

Pay-as-you-go subscriptions from your cloud provider’s marketplace enable you to license the use of Cloud
Volumes ONTAP systems and many Cloud Data Services, such as BlueXP tiering.

Subscribing from the AWS Marketplace

Subscribe to BlueXP tiering from the AWS Marketplace to set up a pay-as-you-go subscription for data tiering
from ONTAP clusters to AWS S3.

Steps
1. In BlueXP, click Mobility > Tiering > On-Premises Dashboard.
2. In the Marketplace subscriptions section, click Subscribe under Amazon Web Services and then click
Continue.
3. Subscribe from the AWS Marketplace, and then log back into the BlueXP website to complete the
registration.

The following video shows the process:

► https://docs.netapp.com/us-en/bluexp-tiering//media/video_subscribing_aws_tiering.mp4 (video)

45
Subscribing from the Azure Marketplace

Subscribe to BlueXP tiering from the Azure Marketplace to set up a pay-as-you-go subscription for data tiering
from ONTAP clusters to Azure Blob storage.

Steps
1. In BlueXP, click Mobility > Tiering > On-Premises Dashboard.
2. In the Marketplace subscriptions section, click Subscribe under Microsoft Azure and then click Continue.
3. Subscribe from the Azure Marketplace, and then log back into the BlueXP website to complete the
registration.

The following video shows the process:

► https://docs.netapp.com/us-en/bluexp-tiering//media/video_subscribing_azure_tiering.mp4 (video)

Subscribing from the Google Cloud Marketplace

Subscribe to BlueXP tiering from the Google Cloud Marketplace to set up a pay-as-you-go subscription for
data tiering from ONTAP clusters to Google Cloud storage.

Steps
1. In BlueXP, click Mobility > Tiering > On-Premises Dashboard.
2. In the Marketplace subscriptions section, click Subscribe under Google Cloud and then click Continue.
3. Subscribe from the Google Cloud Marketplace, and then log back into the BlueXP website to complete the
registration.

The following video shows the process:

► https://docs.netapp.com/us-en/bluexp-tiering//media/video_subscribing_gcp_tiering.mp4 (video)

Use an annual contract

Pay for BlueXP tiering annually by purchasing an annual contract. Annual contracts are available in 1-, 2-, or 3-
year terms.

When tiering inactive data to AWS, you can subscribe to an annual contract from the AWS Marketplace page.
If you want to use this option, set up your subscription from the Marketplace page and then associate the
subscription with your AWS credentials.

When tiering inactive data to Azure, you can subscribe to an annual contract from the Azure Marketplace page.
If you want to use this option, set up your subscription from the Marketplace page and then associate the
subscription with your Azure credentials.

Annual contracts are not currently supported when tiering to Google Cloud.

Use a BlueXP tiering BYOL license

Bring-your-own licenses from NetApp provide 1-, 2-, or 3-year terms. The BYOL BlueXP tiering license
(previously known as a "Cloud Tiering" license) is a floating license that you can use across multiple on-
premises ONTAP clusters in your BlueXP account. The total tiering capacity defined in your BlueXP tiering
license is shared among all of your on-prem clusters, making initial licensing and renewal easy. The minimum

46
capacity for a tiering BYOL license starts at 10 TiB.

If you don’t have a BlueXP tiering license, contact us to purchase one:

• Send email to purchase a license.

• Click the chat icon in the lower-right of BlueXP to request a license.

Optionally, if you have an unassigned node-based license for Cloud Volumes ONTAP that you won’t be using,
you can convert it to a BlueXP tiering license with the same dollar-equivalence and the same expiration date.
Go here for details.

You use the BlueXP digital wallet page to manage BlueXP tiering BYOL licenses. You can add new licenses
and update existing licenses.

BlueXP tiering BYOL licensing starting in 2021

The new BlueXP tiering license was introduced in August 2021 for tiering configurations that are supported
within BlueXP using the BlueXP tiering service. BlueXP currently supports tiering to the following cloud
storage: Amazon S3, Azure Blob storage, Google Cloud Storage, NetApp StorageGRID, and S3-compatible
object storage.

The FabricPool license that you may have used in the past to tier on-premises ONTAP data to the cloud is
being retained only for ONTAP deployments in sites that have no internet access (also known as "dark sites"),
and for tiering configurations to IBM Cloud Object Storage. If you’re using this type of configuration, you’ll
install a FabricPool license on each cluster using System Manager or the ONTAP CLI.

Note that tiering to StorageGRID does not require a FabricPool or BlueXP tiering license.

If you are currently using FabricPool licensing, you’re not affected until your FabricPool license reaches its
expiration date or maximum capacity. Contact NetApp when you need to update your license, or earlier to
make sure there is no interruption in your ability to tier data to the cloud.

• If you’re using a configuration that’s supported in BlueXP, your FabricPool licenses will be converted to
BlueXP tiering licenses and they’ll appear in the BlueXP digital wallet. When those initial licenses expire,
you’ll need to update the BlueXP tiering licenses.
• If you’re using a configuration that’s not supported in BlueXP, then you’ll continue using a FabricPool
license. See how to license tiering using System Manager.

Here are some things you need to know about the two licenses:

BlueXP tiering license FabricPool license

It is a floating license that you can use across It is a per-cluster license that you purchase and
multiple on-premises ONTAP clusters. license for every cluster.
It is registered in the BlueXP digital wallet. It is applied to individual clusters using System
Manager or the ONTAP CLI.
Tiering configuration and management is done Tiering configuration and management is done
through the BlueXP tiering service in BlueXP. through System Manager or the ONTAP CLI.
Once configured, you can use the tiering service Once configured, you can tier the first 10 TB of
without a license for 30 days using the free trial. data for free.

47
Obtain your BlueXP tiering license file

After you’ve purchased your BlueXP tiering license, you activate the license in BlueXP either by entering the
BlueXP tiering serial number and NSS account, or by uploading the NLF license file. The steps below show
how to get the NLF license file if you plan to use that method.

Before you begin

You’ll need to have the following information before you start:

• BlueXP tiering serial number

Locate this number from your Sales Order, or contact the account team for this information.

• BlueXP Account ID

You can find your BlueXP Account ID by selecting the Account drop-down from the top of BlueXP, and
then clicking Manage Account next to your account. Your Account ID is in the Overview tab.

Steps
1. Sign in to the NetApp Support Site and click Systems > Software Licenses.
2. Enter your BlueXP tiering license serial number.

3. In the License Key column, click Get NetApp License File.

4. Enter your BlueXP Account ID (this is called a Tenant ID on the support site) and click Submit to download
the license file.

48
Add BlueXP tiering BYOL licenses to your account

After you purchase a BlueXP tiering license for your BlueXP account, you need to add the license to BlueXP to
use the BlueXP tiering service.

Steps
1. Click Governance > Digital wallet > Data Services Licenses.
2. Click Add License.
3. In the Add License dialog, enter the license information and click Add License:
◦ If you have the tiering license serial number and know your NSS account, select the Enter Serial
Number option and enter that information.

If your NetApp Support Site account isn’t available from the drop-down list, add the NSS account to
BlueXP.

◦ If you have the tiering license file, select the Upload License File option and follow the prompts to
attach the file.

Result
BlueXP adds the license so that your BlueXP tiering service is active.

Update a BlueXP tiering BYOL license

If your licensed term is nearing the expiration date, or if your licensed capacity is reaching the limit, you’ll be
notified in BlueXP tiering.

This status also appears in the BlueXP digital wallet page.

49
You can update your BlueXP tiering license before it expires so that there is no interruption in your ability to tier
your data to the cloud.

Steps
1. Click the chat icon in the lower-right of BlueXP to request an extension to your term or additional capacity
to your BlueXP tiering license for the particular serial number.

After you pay for the license and it is registered with the NetApp Support Site, BlueXP automatically
updates the license in the BlueXP digital wallet and the Data Services Licenses page will reflect the change
in 5 to 10 minutes.

2. If BlueXP can’t automatically update the license, then you’ll need to manually upload the license file.
a. You can obtain the license file from the NetApp Support Site.
b. On the BlueXP digital wallet page in the Data Services Licenses tab, click for the service serial
number you are updating, and click Update License.

c. In the Update License page, upload the license file and click Update License.

Result
BlueXP updates the license so that your BlueXP tiering service continues to be active.

Apply BlueXP tiering licenses to clusters in special configurations

ONTAP clusters in the following configurations can use BlueXP tiering licenses, but the license must be applied
in a different manner than single-node clusters, HA-configured clusters, clusters in Tiering Mirror
configurations, and MetroCluster configurations using FabricPool Mirror:

50
 • Clusters that are tiered to IBM Cloud Object Storage
• Clusters that are installed in "dark sites"

Process for existing clusters that have a FabricPool license

When you discover any of these special cluster types in BlueXP tiering, BlueXP tiering recognizes the
FabricPool license and adds the license into the BlueXP digital wallet. Those clusters will continue tiering data
as usual. When the FabricPool license expires, you’ll need to purchase a BlueXP tiering license.

Process for newly created clusters

When you discover typical clusters in BlueXP tiering, you’ll configure tiering using the BlueXP tiering interface.
In these cases the following actions happen:

1. The "parent" BlueXP tiering license tracks the capacity being used for tiering by all clusters to make sure
there is enough capacity in the license. The total licensed capacity and expiration date are shown in the
BlueXP digital wallet.
2. A "child" tiering license is automatically installed on each cluster to communicate with the "parent" license.

The licensed capacity and expiration date shown in System Manager or in the ONTAP CLI for
the "child" license is not the real information, so don’t be concerned if the information is not the
same. These values are managed internally by the BlueXP tiering software. The real information
is tracked in the BlueXP digital wallet.

For the two configurations listed above, you’ll need to configure tiering using System Manager or the ONTAP
CLI (not by using the BlueXP tiering interface). So in these cases you’ll need to push the "child" license to
these clusters manually from the BlueXP tiering interface.

Note that since data is tiered to two different object storage locations for Tiering Mirror configurations, you’ll
need to purchase a license with enough capacity for tiering data to both locations.

Steps
1. Install and configure your ONTAP clusters using System Manager or the ONTAP CLI.

Do not configure tiering at this point.

2. Purchase a BlueXP tiering license for the capacity needed for the new cluster, or clusters.
3. In BlueXP, add the license to the BlueXP digital wallet.
4. In BlueXP tiering, discover the new clusters.
5. From the Clusters page, click for the cluster and select Deploy License.

6. In the Deploy License dialog, click Deploy.

The child license is deployed to the ONTAP cluster.

51
 7. Return to System Manager or the ONTAP CLI and set up your tiering configuration.

FabricPool Mirror configuration information

FabricPool MetroCluster configuration information

Tiering to IBM Cloud Object Storage information

BlueXP tiering technical FAQ

This FAQ can help if you’re just looking for a quick answer to a question.

BlueXP tiering service

The following FAQs relate to how BlueXP tiering works.

What are the benefits of using the BlueXP tiering service?

BlueXP tiering addresses the challenges that come with rapid data growth, providing you with benefits such as:

• Effortless data center extension to the cloud, providing up to 50x more space
• Storage optimization, yielding an average storage savings of 70%
• Reduced total cost of ownership by 30%, on average
• No need to refactor applications

What kind of data is useful to tier to the cloud?

Essentially, any data that is considered inactive on both primary and secondary storage systems is a good
target to move to the cloud. On primary systems, such data can include snapshots, historical records, and
finished projects. On secondary systems, this includes all volumes that contain copies of primary data made for
DR and backup purposes.

Can I tier data from both NAS volumes and SAN volumes?

Yes, you can tier data from NAS volumes to the public cloud or to private clouds, like StorageGRID. When
tiering data that is accessed by SAN protocols, NetApp recommends using private clouds because SAN
protocols are more sensitive to connectivity issues than NAS.

What is the definition of inactive data or infrequently used data, and how is that controlled?

The definition of what can also be referred to cold data is: "volume blocks (metadata excluded) that have not
been accessed for some amount of time". The “amount of time” is determined by a tiering policy attribute
named cooling-days.

Will BlueXP tiering retain my storage efficiency savings in the cloud tier?

Yes, the ONTAP volume-level storage efficiencies such as compression, deduplication, and compaction are
preserved when moving data to the cloud tier.

52
What is the difference between FabricPool and BlueXP tiering?

FabricPool is the ONTAP tiering technology that can be self-managed through the ONTAP CLI and System
Manager, or managed as-a-service through BlueXP tiering. BlueXP tiering turns FabricPool into a managed
service with advanced automation processes, on both ONTAP and in the cloud, providing greater visibility and
control over tiering across hybrid and multi-cloud deployments.

Can the data tiered to the cloud be used for disaster recovery or for backup/archive?

No. Since the volume’s metadata is never tiered from the performance tier, the data stored in object storage
cannot be accessed directly.

However, BlueXP tiering can be used to achieve cost-effective backup and DR by enabling it on secondary
systems and SnapMirror destination volumes (DP volumes), to tier off all of the data (metadata excluded), thus
reducing your data center footprint and TCO.

Is BlueXP tiering applied at the volume or aggregate level?

BlueXP tiering is enabled at the volume level by associating a tiering policy with each volume. Cold data
identification is done at the block level.

How does BlueXP tiering determine which blocks to tier to the cloud?

The tiering policy associated with the volume is the mechanism that controls which blocks are tiered and when.
The policy defines the type of data blocks (snapshots, user data, or both) and the cooling period. See Volume
Tiering Policies for details.

How does BlueXP tiering affect the volume capacity?

BlueXP tiering has no effect on the volume’s capacity but rather on the aggregate’s performance tier usage.

Does BlueXP tiering enable Inactive Data Reporting?

Yes, BlueXP tiering enables Inactive Data Reporting (IDR) on each aggregate. This setting enables us to
identify the amount of inactive data that can be tiered to low-cost object storage.

How long does it take IDR to show information from the moment I start running it?

IDR starts showing information after the configured cooling period has passed. Using ONTAP 9.7 and earlier,
IDR had a non-adjustable cooling period of 31 days. Starting with ONTAP 9.8, the IDR cooling-period can be
configured up to 183 days.

Licenses and Costs

The following FAQs relate to licensing and costs to use BlueXP tiering.

How much does using BlueXP tiering cost?

When tiering cold data to the public cloud:

• For the pay-as-you-go (PAYGO), usage-based subscription: $0.05 per GB/Month.

• For the annual (BYOL), term-based subscription: starting from $0.033 per GB/Month.

See pricing details.

53
When tiering cold data to a NetApp StorageGRID system (private cloud) there is no cost.

Can I have both a BYOL and PAYGO license for the same ONTAP cluster?

Yes. BlueXP tiering allows you to use a BYOL license, a PAYGO subscription, or a combination of both.

What happens if I have reached the BYOL capacity limit?

If you reach the BYOL capacity limit, tiering of new cold data stops. All previously tiered data remains
accessible; meaning you can retrieve and use this data. When retrieved, this data is moved back to the
performance tier from the cloud.

However, if you have a PAYGO marketplace subscription to the BlueXP - Deploy & Manage Cloud Data
Services, new cold data will continue to be tiered to object storage and you’ll pay for those charges on a per-
use basis.

Does the BlueXP tiering license include the egress charges from the cloud provider?

No, it does not.

Is rehydration of on-prem systems subject to the egress cost charged by the cloud providers?

Yes. All reads from the public cloud are subject to egress fees.

How can I estimate my cloud charges? Is there a “what if” mode for BlueXP tiering?

The best way to estimate how much a cloud provider will charge for hosting your data is to use their
calculators: AWS, Azure and Google Cloud.

Are there any extra charges by the cloud providers for reading/retrieving data from the object storage
to the on-prem storage?

Yes. Check Amazon S3 Pricing, Block Blob Pricing, and Cloud Storage Pricing for additional pricing incurred
with data reading/retrieving.

How can I estimate my volumes' savings and get a cold data report before I enable BlueXP tiering?

To get an estimate, simply add your ONTAP cluster to BlueXP and inspect it through the BlueXP tiering
Clusters page. Click Calculate potential tiering savings for the cluster to launch the BlueXP tiering TCO
calculator to see how much money you can save.

ONTAP
The following questions relate to ONTAP.

Which ONTAP versions does BlueXP tiering support?

BlueXP tiering supports ONTAP version 9.2 and higher.

What types of ONTAP systems are supported?

BlueXP tiering is supported with single-node and high-availability AFF, FAS, and ONTAP Select clusters.
Clusters in FabricPool Mirror configurations and MetroCluster configurations are also supported.

54
Can I tier data from FAS systems with HDDs only?

Yes, starting ONTAP 9.8 you can tier data from volumes hosted on HDD aggregates.

Can I tier data from an AFF joined to a cluster that has FAS nodes with HDDs?

Yes. BlueXP tiering can be configured to tier volumes hosted on any aggregate. The data tiering configuration
is irrelevant to the type of controller used and whether the cluster is heterogeneous or not.

What about Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

If you have Cloud Volumes ONTAP systems, you’ll find them in the BlueXP tiering Clusters page so you get a
full view of data tiering in your hybrid cloud infrastructure. However, Cloud Volumes ONTAP systems are read-
only from BlueXP tiering. You can’t set up data tiering on Cloud Volumes ONTAP from BlueXP tiering. You set
up tiering for Cloud Volumes ONTAP systems from the working environment in BlueXP.

What other requirements are necessary for my ONTAP clusters?

It depends on where you tier the cold data. Refer to the following links for more details:

• Tiering data to Amazon S3

• Tiering data to Azure Blob storage
• Tiering data to Google Cloud Storage
• Tiering data to StorageGRID
• Tiering data to S3 object storage

Object storage
The following questions relate to object storage.

Which object storage providers are supported?

BlueXP tiering supports the following object storage providers:

• Amazon S3
• Microsoft Azure Blob
• Google Cloud Storage
• NetApp StorageGRID
• S3-compatible object storage (for example, MinIO)
• IBM Cloud Object Storage (the FabricPool configuration must be done using System Manager or the
ONTAP CLI)

Can I use my own bucket/container?

Yes, you can. When you set up data tiering, you have the choice to add a new bucket/container or to select an
existing bucket/container.

Which regions are supported?

• Supported AWS regions

55
 • Supported Azure regions
• Supported Google Cloud regions

Which S3 storage classes are supported?

BlueXP tiering supports data tiering to the Standard, Standard-Infrequent Access, One Zone-Infrequent
Access, Intelligent Tiering, and Glacier Instant Retrieval storage classes. See Supported S3 storage classes
for more details.

Why are Amazon S3 Glacier Flexible and S3 Glacier Deep Archive not supported by BlueXP tiering?

The main reason Amazon S3 Glacier Flexible and S3 Glacier Deep Archive aren’t supported is that BlueXP
tiering is designed as a high-performance tiering solution, so data must be continuously available and quickly
accessible for retrieval. With S3 Glacier Flexible and S3 Glacier Deep Archive, data retrieval can last anywhere
between a few minutes to 48 hours.

Can I use other S3-compatible object storage services, such as MinIO, with BlueXP tiering?

Yes, configuring S3-compatible object storage through the Tiering UI is supported for clusters using ONTAP 9.8
and later. See the details here.

Which Azure Blob access tiers are supported?

BlueXP tiering supports data tiering to the Hot or Cool access tiers for your inactive data. See Supported Azure
Blob access tiers for more details.

Which storage classes are supported for Google Cloud Storage?

BlueXP tiering supports data tiering to the Standard, Nearline, Coldline, and Archive storage classes. See
Supported Google Cloud storage classes for more details.

Does BlueXP tiering support the use of lifecycle management policies?

Yes. You can enable lifecycle management so that BlueXP tiering transitions data from the default storage
class/access tier to a more cost-effective tier after a certain number of days. The lifecycle rule is applied to all
objects in the selected bucket for Amazon S3 and Google Cloud storage, and to all containers in the selected
storage account for Azure Blob.

Does BlueXP tiering use one object store for the entire cluster or one per aggregate?

In a typical configuration there is one object store for the entire cluster. Starting in August 2022, you can use
the Advanced Setup page to add additional object stores for a cluster, and then attach different object stores
to different aggregates, or attach 2 object stores to an aggregate for mirroring.

Can multiple buckets be attached to the same aggregate?

It is possible to attach up to two buckets per aggregate for the purpose of mirroring, where cold data is
synchronously tiered to both buckets. The buckets can be from different providers and different locations.
Starting in August 2022, you can use the Advanced Setup page to attach two object stores to a single
aggregate.

56
Can different buckets be attached to different aggregates in the same cluster?

Yes. The general best practice is to attach a single bucket to multiple aggregates. However, when using the
public cloud there is a maximum IOPS limitation for the object storage services, therefore multiple buckets
must be considered.

What happens with the tiered data when you migrate a volume from one cluster to another?

When migrating a volume from one cluster to another, all the cold data is read from the cloud tier. The write
location on the destination cluster depends on whether tiering was enabled and the type of tiering policy used
on the source and destination volumes.

What happens with the tiered data when you move a volume from one node to another in the same
cluster?

If the destination aggregate does not have an attached cloud tier, data is read from the cloud tier of the source
aggregate and written entirely to the local tier of the destination aggregate. If the destination aggregate has an
attached cloud tier, data is read from the cloud tier of the source aggregate and first written to the local tier of
the destination aggregate, to facilitate quick cutover. Later, based on the tiering policy used, it is written to the
cloud tier.

Starting with ONTAP 9.6, if the destination aggregate is using the same cloud tier as the source aggregate, the
cold data does not move back to the local tier.

How can I bring my tiered data back on-prem to the performance tier?

Write back is generally performed on reads and depends on the tiering policy type. Prior to ONTAP 9.8, writing
back of the entire volume can be done with a volume move operation. Starting with ONTAP 9.8, the Tiering UI
has options to Bring back all data or Bring back active file system. See how to move data back to the
performance tier.

When replacing an existing AFF/FAS controller with a new one, would the tiered data be migrated back
on-prem?

No. During the “head swap” procedure, the only thing that changes is the aggregate’s ownership. In this case,
it will be changed to the new controller without any data movement.

Can I use the cloud provider’s console or object storage explorers to look at the data tiered to a
bucket? Can I use the data stored in the object storage directly without ONTAP?

No. The objects constructed and tiered to the cloud do not contain a single file but up to 1,024 4KB blocks from
multiple files. A volume’s metadata always remains on the local tier.

Connectors
The following questions relate to the BlueXP Connector.

What is the Connector?

The Connector is software running on a compute instance either within your cloud account, or on-premises,
that enables BlueXP to securely manage cloud resources. To use the BlueXP tiering service, you must deploy
a Connector.

57
Where does the Connector need to be installed?

• When tiering data to S3, the Connector can reside in an AWS VPC or on your premises.
• When tiering data to Blob storage, the Connector can reside in an Azure VNet or on your premises.
• When tiering data to Google Cloud Storage, the Connector must reside in a Google Cloud Platform VPC.
• When tiering data to StorageGRID or other S3-Compatible storage providers, the Connector must reside
on your premises.

Can I deploy the Connector on-premises?

Yes. The Connector software can be downloaded and manually installed on a Linux host in your network. See
how to install the Connector in your premises.

Is an account with a cloud service provider required before using BlueXP tiering?

Yes. You must have an account before you can define the object storage that you want to use. An account with
a cloud storage provider is also required when setting up the Connector in the cloud on a VPC or VNet.

What are the implications if the Connector fails?

In the case of a Connector failure, only the visibility into the tiered environments is impacted. All the data is
accessible and newly identified cold data is automatically tiered to object storage.

Tiering policies

What are the available tiering policies?

There are four tiering policies:

• None: Classifies all data as always hot; preventing any data from the volume being moved to object
storage.
• Cold Snapshots (Snapshot-only): Only cold snapshot blocks are moved to object storage.
• Cold User Data and Snapshots (Auto): Both cold snapshot blocks and cold user data blocks are moved to
object storage.
• All User Data (All): Classifies all data as cold; immediately moving the entire volume to object storage.

Learn more about Tiering Policies.

At which point is my data is considered cold?

Since data tiering is done at the block level, a data block is considered cold after it hasn’t been accessed for a
certain period of time, which is defined by the tiering policy’s minimum-cooling-days attribute. The applicable
range is 2-63 days with ONTAP 9.7 and earlier, or 2-183 days starting with ONTAP 9.8.

What is the default cooling period for data before it is tiered to the cloud tier?

The default cooling period for the Cold Snapshot policy is 2 days, while the default cooling period for Cold User
Data and Snapshots is 31 days. The cooling-days parameter is not applicable to the All tiering policy.

58
Is all the tiered data retrieved from object storage when I do a full backup?

During full backup all the cold data is read. The retrieval of the data depends on the tiering policy used. When
using the All and Cold User Data and Snapshots policies, the cold data is not written back to the performance
tier. When using the Cold Snapshots policy, only in case of an old snapshot being used for the backup will its
cold blocks be retrieved.

Can you choose a tiering size per volume?

No. However, you can choose which volumes are eligible for tiering, the type of data to be tiered, and its
cooling period. This is done by associating a tiering policy with that volume.

Is the All User Data policy the only option for data protection volumes?

No. Data protection (DP) volumes can be associated with any of the three policies available. The type of policy
used on the source and destination (DP) volumes determines the write location of the data.

Does resetting the tiering policy of a volume to None rehydrate the cold data or just prevent future cold
blocks from being moved to the cloud?

No rehydration takes place when a tiering policy is reset, but it will prevent new cold blocks from being moved
to the cloud tier.

After tiering data to the cloud, can I change the tiering policy?

Yes. The behavior after the change depends on the new associated policy.

What should I do if I want to ensure certain data is not moved to the cloud?

Do not associate a tiering policy with the volume containing that data.

Where is the metadata of the files stored?

The metadata of a volumes is always stored locally, on the performance tier — it is never tiered to the cloud.

Networking and security

The following questions relate to networking and security.

What are the networking requirements?

• The ONTAP cluster initiates an HTTPS connection over port 443 to your object storage provider.

ONTAP reads and writes data to and from object storage. The object storage never initiates, it just
responds.

• For StorageGRID, the ONTAP cluster initiates an HTTPS connection over a user-specified port to
StorageGRID (the port is configurable during tiering setup).
• A Connector needs an outbound HTTPS connection over port 443 to your ONTAP clusters, to the object
store, and to the BlueXP tiering service.

For more details, see:

• Tiering data to Amazon S3

59
 • Tiering data to Azure Blob storage
• Tiering data to Google Cloud Storage
• Tiering data to StorageGRID
• Tiering data to S3 object storage

What tools can I use for monitoring and reporting in order to manage cold data stored in the cloud?

Other than BlueXP tiering, Active IQ Unified Manager and BlueXP digital advisor can be used for monitoring
and reporting.

What are the implications if the network link to the cloud provider fails?

In case of a network failure, the local performance tier remains online and hot data remains accessible.
However, blocks that were already moved to the cloud tier will be inaccessible and applications will receive an
error message when trying to access that data. Once connectivity is restored, all data will be seamlessly
accessible.

Is there a network bandwidth recommendation?

The underlying FabricPool tiering technology read latency depends on connectivity to the cloud tier. Although
tiering works on any bandwidth, it is recommended to place intercluster LIFs on 10 Gbps ports to provide
adequate performance. There are no recommendations or bandwidth limitations for the Connector.

Additionally, you can throttle the amount of network bandwidth that is used during the transfer of inactive data
from the volume to object storage. The Maximum transfer rate setting is available when configuring your
cluster for tiering, and afterwards from the Clusters page.

Is there any latency when a user attempts to access tiered data?

Yes. Cloud tiers cannot provide the same latency as the local tier since latency depends on the connectivity. To
estimate the latency and throughput of an object store, BlueXP tiering provides a Cloud Performance Test
(based on the ONTAP object store profiler) that can be used after the object store is attached and before tiering
is set up.

How is my data secured?

AES-256-GCM encryption is maintained on both the performance and cloud tiers. TLS 1.2 encryption is used
to encrypt data over the wire as it moves between tiers, and to encrypt communication between the Connector
and both the ONTAP cluster and the object store.

Do I need an Ethernet port installed and configured on my AFF?

Yes. An intercluster LIF must be configured on an ethernet port, on each node within an HA pair that hosts
volumes with data you plan to tier to the cloud. For more information, see the Requirements section for the
cloud provider where you plan to tier data.

What permissions are required?

• For Amazon, permissions are required to manage the S3 bucket.

• For Azure, no extra permissions are needed outside of the permissions that you need to provide to BlueXP.
• For Google Cloud, Storage Admin permissions are needed for a service account that has storage access
keys.

60
• For StorageGRID, S3 permissions are needed.
• For S3-compatible object storage, S3 permissions are needed.

61
Use BlueXP tiering
Managing data tiering for your clusters
Now that you’ve set up data tiering from your on-prem ONTAP clusters, you can tier data
from additional volumes, change a volume’s tiering policy, discover additional clusters,
and more.

Reviewing tiering info for a cluster

You might want to see how much data is in the cloud tier and how much data is on disks. Or, you might want to
see the amount of hot and cold data on the cluster’s disks. BlueXP tiering provides this information for each
cluster.

Steps
1. From the left navigation menu, select Mobility > Tiering.
2. From the Clusters page, click the menu icon for a cluster and select Cluster info.

3. Review details about the cluster.

Here’s an example:

62
Note that the display is different for Cloud Volumes ONTAP systems. While Cloud Volumes ONTAP volumes
can have data tiered to the cloud, they do not use the BlueXP tiering service. Learn how to tier inactive data
from Cloud Volumes ONTAP systems to low-cost object storage.

You can also view tiering information for a cluster from Digital Advisor if you’re familiar with this NetApp
product. Just select Cloud Recommendations from the left navigation pane.

Tiering data from additional volumes

Set up data tiering for additional volumes at any time—for example, after creating a new volume.

You don’t need to configure the object storage because it was already configured when you
initially set up tiering for the cluster. ONTAP will tier inactive data from any additional volumes to
the same object store.

63
Steps
1. From the left navigation menu, select Mobility > Tiering.
2. From the Clusters page, click Tier volumes for the cluster.

3. On the Tier Volumes page, select the volumes that you want to configure tiering for and launch the Tiering
Policy page:
◦
To select all volumes, check the box in the title row ( ) and click Configure volumes.
◦ To select multiple volumes, check the box for each volume ( ) and click Configure
volumes.
◦
To select a single volume, click the row (or icon) for the volume.

4. In the Tiering Policy dialog, select a tiering policy, optionally adjust the cooling days for the selected
volumes, and click Apply.

Learn more about volume tiering policies and cooling days.

Result
The selected volumes start to have their data tiered to the cloud.

Changing a volume’s tiering policy

Changing the tiering policy for a volume changes how ONTAP tiers cold data to object storage. The change
starts from the moment that you change the policy. It changes only the subsequent tiering behavior for the
volume—it does not retroactively move data to the cloud tier.

Steps
1. From the left navigation menu, select Mobility > Tiering.
2. From the Clusters page, click Tier volumes for the cluster.

64
 3. Click the row for a volume, select a tiering policy, optionally adjust the cooling days, and click Apply.

Learn more about volume tiering policies and cooling days.

Note: If you see options to "Retrieve Tiered Data", see Migrating data from the cloud tier back to the
performance tier for details.

Result
The tiering policy is changed and data begins to be tiered based on the new policy.

Changing the network bandwidth available to upload inactive data to object

storage
When you activate BlueXP tiering for a cluster, by default, ONTAP can use an unlimited amount of bandwidth
to transfer the inactive data from volumes in the working environment to object storage. If you notice that tiering
traffic is affecting normal user workloads, you can throttle the amount of network bandwidth that is used during
the transfer. You can choose a value between 1 and 10,000 Mbps as the maximum transfer rate.

1. From the left navigation menu, select Mobility > Tiering.

2. From the Clusters page, click the menu icon for a cluster and select Maximum transfer rate.

3. In the Maximum transfer rate page, select the Limited radio button and enter the maximum bandwidth that
can be used, or select Unlimited to indicate that there is no limit. Then click Apply.

65
This setting does not affect the bandwidth allocated to any other clusters that are tiering data.

Download a tiering report for your volumes

You can download a report of the Tier Volumes page so you can review the tiering status of all the volumes on
the clusters you are managing. Just click the button. BlueXP tiering generates a .CSV file that you can
review and send to other groups as needed. The .CSV file includes up to 10,000 rows of data.

Migrating data from the cloud tier back to the performance tier
Tiered data that is accessed from the cloud may be "re-heated" and moved back to the performance tier.
However, if you want to proactively promote data to the performance tier from the cloud tier, you can do this in
the Tiering Policy dialog. This capability is available when using ONTAP 9.8 and greater.

You might do this if you want to stop using tiering on a volume, or if you decide to keep all user data on the
performance tier, but keep Snapshot copies on the cloud tier.

There are two options:

Option Description Affect on Tiering Policy

Bring back all data Retrieves all volume data and Snapshot Tiering policy is changed to "No
copies tiered in the cloud and promotes them policy".
to the performance tier.

66
Option Description Affect on Tiering Policy
Bring back active file Retrieves only active file system data tiered Tiering policy is changed to "Cold
system in the cloud and promotes it to the snapshots".
performance tier (Snapshot copies remain in
the cloud).

You may be charged by your cloud provider based on that amount of data transferred off the
cloud.

Steps
Make sure you have enough space in the performance tier for all the data that is being moved back from the
cloud.

1. From the left navigation menu, select Mobility > Tiering.

2. From the Clusters page, click Tier volumes for the cluster.
3.
Click the icon for the volume, choose the retrieval option you want to use, and click Apply.

Result
The tiering policy is changed and the tiered data starts to be migrated back to the performance tier. Depending
on the amount of data in the cloud, the transfer process could take some time.

Managing tiering settings on aggregates

Each aggregate in your on-prem ONTAP systems has two settings that you can adjust: the tiering fullness
threshold and whether inactive data reporting is enabled.

Tiering fullness threshold

Setting the threshold to a lower number reduces the amount of data required to be stored on the
performance tier before tiering takes place. This might be useful for large aggregates that contain little
active data.

67
 Setting the threshold to a higher number increases the amount of data required to be stored on the
performance tier before tiering takes place. This might be useful for solutions designed to tier only when
aggregates are near maximum capacity.

Inactive data reporting

Inactive data reporting (IDR) uses a 31-day cooling period to determine which data is considered inactive.
The amount of cold data that is tiered is dependent on the tiering policies set on volumes. This amount
might be different than the amount of cold data detected by IDR using a 31-day cooling period.

It’s best to keep IDR enabled because it helps to identify your inactive data and savings
opportunities. IDR must remain enabled if data tiering was enabled on an aggregate.

Steps
1. From the Clusters page, click Advanced setup for the selected cluster.

2. From the Advanced Setup page, click the menu icon for the aggregate and select Modify Aggregate.

3. In the dialog that is displayed, modify the fullness threshold and choose whether to enable or disable
inactive data reporting.

68
 4. Click Apply.

Fixing operational health

Failures can happen. When they do, BlueXP tiering displays a "Failed" operational health status on the Cluster
Dashboard. The health reflects the status of the ONTAP system and BlueXP.

Steps
1. Identify any clusters that have an operational health of "Failed."
2. Hover over the informational "i" icon see the failure reason.
3. Correct the issue:
a. Verify that the ONTAP cluster is operational and that it has an inbound and outbound connection to
your object storage provider.
b. Verify that BlueXP has outbound connections to the BlueXP tiering service, to the object store, and to
the ONTAP clusters that it discovers.

Discovering additional clusters from BlueXP tiering

You can add your undiscovered on-prem ONTAP clusters to BlueXP from the Tiering Cluster page so that you
can enable tiering for the cluster.

Note that buttons also appear on the Tiering On-Prem dashboard page for you to discover additional clusters.

Steps
1. From BlueXP tiering, click the Clusters tab.
2. To see any undiscovered clusters, click Show undiscovered clusters.

If your NSS credentials are saved in BlueXP, the clusters in your account are displayed in the list.

If your NSS credentials are not saved in BlueXP, you are first prompted to add your credentials before you
can see the undiscovered clusters.

69
 3. Click Discover Cluster for the cluster that you want to manage through BlueXP and implement data
tiering.
4. In the Cluster Details page, enter the password for the admin user account and click Discover.

Note that the cluster management IP address is populated based on information from your NSS account.

5. In the Details & Credentials page the cluster name is added as the Working Environment Name, so just
click Go.

Result
BlueXP discovers the cluster and adds it to a working environment in the Canvas using the cluster name as the
working environment name.

You can enable the Tiering service or other services for this cluster in the right panel.

Search for a cluster across all BlueXP Connectors

If you are using multiple Connectors to manage all the storage in your environment, some clusters on which
you want to implement tiering may be in another Connector. If you are not sure which Connector is managing a
certain cluster, you can search across all Connectors using BlueXP tiering.

Steps
1. In the BlueXP tiering menu bar, click the action menu and select Search for cluster in all Connectors.

2. In the displayed Search dialog, enter the name of the cluster and click Search.

BlueXP tiering displays the name of the Connector if it is able to find the cluster.

3. Switch to the Connector and configure tiering for the cluster.

Managing object storage used for data tiering

After you’ve configured your on-prem ONTAP clusters to tier data to a particular object
storage, you can perform additional object storage tasks. You can add new object
storage, mirror your tiered data to a secondary object storage, swap the primary and
mirror object storage, remove a mirrored object store from an aggregate, and more.

Viewing object stores configured for a cluster

You might want to see all the object stores that have been configured for your cluster and to which aggregates
they are attached. BlueXP tiering provides this information for each cluster.

Steps
1. From the Clusters page, click the menu icon for a cluster and select Object Store Info.

70
 2. Review details about the object stores.

This example shows both an Amazon S3 and Azure Blob object store attached to different aggregates on a
cluster.

Adding a new object store

You can add a new object store that will be available for aggregates in your cluster. After you create it, you can
attach it to an aggregate.

Steps
1. From the Clusters page, click the menu icon for a cluster and select Object Store Info.
2. From the Object Store Information page, click Create New Object Store.

The object store wizard starts. The example below shows how to create an object store in Amazon S3.

3. Define Object Storage Name: Enter a name for this object storage. It must be unique from any other
object storage you may be using with aggregates on this cluster.
4. Select Provider: Select the provider, for example Amazon Web Services, and click Continue.
5. Complete the steps on the Create Object Storage pages:
a. S3 Bucket: Add a new S3 bucket or select an existing S3 bucket that starts with the prefix fabric-pool.
Then enter the AWS Account ID that provides access to the bucket, select the bucket region, and click
Continue.

71
 The fabric-pool prefix is required because the IAM policy for the Connector enables the instance to
perform S3 actions on buckets named with that exact prefix. For example, you could name the S3
bucket fabric-pool-AFF1, where AFF1 is the name of the cluster.

b. Storage Class Lifecycle: BlueXP tiering manages the lifecycle transitions of your tiered data. Data
starts in the Standard class, but you can create a rule to apply a different storage class to the data after
a certain number of days.

Select the S3 storage class that you want to transition the tiered data to and the number of days before
the data is assigned to that class, and click Continue. For example, the screenshot below shows that
tiered data is assigned to the Standard-IA class from the Standard class after 45 days in object
storage.

If you choose Keep data in this storage class, then the data remains in the Standard storage class
and no rules are applied. See supported storage classes.

Note that the lifecycle rule is applied to all objects in the selected bucket.

c. Credentials: Enter the access key ID and secret key for an IAM user who has the required S3
permissions, and click Continue.

The IAM user must be in the same AWS account as the bucket that you selected or created on the S3
Bucket page. See the required permissions in the section about activating tiering.

d. Cluster Network: Select the IPspace that ONTAP should use to connect to object storage, and click
Continue.

Selecting the correct IPspace ensures that BlueXP tiering can set up a connection from ONTAP to your
cloud provider’s object storage.

72
The object store is created.

Now you can attach the object store to an aggregate in your cluster.

Attaching a second object store to an aggregate for mirroring

You can attach a second object store to an aggregate to create a FabricPool mirror to synchronously tier data
to two object stores. You must have one object store already attached to the aggregate. Learn more about
FabricPool mirrors.

When using a MetroCluster configuration, it’s a best practice to use object stores in the public cloud that are in
different availability zones. Learn more about MetroCluster requirements in the ONTAP documentation.

Note that when using StorageGRID as your object store in a MetroCluster configuration, both ONTAP systems
can perform FabricPool tiering to a single StorageGRID system. Each ONTAP system must tier data to
different buckets.

Steps
1. From the Clusters page, click Advanced setup for the selected cluster.

2. From the Advanced Setup page, drag the object store you want to use to the location for the mirror object
store.

3. In the Attach Object Store dialog, click Attach and the second object store is attached to the aggregate.

73
The Mirror status will appear as "Sync in progress" while the 2 object stores are synchronizing. The status will
change to "Synchronized" when synchronization is complete.

Swapping the primary and mirror object store

You can swap the primary and mirror object store for an aggregate. The object store mirror becomes the
primary, and the original primary becomes the mirror.

Steps
1. From the Clusters page, click Advanced setup for the selected cluster.

2. From the Advanced Setup page, click the menu icon for the aggregate and select Swap Destinations.

3. Approve the action in the dialog box and the primary and mirror objects stores are swapped.

Removing a mirror object store from an aggregate

You can remove a FabricPool mirror if you no longer need to replicate to an additional object store.

Steps
1. From the Clusters page, click Advanced setup for the selected cluster.

74
 2. From the Advanced Setup page, click the menu icon for the aggregate and select Unmirror Object Store.

The mirror object store is removed from the aggregate and the tiered data is no longer replicated.

When removing the mirror object store from a MetroCluster configuration you’ll be prompted
whether you want to remove the primary object store as well. You can choose to keep the
primary object store attached to the aggregate, or to remove it.

Migrating your tiered data to a different cloud provider

BlueXP tiering enables you to easily migrate your tiered data to a different cloud provider. For example, if you
want to move from Amazon S3 to Azure Blob, you can follow the steps listed above in this order:

1. Add an Azure Blob object store.

2. Attach this new object store as the mirror to the existing aggregate.
3. Swap the primary and mirror object stores.
4. Unmirror the Amazon S3 object store.

Measure network latency and throughput performance

Run a Cloud Performance Test to measure network latency and throughput performance
from an ONTAP cluster to an object store before and after setting up data tiering. The test
also identifies any failures that occurred.
Here are sample performance results:

75
Before you get started
It’s best to run this check when the cluster is under 50% CPU utilization.

Steps for a cluster that hasn’t been set up for tiering

1. From the left navigation menu, select Mobility > Tiering.
2. From the Clusters page, click the menu icon for a cluster and select Cloud Performance Test.
3. Review the details and click Continue.
4. Follow the prompts to provide the required information.

The information that you need to provide is the same as if you were setting up tiering on the cluster.

5. Optionally continue to the Tier Volumes wizard to complete the setup.

Steps for a cluster that has been set up for tiering

1. From the left navigation menu, select Mobility > Tiering.
2. From the Clusters page, click the menu icon for a cluster and select Cloud Performance Test.
3. Select a node from the drop-down list.
4. View the results or recheck the performance.

Get an overview of data tiering from your clusters

BlueXP tiering provides an aggregated view of data tiering from each of your on-premises
clusters. This overview provides a clear picture of your environment and enables you to
take proper actions.
Just click Tiering > On-Premises Dashboard. BlueXP tiering provides the following details about your

76
environment.

Discovered clusters
The number of on-premises clusters that BlueXP tiering has discovered. The chart provides an overview of
the tiering status for these clusters.

• High tiering - Clusters that are tiering over 20% of their cold data
• Low tiering - Clusters that are tiering less than 20% of their cold data
• No tiering - Clusters that aren’t tiering any data
• Not eligible - Clusters that don’t support data tiering

Data overview
The amount of data that is being used by all discovered clusters. The chart indicates the amount of data
that is being tiered, and more, for these clusters.

• Tiered data - Total cold data being tiered to the cloud

• Cold data - Total cold data that is not being tiered
• Hot data - Total hot data that is active being used
• Not eligible - Total data that is not being tiered because the cluster or volume doesn’t support data
tiering

Tiering overview
The amount of data that is currently being tiered, and the amount of cold data that could potentially be
tiered.

Policies
The number of times that each tiering policy has been applied to a volume.

Marketplace subscriptions
The number of clusters associated with each type of Marketplace Subscription and an indication about your
subscription status.

77
Monitor the status of tiering alerts
You can view the status of tiering alerts in the BlueXP Notification Center.
The Notification Center tracks the progress of tiering incidents so you can verify whether they have been
resolved or not. You can display the notifications by clicking the ( ) in the BlueXP menu bar.

At this time, there is one tiering event that will appear as a notification:

• Tier additional data from cluster <name> to object storage to increase your storage efficiency

This notification is a "Recommendation" to help make your systems more efficient and to save on storage
costs. It indicates that a cluster is tiering less than 20% of its cold data - including clusters that are tiering no
data. It provides a link to the BlueXP tiering total cost of ownership and savings calculator to help you calculate
your cost savings.

Learn more about the Notification Center.

78
Reference
Supported S3 storage classes and regions
BlueXP tiering supports several S3 storage classes and most regions.

Supported S3 storage classes

When you set up data tiering to AWS from your on-premises ONTAP systems, BlueXP tiering automatically
uses the Standard storage class for your inactive data. BlueXP tiering can apply a lifecycle rule so the data
transitions from the Standard storage class to another storage class after a certain number of days. You can
choose from the following storage classes:

• Standard-Infrequent Access (S3 Standard-IA)

• One Zone-Infrequent Access (S3 One Zone-IA)
• Intelligent-Tiering (S3 Intelligent-Tiering)
• Glacier Instant Retrieval

If you do not choose another storage class, then the data remains in the Standard storage class and no rules
are applied.

When you configure a BlueXP tiering lifecycle rule, you must not configure any lifecycle rules when setting up
the bucket in your AWS account.

Learn about S3 storage classes.

Supported AWS regions

BlueXP tiering supports the following AWS regions.

Asia Pacific

• Mumbai
• Seoul
• Singapore
• Sydney
• Tokyo

Europe

• Frankfurt
• Ireland
• London
• Paris
• Stockholm

79
North America

• Canada Central
• US East (N. Virginia)
• US East (Ohio)
• US West (N. California)
• US West (Oregon)

South America

• São Paulo

Supported Azure Blob access tiers and regions

BlueXP tiering supports two access tiers and most regions.

Supported Azure Blob access tiers

When you set up data tiering to Azure from your on-premises ONTAP systems, BlueXP tiering automatically
uses the Hot access tier for your inactive data. BlueXP tiering can apply a lifecycle rule so the data transitions
from the Hot access tier to the Cool access tier after a certain number of days.

If you do not choose the Cool access tier, then the data remains in the Hot access tier and no rules are
applied.

When you configure a BlueXP tiering lifecycle rule, you must not configure any lifecycle rules when setting up
the container in your Azure account.

Learn about Azure Blob access tiers.

Supported Azure regions

BlueXP tiering supports tiering to any storage account in any region that can be accessed via the Connector.

Supported Google Cloud storage classes and regions

BlueXP tiering supports several Google Cloud storage classes and most regions.

Supported GCP storage classes

When you set up data tiering to GCP from your on-premises ONTAP systems, BlueXP tiering automatically
uses the Standard storage class for your inactive data. BlueXP tiering can apply a lifecycle rule so the data
transitions from the Standard storage class to other storage classes after a certain number of days. You can
choose from the following storage classes:

• Nearline
• Coldline
• Archive

If you do not choose another storage class, then the data remains in the Standard storage class and no rules

80
are applied.

When you configure a BlueXP tiering lifecycle rule, you must not configure any lifecycle rules when setting up
the bucket in your Google account.

Learn about Google Cloud Storage classes.

Supported Google Cloud regions

BlueXP tiering supports the following regions.

Americas

• Iowa
• Los Angeles
• Montreal
• N. Virginia
• Oregon
• Sao-Paulo
• South Carolina

Asia Pacific

• Hong Kong
• Mumbai
• Osaka
• Singapore
• Sydney
• Taiwan
• Tokyo

Europe

• Belgium
• Finland
• Frankfurt
• London
• Netherlands
• Zurich

81
Knowledge and support
Register for support
Support registration is required to receive technical support specific to BlueXP and its
storage solutions and services. Support registration is also required to enable key
workflows for Cloud Volumes ONTAP systems.
Registering for support does not enable NetApp support for a cloud provider file service. For technical support
related to a cloud provider file service, its infrastructure, or any solution using the service, refer to "Getting
help" in the BlueXP documentation for that product.

• Amazon FSx for ONTAP

• Azure NetApp Files
• Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud

Support registration overview

There are two forms of registration to activate support entitlement:

• Registering your BlueXP account ID support subscription (your 20 digit 960xxxxxxxxx serial number
located on the Support Resources page in BlueXP).

This serves as your single support subscription ID for any service within BlueXP. Each BlueXP account-
level support subscription must be registered.

• Registering the Cloud Volumes ONTAP serial numbers associated with a subscription in your cloud
provider’s marketplace (these are 20 digit 909201xxxxxxxx serial numbers).

These serial numbers are commonly referred to as PAYGO serial numbers and get generated by BlueXP at
the time of Cloud Volumes ONTAP deployment.

Registering both types of serial numbers enables capabilities like opening support tickets and automatic case
generation. Registration is completed by adding NetApp Support Site (NSS) accounts to BlueXP as described
below.

Register your BlueXP account for NetApp support

To register for support and activate support entitlement, one user in your BlueXP account must associate a
NetApp Support Site account with their BlueXP login. How you register for NetApp support depends on
whether you already have a NetApp Support Site (NSS) account.

Existing customer with an NSS account

If you’re a NetApp customer with an NSS account, you simply need to register for support through BlueXP.

Steps
1. In the upper right of the BlueXP console, select the Settings icon, and select Credentials.
2. Select User Credentials.

82
 3. Select Add NSS credentials and follow the NetApp Support Site (NSS) Authentication prompt.
4. To confirm that the registration process was successful, select the Help icon, and select Support.

The Resources page should show that your account is registered for support.

Note that other BlueXP users will not see this same support registration status if they have not associated
a NetApp Support Site account with their BlueXP login. However, that doesn’t mean that your BlueXP
account is not registered for support. As long as one user in the account has followed these steps, then
your account has been registered.

Existing customer but no NSS account

If you’re an existing NetApp customer with existing licenses and serial numbers but no NSS account, you need
to create an NSS account and associate it with your BlueXP login.

Steps
1. Create a NetApp Support Site account by completing the NetApp Support Site User Registration form
a. Be sure to select the appropriate User Level, which is typically NetApp Customer/End User.
b. Be sure to copy the BlueXP account serial number (960xxxx) used above for the serial number field.
This will speed up the account processing.
2. Associate your new NSS account with your BlueXP login by completing the steps under Existing customer
with an NSS account.

Brand new to NetApp

If you are brand new to NetApp and you don’t have an NSS account, follow each step below.

Steps
1. In the upper right of the BlueXP console, select the Help icon, and select Support.

83
 2. Locate your account ID serial number from the Support Registration page.

3. Navigate to NetApp’s support registration site and select I am not a registered NetApp Customer.
4. Fill out the mandatory fields (those with red asterisks).
5. In the Product Line field, select Cloud Manager and then select your applicable billing provider.
6. Copy your account serial number from step 2 above, complete the security check, and then confirm that
you read NetApp’s Global Data Privacy Policy.

An email is immediately sent to the mailbox provided to finalize this secure transaction. Be sure to check
your spam folders if the validation email doesn’t arrive in few minutes.

7. Confirm the action from within the email.

Confirming submits your request to NetApp and recommends that you create a NetApp Support Site
account.

8. Create a NetApp Support Site account by completing the NetApp Support Site User Registration form
a. Be sure to select the appropriate User Level, which is typically NetApp Customer/End User.
b. Be sure to copy the account serial number (960xxxx) used above for the serial number field. This will
speed up the account processing.

After you finish

NetApp should reach out to you during this process. This is a one-time onboarding exercise for new users.

Once you have your NetApp Support Site account, associate the account with your BlueXP login by completing
the steps under Existing customer with an NSS account.

Associate NSS credentials for Cloud Volumes ONTAP support

Associating NetApp Support Site credentials with your BlueXP account is required to enable the following key
workflows for Cloud Volumes ONTAP:

• Registering pay-as-you-go Cloud Volumes ONTAP systems for support

Providing your NSS account is required to activate support for your system and to gain access to NetApp
technical support resources.

• Deploying Cloud Volumes ONTAP when you bring your own license (BYOL)

Providing your NSS account is required so that BlueXP can upload your license key and to enable the
subscription for the term that you purchased. This includes automatic updates for term renewals.

• Upgrading Cloud Volumes ONTAP software to the latest release

Associating NSS credentials with your BlueXP account is different than the NSS account that is associated
with a BlueXP user login.

84
These NSS credentials are associated with your specific BlueXP account ID. Users who belong to the BlueXP
account can access these credentials from Support > NSS Management.

• If you have a customer-level account, you can add one or more NSS accounts.
• If you have a partner or reseller account, you can add one or more NSS accounts, but they can’t be added
alongside customer-level accounts.

Steps
1. In the upper right of the BlueXP console, select the Help icon, and select Support.

2. Select NSS Management > Add NSS Account.

3. When you’re prompted, select Continue to be redirected to a Microsoft login page.

NetApp uses Microsoft Entra ID as the identity provider for authentication services specific to support and
licensing.

4. At the login page, provide your NetApp Support Site registered email address and password to perform the
authentication process.

These actions enable BlueXP to use your NSS account for things like license downloads, software upgrade
verification, and future support registrations.

Note the following:

◦ The NSS account must be a customer-level account (not a guest or temp account). You can have
multiple customer-level NSS accounts.
◦ There can be only one NSS account if that account is a partner-level account. If you try to add
customer-level NSS accounts and a partner-level account exists, you’ll get the following error message:

"The NSS customer type is not allowed for this account as there are already NSS Users of different
type."

The same is true if you have pre-existing customer-level NSS accounts and try to add a partner-level
account.

◦ Upon successful login, NetApp will store the NSS user name.

85
 This is a system-generated ID that maps to your email. On the NSS Management page, you can
display your email from the menu.

◦ If you ever need to refresh your login credential tokens, there is also an Update Credentials option in
the menu.

Using this option prompts you to log in again. Note that the token for these accounts expire after 90
days. A notification will be posted to alert you of this.

Get help
NetApp provides support for BlueXP and its cloud services in a variety of ways. Extensive
free self-support options are available 24x7, such as knowledgebase (KB) articles and a
community forum. Your support registration includes remote technical support via web
ticketing.

Get support for a cloud provider file service

For technical support related to a cloud provider file service, its infrastructure, or any solution using the service,
refer to "Getting help" in the BlueXP documentation for that product.

• Amazon FSx for ONTAP

• Azure NetApp Files
• Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud

To receive technical support specific to BlueXP and its storage solutions and services, use the support options
described below.

Use self-support options

These options are available for free, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week:

• Documentation

The BlueXP documentation that you’re currently viewing.

• Knowledge base

Search through the BlueXP knowledge base to find helpful articles to troubleshoot issues.

• Communities

Join the BlueXP community to follow ongoing discussions or create new ones.

Create a case with NetApp support

In addition to the self-support options above, you can work with a NetApp Support specialist to resolve any
issues after you activate support.

Before you get started

86
 • To use the Create a Case capability, you must first associate your NetApp Support Site credentials with
your BlueXP login. Learn how to manage credentials associated with your BlueXP login.
• If you’re opening a case for an ONTAP system that has a serial number, then your NSS account must be
associated with the serial number for that system.

Steps
1. In BlueXP, select Help > Support.
2. On the Resources page, choose one of the available options under Technical Support:

a. Select Call Us if you’d like to speak with someone on the phone. You’ll be directed to a page on
netapp.com that lists the phone numbers that you can call.
b. Select Create a Case to open a ticket with a NetApp Support specialist:
▪ Service: Select the service that the issue is associated with. For example, BlueXP when specific to
a technical support issue with workflows or functionality within the service.
▪ Working Environment: If applicable to storage, select Cloud Volumes ONTAP or On-Prem and
then the associated working environment.

The list of working environments are within scope of the BlueXP account, workspace, and
Connector you have selected in the top banner of the service.

▪ Case Priority: Choose the priority for the case, which can be Low, Medium, High, or Critical.

To learn more details about these priorities, hover your mouse over the information icon next to the
field name.

▪ Issue Description: Provide a detailed description of your problem, including any applicable error
messages or troubleshooting steps that you performed.
▪ Additional Email Addresses: Enter additional email addresses if you’d like to make someone else
aware of this issue.
▪ Attachment (Optional): Upload up to five attachments, one at a time.

Attachments are limited to 25 MB per file. The following file extensions are supported: txt, log, pdf,
jpg/jpeg, rtf, doc/docx, xls/xlsx, and csv.

87
After you finish
A pop-up will appear with your support case number. A NetApp Support specialist will review your case and get
back to you soon.

For a history of your support cases, you can select Settings > Timeline and look for actions named "create
support case." A button to the far right lets you expand the action to see details.

It’s possible that you might encounter the following error message when trying to create a case:

"You are not authorized to Create a Case against the selected service"

This error could mean that the NSS account and the company of record it’s associated with is not the same
company of record for the BlueXP account serial number (ie. 960xxxx) or the working environment serial
number. You can seek assistance using one of the following options:

• Use the in-product chat

• Submit a non-technical case at https://mysupport.netapp.com/site/help

88
Manage your support cases (Preview)
You can view and manage active and resolved support cases directly from BlueXP. You can manage the cases
associated with your NSS account and with your company.

Case management is available as a Preview. We plan to refine this experience and add enhancements in
upcoming releases. Please send us feedback by using the in-product chat.

Note the following:

• The case management dashboard at the top of the page offers two views:

◦ The view on the left shows the total cases opened in the past 3 months by the user NSS account you
provided.
◦ The view on the right shows the total cases opened in the past 3 months at your company level based
on your user NSS account.
The results in the table reflect the cases related to the view that you selected.

• You can add or remove columns of interest and you can filter the contents of columns like Priority and
Status. Other columns provide just sorting capabilities.

View the steps below for more details.

• At a per-case level, we offer the ability to update case notes or close a case that is not already in Closed or
Pending Closed status.

Steps
1. In BlueXP, select Help > Support.
2. Select Case Management and if you’re prompted, add your NSS account to BlueXP.

The Case management page shows open cases related to the NSS account that is associated with your
BlueXP user account. This is the same NSS account that appears at the top of the NSS management
page.

3. Optionally modify the information that displays in the table:

◦ Under Organization’s cases, select View to view all cases associated with your company.
◦ Modify the date range by choosing an exact date range or by choosing a different time frame.

89
 ◦ Filter the contents of the columns.

◦
Change the columns that appear in the table by selecting and then choosing the columns that
you’d like to display.

90
4. Manage an existing case by selecting and selecting one of the available options:

◦ View case: View full details about a specific case.

◦ Update case notes: Provide additional details about your problem or select Upload files to attach up
to a maximum of five files.

Attachments are limited to 25 MB per file. The following file extensions are supported: txt, log, pdf,
jpg/jpeg, rtf, doc/docx, xls/xlsx, and csv.

◦ Close case: Provide details about why you’re closing the case and select Close case.

91
Legal notices
Legal notices provide access to copyright statements, trademarks, patents, and more.

Copyright
https://www.netapp.com/company/legal/copyright/

Trademarks
NETAPP, the NETAPP logo, and the marks listed on the NetApp Trademarks page are trademarks of NetApp,
Inc. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

https://www.netapp.com/company/legal/trademarks/

Patents
A current list of NetApp owned patents can be found at:

https://www.netapp.com/pdf.html?item=/media/11887-patentspage.pdf

Privacy policy
https://www.netapp.com/company/legal/privacy-policy/

Open source
Notice files provide information about third-party copyright and licenses used in NetApp software.

• Notice for BlueXP

• Notice for BlueXP tiering

92
Copyright information

Copyright © 2024 NetApp, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Printed in the U.S. No part of this document covered by
copyright may be reproduced in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, taping, or storage in an electronic retrieval system—without prior written permission
of the copyright owner.

Software derived from copyrighted NetApp material is subject to the following license and disclaimer:

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY NETAPP “AS IS” AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED
WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY
AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, WHICH ARE HEREBY DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL
NETAPP BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR
CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE
GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER
CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT
(INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS
SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

NetApp reserves the right to change any products described herein at any time, and without notice. NetApp
assumes no responsibility or liability arising from the use of products described herein, except as expressly
agreed to in writing by NetApp. The use or purchase of this product does not convey a license under any
patent rights, trademark rights, or any other intellectual property rights of NetApp.

The product described in this manual may be protected by one or more U.S. patents, foreign patents, or
pending applications.

LIMITED RIGHTS LEGEND: Use, duplication, or disclosure by the government is subject to restrictions as set
forth in subparagraph (b)(3) of the Rights in Technical Data -Noncommercial Items at DFARS 252.227-7013
(FEB 2014) and FAR 52.227-19 (DEC 2007).

Data contained herein pertains to a commercial product and/or commercial service (as defined in FAR 2.101)
and is proprietary to NetApp, Inc. All NetApp technical data and computer software provided under this
Agreement is commercial in nature and developed solely at private expense. The U.S. Government has a non-
exclusive, non-transferrable, nonsublicensable, worldwide, limited irrevocable license to use the Data only in
connection with and in support of the U.S. Government contract under which the Data was delivered. Except
as provided herein, the Data may not be used, disclosed, reproduced, modified, performed, or displayed
without the prior written approval of NetApp, Inc. United States Government license rights for the Department
of Defense are limited to those rights identified in DFARS clause 252.227-7015(b) (FEB 2014).

Trademark information

NETAPP, the NETAPP logo, and the marks listed at http://www.netapp.com/TM are trademarks of NetApp, Inc.
Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

93