Failure Modes

For more information about replication and failure modes please see our Replication concepts page.

The failure mode for a specific volume can be set using a label on a PVC or it can be set as a parameter on a StorageClass. The PVC definition takes precedence over the StorageClass.

apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
metadata:
  name: my-vol-1
  labels:
      storageos.com/replicas: "2"
      storageos.com/failure-mode: "soft"
spec:
  storageClassName: "fast"
  accessModes:
    - ReadWriteOnce
  resources:
    requests:
      storage: 5Gi

Failure Modes

StorageOS failure modes offer different guarantees with regards to a volume’s mode of operation in the face of replica failure. If the failure mode is not specified it defaults to Hard. Volume failure modes can be dynamically updated at run time.

Hard

Hard failure mode requires that the number of declared replicas matches the available number of replicas at all times. If a replica fails StorageOS will attempt creation of a new replica for 90 seconds. After 90s if the old replica is not available and a new replica cannot be provisioned, StorageOS cannot guarantee that the data is stored on the number of multiple nodes requested by the user. StorageOS will therefore set the volume to be read-only.

If a volume has gone read-only there are two stages to making it read-write again. Firstly, sufficient replicas must be provisioned to match the desired replica count. Depending on your environment, additional nodes and/or disk capacity may be required for this. Secondly, the volume must be remounted - necessitating pod deletion/recreation in Kubernetes.

storageos.com/failure-mode: hard

Number of nodes required for hard failure mode

When a node fails, a new replica is provisioned and synced as described above. To ensure that a new replica can always be created, an additional node should be available. To guarantee high availability using storageos.com/failure-mode: hard, clusters using volumes with 1 replica must have at least 3 storage nodes. When using volumes with 2 replicas, at least 4 storage nodes, 3 replicas, 5 nodes, etc.

Minimum number of storage nodes = 1 (primary) + N (replicas) + 1

Soft

Soft failure mode allows a volume to continue serving I/O even when a replica goes offline and a new replica fails to provision. So long as there are not less than max(1, n-1) available replicas where n is the number of replicas for the volume.

For example, if a volume with 2 replicas loses 1 replica, then I/O would continue to be served since 1 replica remaining >= max(1, 1). If a volume with 1 replica loses 1 replica, then I/O would halt after 90 seconds since 0 replicas remaining < max(1, 0).

storageos.com/failure-mode: soft

Number of nodes required for soft failure mode

To ensure that a storageos.com/failure-mode: soft volume is highly available, clusters using volumes with 1 replica must have at least 2 storage nodes. When using volumes with 2 replicas, at least 3 storage nodes, 3 replicas, 3 nodes, etc.

Minimum number of storage nodes = 1 (primary) + N (replicas)

Threshold

Threshold failure mode allows the user to set the minimum required number of online replicas for a volume. For example for a volume with 2 replicas, setting the threshold to 1 would allow a single replica to be offline, whereas setting threshold to 0 would allow 2 replicas to be offline.

storageos.com/failure-mode: (0-5)

Number of nodes required for threshold failure mode

The minimum number of nodes for a threshold volume is determined by the threshold that is set.

Minimum number of storage nodes = 1 (primary) + T (threshold)

AlwaysOn

AlwaysOn failure mode allows all replicas for a volume to be offline and keeps the volume writeable. A volume with failure mode AlwaysOn will continue to serve I/O regardless of how many replicas it currently has. This mode should be used with caution as it effectively allows for only a single copy of the data to be available.

storageos.com/failure-mode: alwayson

Number of nodes required for AlwaysOn failure mode

A storageos.com/failure-mode: alwayson volume is highly available albeit at the cost of reliability. The minimum node count here is 1 as the loss of all replicas will be tolerated.

Minimum number of storage nodes = 1 (primary)