Changes in Swarm Cluster Installer (SCI) 2.2

This release features the following improvements:

As of v15.0, Swarm Storage may be run without the use of multicast for inter-node communication. SCI 2.2 will default to not use multicast for both new installations and upgrades. This default is preferred for new installations. Any existing Swarm cluster installation would have multicast enabled. Changing this setting between values requires a full (non-rolling) reboot of the entire cluster, which can be done at the same time as a storage upgrade. If your organization requires rolling reboots to avoid downtime, the legacy setting should be restored after SCI has been upgrade, but before rebooting any Swarm Storage nodes. Run the following command on the SCS node:
scsctl storage config set -d "cip.multicastEnabled=true"
Once this has been run, a rolling reboot may be safely used to upgrade to the new Swarm Storage software.

GUI-based upgrade functions well when the cluster is installed using SCI 2.x, with no manual changes in the configuration files (for example, gateway.cfg and elasticsearch.yml). However, this upgrade inherits the changes of SCS, storage, and gateway done through Content Portal and Swarm UI.

Changes in Swarm Cluster Installer (SCI) 2.1

This release features the following improvements:

Cluster Upgrades: SCI 2.1 provides GUI-based cluster upgrades for all the components including SCS, gateway, Elasticsearch, Prometheus, and Grafana.
Data Disks: Separate data disks for Elasticsearch datastore as well as Prometheus and Grafana.

GUI-based upgrade functions well when the cluster is installed using SCI 2.0 with no manual changes in the configuration files (e.g., 'gateway.cfg' and ‘elasticsearch.yml’). However, this upgrade inherits the changes of SCS, storage, and gateway done through UIC/UIS.

This release features the following improvements:

UI-Based Installation: The SCI 2.0 is a UI-based solution for automatic installation and configuring the Swarm ecosystem on VMware vCenter.
Simplified Deployment: No complex CLI commands or steps are required as SCI 2.0 provides an ability to generate configurations based on the expected workload.
Simplified Data Protection Solution: Bucket lifecycle policies allow a bucket owner to use versions without worrying about the manual cleanup of old versions. This data protection mechanism mitigates concerns about runaway cluster space usage by limiting version accumulation.

vCenter credentials, vCenter infrastructure details, and Swarm Installer package is required to install and deploy SCI 2.0.

SCI 2.0 UI-based installation is performed in the VMware vCenter environment.
Bucket Lifecycle Policy installation supports Gateway 7.9, Content Portal 7.6, and Swarm Storage 14.1 versions.