An Unstructured Data Storage Newsletter – ECS – July 2021
An Unstructured Data Storage Newsletter – ECS – July 2021
ECS SUPPORT
HIGHLIGHTS
JULY 2021
Content
Highlights .........................................................................................................................................................................2
Target Code ....................................................................................................................................................................2
Code Currency, Published End of Standard Support (EOSS), and Versioning Information ..............................2
Release Information – ECS 3.6.1.2 – Latest and Target Code...............................................................................4
Dell Technical Advisories (DTAs) ................................................................................................................................5
Dell Security Advisories (DSAs) ...................................................................................................................................5
ECS Troubleshooting Guide 1.2 ..................................................................................................................................5
xDoctor Tool ....................................................................................................................................................................6
Disks as Customer Replaceable Unit (CRU) .............................................................................................................6
New Knowledgebase (KB) Articles ..............................................................................................................................6
Top Services Topics ......................................................................................................................................................6
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An Unstructured Data Storage Newsletter – ECS – July 2021
Highlights
- ECS 3.6.1.2 is available (RTS June 2021).
- ECS 3.6.1.x family is announced as target code.
- ECS Troubleshooting Guide is now available for customers.
- xDoctor tool is customer downloadable and installable.
Target Code
Target Code
Dell Technologies Total Customer Experience (TCE) team regularly monitors the quality and stability of
supported code versions across the active customer install base. This data is used to guide what code version
is recommended for customers to run in order to be most stable with the lowest risk. Customers on older code
should upgrade to the target code version (or later).
ECS 3.6.1.x declared target code
The TCE team, comprised of key Engineering and Services leadership, recommends the adoption of ECS
3.6.1.x, which achieved target code status in May 2021. It continues to be the best performing code across all
actively supported code versions. The recommendation is to upgrade to the last patch/maintenance release,
which is currently ECS 3.6.1.2.
You can find a full list of Dell product target codes at: https://support.emc.com/docu39695_Target-Revisions-
and-Adoption-Rates.pdf
For information on how upgrades are performed, please refer to the following Knowledge Base (KB) article:
• KB 14729: ECS Upgrade Planning
Code Currency, Published End of Standard Support (EOSS), and Versioning Information
Are you Code Current?
Being code current is defined as running code
that is less than 12 months old and/or is
considered Target and/or is the latest
compatible version for your system. If you are
running old code, not only are you missing out
on new features, functionality and fixes, but
you are also not taking advantage of current
security enhancements.
Being code current is important. Customers
on newer code enjoy greater functionality and
fewer outages/service requests.
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An Unstructured Data Storage Newsletter – ECS – July 2021
Published End of Standard Support (EOSS)
This table provides the published EOSS dates for all ECS versions:
General Availability Published EOSS
Version
(GA) Date
3.6.1.2 June 2021 February 2024
3.6.1.1 April 2021 February 2024
3.6.1.0 February 2021 February 2024
3.6.0.1 January 2021 November 2023
3.6 November 2020 November 2023
3.5.1.4 March 2021 September 2023
3.5.1.3 February 2021 September 2023
3.5.1.2 January 2021 September 2023
3.5.1.1 November 2020 September 2023
3.5.1 September 2020 September 2023
3.5.0.x May 2020* May 2023
3.4.0.x September 2019* September 2022
3.3.0.x February 2019* February 2022
3.2.x.x and below Various EOSS
*Various GA dates for maintenance releases.
Additional information on EOSS dates for Dell products can be found by searching for the specific Dell product
within the Support by Product section from the Online Support site.
Versioning Information
This table provides information on the ECS versioning convention:
Release Digit Release Type Description
Release with functionality that provides a
First (X.x.x.x) Major
substantial move forward in the product.
Second Release with functionality in the same family
Major
(x.X.x.x) and theme as the parent major release.
New features and functionality added between
Third (x.x.X.x) Minor
major releases.
Patches/Maintenance
Fourth (x.x.x.X) Only contains code fixes. No new features.
Releases
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An Unstructured Data Storage Newsletter – ECS – July 2021
Release Information – ECS 3.6.1.2 – Latest and Target Code
ECS 3.6.1.x Release Highlights:
Reasons to Upgrade:
• Improved Stability
• Improved Performance
• Improved Security
• Tech Refresh Enhancements
• Node evacuation
• Node extend
Key Features: (in addition to the existing features from the previous versions)
• S3 service to connect with multiple Data IpsDelete a replication group
• Cloud DVR
• AWS SDK Compatibility Report
• Limit for Maximum Object Version Count
• 8 TB NVMe drive support
• Restrict user IP addresses that can access a CAS bucket
• Security Administrator
• EKM support for KeySecure 8.11
• FIPS-140-2 enhanced support
• Lower rate of false alerts sent using SRS
Release Notes:
• ECS 3.6.1.2 Release Notes
Online Support Pages:
• ECS Appliance
Additional Resources:
• Dell EMC ECS 3.6.x Product Documentation Index
• ECS technical white papers and videos
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An Unstructured Data Storage Newsletter – ECS – July 2021
Dell Technical Advisories (DTAs)
Dell published the following ECS DTAs in the last 90 days:
DTA Title Date
DTA 185691: ECS: Dell OS10 switch X.509v3
DTA 185691 security certificate expiration on ECS Front-End and June 2021
Back-End Switches may lead to data unavailability
DTA 184562: Elastic Cloud Storage (ECS): Internal
DTA 184562 May 2021
Fabric SSL Certificate Expiration
Dell Security Advisories (DSAs)
Dell published the following ECS DSAs in the last 90 days:
DSAs Title Date
DSA-2021-094: Dell ECS Security Update for Multiple
DSA-2021-094 June 2021
Third-Party Component Vulnerabilities
ECS Troubleshooting Guide 1.2
This new customer document will assist in basic troubleshooting steps for ECS. It will walk through what to
look for in the UI initially (not all inclusive), as well as some basic CLI read-only commands. It also covers the
Advanced Monitoring (Grafana) UI that was introduced in ECS 3.4.0.0.
To download the latest version of the ECS Troubleshooting Guide:
1. Log into the Dell Support Site and search for “ECS Troubleshooting Guide” using the top search bar.
2. To download the guide, click "Manuals & Documentation " under "Resources" section on the left side of
the page, and the “ECS Troubleshooting Guide” will appear for download.
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An Unstructured Data Storage Newsletter – ECS – July 2021
xDoctor Tool
xDoctor is a tool used by Dell Customer Support to monitor, report on, and troubleshoot the health of your
ECS Appliance. Keeping xDoctor updated to the most current version enables Dell Customer Support to more
quickly detect and resolve issues with your ECS Appliance.
To download the latest version of xDoctor:
1. Log into the Dell Support Site and search for xDoctor using the top search bar.
2. To download the xDoctor code: Click "Downloads & Drivers" under "Resources" section on the left side of
the page, and the latest xDoctor version xDoctor4ECS 4.8-xx will appear for download.
3. To download the xDoctor release notes: Click "Manuals & Documents" under "Resources" section on the
left side of the page, and "xDoctor Release Notes 4.8-xx" will appear for download.
Disks as Customer Replaceable Unit (CRU)
A new feature starting with ECS 3.5.x.x is disks as Customer Replacable Unit (CRU) for Gen3 racks. This
new feature enables customers to replace failed disks without having to schedule an onsite visit with a Dell
Technologies technician to manually remove the disks from the ECS VDC. Customers are now able to
manage failed disks from the ECS user interface anytime.
Additional Resources:
• CRU Video: ECS: How to replace EX300 Disk
• CRU Video: ECS: How to replace EX500 Disk
• CRU Video: ECS: How to replace EX3000 Disk
• How to replace ECS EXF900 Appliance NVMe SSD
New Knowledgebase (KB) Articles
Article Number Title
189245 ECS: xDoctor: RAP127: DTA Detected
Top Services Topics
Article Number Title
ECS: NFS migration to ECS using rsync shows error: rsync: [generator] failed
182779 to set times on /tmp/T/.: Read-only file system (30)
ECS: High network bandwidth consumption observed where replication
183164 groups (RG) not shared between VDCs
183654 ECS: How to setup and accept all certificates over LDAPS on ECS
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An Unstructured Data Storage Newsletter – ECS – July 2021
This newsletter is available via Product Update notifications provided by Dell Technologies
Online Support. To learn how to subscribe to Product Updates→
To access the SolVe Online website→
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An Unstructured Data Storage Newsletter – ECS – July 2021
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Published Aug 2021
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