Table of Contents
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Introduction
CentreStack (Gladinet Cloud Enterprise) provides value-added services on top of cloud storage services such
as those from OpenStack, Amazon S3 and its compatibles. The value-added services
can be summarized into Backup, Access, Sync and Share, Identity, Control and Collaboration
(BASIC).
CentreStack is a cluster of web services built on top of the Microsoft
Web Platform. It provides the BASIC online storage value-add services for user end
point devices like PCs, File Servers, Web Browsers, and Mobile Devices.
Those services can be deployed in flexible combinations to meet different needs.
For example, a storage focused use case requires more storage nodes, while one with
more collaboration may have better performance with more worker nodes. The cluster
of services can also be deployed on a single node, which is the smallest deployment
unit.
CentreStack supports various deployment scenarios based on your needs.
Please reference the “CentreStack White Paper” for a high level architectural
overview of the system, and possible deployment scenarios.
There are three different types of machines (or Virtual Machine). In the smallest
deployment unit, the three different logical nodes can co-exists in one single machine.
- Web Front Node
The Account Management, Sign-in and Load-balancing services will be installed on
this physical machine. Depending on the load, you may need 1 to N such nodes. This is primarily for load
balancing purpose. If you have your own load balancer, you can skip web front nodes.
- Worker Node
This node will contain services like Web Browser Based File Manager, Storage Service
Connectors, and etc. Again, additional nodes can be added as the load increases.
Worker nodes are designed to be stateless to facilitate adding nodes on demand to support load increase.
- Database Node
Database contains persistent information for the system, such as user name, email, mostly static information.
There is also dynamic information such as file change log, audit trace and etc.
The remainder of this document describes components within this CentreStack
cluster diagram.
Terminology
Master Admin - In this guide, we refer to the admin user as the user that
manages the whole Gladinet Cloud Cluster package. The Master Admin is the very first
user that registered with the CentreStack. Typically it is the user
who installed the CentreStack.
Tenant User - These are the users who actually use the product, but are the
admin for their team. This is the very first team account user. Usually the Tenant
User is created by Master Admin. Tenant Users are similar to users who sign up for
the Gladinet Cloud service directly from Gladinet.
Team User – Team user is a user under a specific Tenant. Team users are created
by the Tenant User.
Access Clients – CentreStack contains various access clients,
including Web Browser Based File Manager, Windows Desktop Client, Windows Server
Client and Mobile Applications. Through the access clients, end user sees the BASIC
value-add services on top of raw storage services. The discussion of the access
clients are outside the scope of this technical white paper.
Dependency Components
CentreStack is built on top of Microsoft Web Platform, including Internet
Information Server (IIS), .Net Framework 4.5, ASP.NET and SQL Server or SQL Server
Express.
SQL Server
SQL Server or SQL Server Express is used to store static configuration information,
such as user name, email, storage configuration, files and folders sharing information
and etc. It is recommended the SQL Server has daily backup since it holds configuration
information for the service to run properly.
.Net Framework 4.5
CentreStack is built with .Net Framework 4.5
ASP.NET
CentreStack web browser user interface is written in ASP.NET, HTML
and Javascript.
Internet Information Server
CentreStack is hosted inside Internet Information Server(IIS). It
provides brokerage functionalities between the Access Clients and the backend storage.
It is also a value-add layer on top of the backend storage.
Recommended Starting Hardware Specification
- Memory: 8GB
- Hard Drive: 200G
- 64-bit platform
- Windows 2012 R2 or Windows 2012
- CPU: Intel x64
- vCPU: 4 (for Physical Machine, 4-core CPU)
- (This is similar to an Amazon EC2 C3.xlarge specification)
(NOTE: It is recommended using Virtual Machine. Windows 2008 R2 is also supported while we recommend Windows 2012 R2)
Capacity Planning
For concurrent user counts
below 1000 (named user ~ 5000) , a single CentreStack server is enough. In
this case, you will install the CentreStack Server all-in-one in one
single physical or virtual machine. The default CentreStack installer
will install all the components in one machine.
For concnrrent user counts
above 1000 (or named user ~ 5000) , it is recommended to have SQL Server node in a single physical/virtual
machine. The rest of the worker nodes will share the load for the users in a capacity
of 1000 con-current-user each. In this case, it is recommended using virtual machine for each worker
node and use a wild card SSL certificate for each worker node. Con-current user is defined as users accessing the system
in the same 10-second time window. 1000 con-current user is around 5000 - 10000 named user depending on the usage pattern.
Tenant Consideration
CentreStack comes with two different packages, one is for single business,
and the other is for service provider.
- Single Business – Single Active Directory Integration, Single Tenant
- Service Provider – Multiple Active Directory Integration, Multiple Tenants
Active Directory Integration
There are two user management modes in CentreStack.
In the first mode, the default user manager mode, users are manually created, and
active directory users are imported. In this mode, it is possible to have non-Active
Directory users and Active Directory users.
In the second mode, the active directory mode, there is no need to create or import
user and you can use native Active Directory groups. However, you can’t have non-Active
Directory users.
Storage Consideration
In the CentreStack system, for each tenant, there is one mandatory
primary storage and there can be multiple optional auxiliary storage services.
If you setup the CentreStack in an Amazon EC2 environment, most of
the time, the primary storage is an Amazon S3 bucket.
If you setup the CentreStack on-premise, the primary storage can be
your file server storage and the auxiliary storage can be other cloud storage services.
Backup CentreStack
Only the SQL Server database contains persistent configuration information. All
the design is stateless and replaceable. In a disaster recovery scenario, as soon
as SQL Server is restored, other worker nodes can be re-installed and start working
immediately.
Deployment Scenarios
Private On-premise
You can prepare a Windows 2008 Service Pack 2 or R2 server, or a Windows 2012 server and install Gladinet
Cloud Enterprise. In this scenario, typically Active Directory is at the same site
and primary storage is file server storage or NAS storage.
Private Off-Premise
Normally a managed service provider(MSP) is helping you manage all your IT services,
such as hosted exchange server, hosted file server and etc. You can ask the same
managed service provider installing the CentreStack for you. It is
off-premise but managed by the MSP in their data center.
Virtual Private Cloud
In this deployment scenario, you would deploy the CentreStack solution
in a virtual private cloud environment such as Amazon EC2. CentreStack
is also available in the form of AMI image to facilitate creation of EC2 instances.
In this deployment scenario, typical primary storage connection is to the Amazon
S3 storage.
See Also
Installable Enterprise Sync & Share Solution
Secure Online Access to Your Private Cloud
Access Cloud Storage with Active Directory Identities
Cloud Sync & Share, Team Collaboration Solution
for Managed Service Provider
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