Set annotations for Object Storage

matthias_beck · ‎2018-02-22

Hello,

We have added our Object Storages to OCI.

Now we would like to set some annotations to the systems, that we can use them in our reports. It is not possible to set annotations via the webui of OCI.

What is the way to set the annotations for this kind of storage systems? Rest API?

We are using 7.3.1 SP1

Regards

Matthias

hotz · ‎2018-02-23

Hello Matthias,

To the best of my knowledge, while we do have a landing page of the object storage itself in OCI, not much more than that is inventoried or visible in the WEB-UI.

Instead, everything flows semi-directly into the DWH. So there is no possibility to annotate objects (like buckets) on the OCI server/Web-UI.

I don't know to which extent, but I suspect that much of what you can annotate via the rich annotation capabilities of the object storage itself will magically make it into the DWH. But this is really just a bit speculative on my part right now. To know for sure, I'd either have to find it documented somewhere or test it out.

But I think it would be worth a try though. Use the annotation capabilities of the object storage itself and see if those annotations make it into the DWH.

I won't promise, but if I can test it, I'll follow up un this thread. Unless someone else beats me to it.

Kind regards,

Gerhard

matthias_beck · ‎2018-02-25

Hello Gerhard,

Thank you for your respsonse.

We are already tag the things inside the object storage. What we want, we want to set annotations to the object storage itself (e.g. Data Center, Region). Also via the power shell cmdlets the annotation could not be set.

Regards

Matthias

hotz · ‎2018-02-26

Hello Matthias,

I am sorry to say, but I don't think that is possible. OCI doesn't really expose a whole lot of information about the object storage itself via the Web-UI or REST queries. Instead the data flows into the datawarehouse, where it can be accessed for reporting purposes.

For instance, if you compare the expands of a regular storage:

curl https://<oc-server.mydomain.com>/rest/v1/assets/storages/<id>\?expand\=_expands

"_expands": {
    "performance": {
      "url": "/rest/v1/assets/storages/664710/performance",
      "name": "Performance Data"
    },
    "storageNodes": {
      "url": "/rest/v1/assets/storages/664710/storageNodes",
      "name": "Storage Storage Nodes"
    },
    "storagePools": {
      "url": "/rest/v1/assets/storages/664710/storagePools",
      "name": "Storage Storage Pools"
    },
    "storageResources": {
      "url": "/rest/v1/assets/storages/664710/storageResources",
      "name": "Storage Storage Resourcs"
    },
    "internalVolumes": {
      "url": "/rest/v1/assets/storages/664710/internalVolumes",
      "name": "Storage Internal Volumes"
    },
    "volumes": {
      "url": "/rest/v1/assets/storages/664710/volumes",
      "name": "Storage Volumes"
    },
    "disks": {
      "url": "/rest/v1/assets/storages/664710/disks",
      "name": "Disks"
    },
    "datasources": {
      "url": "/rest/v1/assets/storages/664710/datasources",
      "name": "Storage Datasources"
    },
    "ports": {
      "url": "/rest/v1/assets/storages/664710/ports",
      "name": "Storage Ports"
    },
    "annotations": {
      "url": "/rest/v1/assets/storages/664710/annotations",
      "name": "Storage Annotations"
    },
    "qtrees": {
      "url": "/rest/v1/assets/storages/664710/qtrees",
      "name": "Qtrees"
    },
    "shares": {
      "url": "/rest/v1/assets/storages/664710/shares",
      "name": "Shares"
    },
    "applications": {
      "url": "/rest/v1/assets/storages/664710/applications",
      "name": "Storage Applications"
    },
    "protocols": {
      "url": "/rest/v1/assets/storages/664710/protocols",
      "name": "Storage Protocols"
    }
}

with the expands of an object storage:

curl https://<oc-server.mydomain.com>/rest/v1/assets/objectStorages/<id>\?expand\=_expands

"_expands": {
    "datasources": {
      "url": "/rest/v1/assets/objectStorages/404842/datasources",
      "name": "Object Storage Datasources"
    }
}

you will notice there's no annotations exposed. Or anything else much, as a mattaer of fact.

So I think the best approach for achieving the dsired outcome with the capabilites as they are right now, is to tailor your report such that the addiional information you would otherwise apply as annotations on the OCI instance, is taken into account from a purely reporting-perspective.

If this is for some reason impracticable, I'd be happy to take this offline and discuss any optios with you in a more direct manner. On the phone, maybe.

Kind regards,

Gerhard

matthias_beck · ‎2018-02-26

Hello Gerhard,

I would at least expect that it is possible to add some annotations.

From our point of view, it makes no sence to add an object storage to OCI if I cannot even set some basic annotations.

Regards

Matthias

hoffman · ‎2018-02-26

Hi Matthias,

Unfortunately, in the current version of OCI you cannot annotate object storage systems in the same manner you can 'standard' block or file storage systems. The best workaround at the moment is to create a custom table in the data warehouse under dwh_custom, then join the metadata in the custom table to the capacity info in the built-in dwh tables.

Regards,

Bryan