What's New in Release 7.6.1

Describes the new features in release 7.6.1 and provides links to more information.

IMPORTANT To view information for the as-a-service Data Fabric platform, see this website.

New Features

Following are some new features and capabilities that distinguish release 7.6.1 from the previous release (7.5.0):
New Feature or Capability Supported on See for more information . . .
DF SaaS? Customer Managed?
Support for Spark to query Iceberg tables stored in the Data Fabric Yes Yes Iceberg Support and Getting Started with Iceberg
Unified management of security policies for files Yes Yes* Administering Security Policies**
Support for attaching multiple security policies to one or more volumes Yes Yes policy attach and Assigning Multiple Security Policies to One or More Volumes**
Binary table replication Yes Yes* Managing Table Replication**
Global namespace support for NFS- and S3-protocol operations performed against WEKA, VAST Data, and Scality Yes Yes Third-Party Storage Solutions
IPv6 support Yes Yes IPv6 Support in Data Fabric and configure.sh
Data Fabric UI enhancement: Exposing object endpoints for Data Fabric volumes Yes Yes* Viewing Object Endpoint Info to Remotely Access Files as Objects**
Data Fabric UI enhancement: Support for downloading endpoint information for selected volumes Yes Yes* Downloading Volume Endpoint Information**
Data Fabric UI enhancement: Support for reinitiating fabric creation following an error Yes Yes* Steps for Creating a Fabric** and Troubleshooting Upgrade Issues**
Data Fabric UI enhancement: Searchable, full-page listing of Keycloak users with access to the Data Fabric UI Yes Yes* Viewing a List of Users**
External S3 support with generic vendor details Yes Yes Importing an External S3 Object Store** and clustergroup addexternal

*Requires using the Data Fabric UI. With release 7.3.0 and later, you can use the Data Fabric UI on customer-managed clusters. To understand the limitations and benefits of doing so, see Data Fabric UI.

**Indicates a link to the Data Fabric as-a-service documentation.

New Key for Signature Verification for Data Fabric Files

Release 7.6.1 implemented a new key for .rpm, .tar.gz, .zip, and .tgz files for the following Data Fabric products:
  • HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric core 7.6.1
  • HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric clients
  • HPE Ezmeral Ecosystem Pack (EEP) 9.2.1
  • Installer 1.18.0.5
Before you install these products, you must import the HPE GPG public keys. This is a one-time operation on each node where packages are installed. Importing the keys allows you to, optionally, verify the GPG and RPM signatures for the products. A verified GPG or RPM signature attests that the product you received has been signed with digital private keys held only by HPE. Successful signature verification also ensures that the file has not been altered after it was signed and released by HPE.

For more information, see HPE GPG Public Keys for GPG or RPM Signature Verification.

Product Name Change: HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric – Customer Managed

With release 7.3.0, the user-managed version of the platform changed its name to HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric – Customer Managed. "HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric" now refers to the as-a-service version of the platform, described later on this page. Documentation for the customer-managed platform remains on the website you are currently using.

New SaaS-Based HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric

Release 7.3.0 introduced a new HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric that can be used "as-a-service" and provides consumption-based pricing. Documentation for the new platform has its own website. For more information, see:

HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric Documentation

The new as-a-service HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric leverages the strengths of its predecessor, the HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric – Customer Managed platform. The as-a-service platform improves on its predecessor in many ways. The following table compares the platforms:
Feature HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric – Customer Managed
Distributed File System Yes Yes
Global Namespace (GNS) Yes No
Object Support Yes Yes
Event Stream Support Yes Yes
NFSv4 Support* Yes Yes
Container Storage Interface (CSI) Support Yes Yes
Database Support Yes Yes
Client Support Yes Yes
Single Sign-On (SSO) Support Yes Yes
Platform Management Managed by HPE User managed
Billing and Licensing Consumption-only and some form of term (term-only not supported) Consumption and Term
Air-Gap Support Yes Yes
Graphical User Interface Data Fabric UI or Control System Data Fabric UI or Control System
maprcli Command Line Yes Yes
Scale (number of nodes per fabric / cluster) See note ** Thousands of nodes
EEP (HPE Ezmeral Ecosystem Pack) No Yes
OpenTelemetry (OTel) Yes Yes
*NFSv3 is not supported.

**For cloud deployments, the nodes and instances are predetermined based on the storage tier that you select during installation. For on-premises deployments, you determine the number of nodes at create time. While new fabrics can be added at any time, adding nodes after fabric creation is not currently supported.

New Repository for Data Fabric Software

On August 1, 2023, Hewlett Packard Enterprise introduced a new download repository for the HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric core and ecosystem software packages. https://package.ezmeral.hpe.com/ is the new repository for HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric downloads. For all Data Fabric releases, https://package.ezmeral.hpe.com/ replaces two older repositories:
Description URL Authentication Required?
New repository https://package.ezmeral.hpe.com/ Yes
Old repositories https://package.mapr.com/

https://package.mapr.hpe.com

Yes1

1Beginning October 2023, the old repositories are redirected to the new repository URL, which requires authentication.

The new repository requires you to provide the email and token for your HPE Passport account. Software that points to the old repositories must be updated to include your HPE Passport email and token. For more information about using the new repository, see Using the HPE Ezmeral Token-Authenticated Internet Repository.

If you plan to use the Data Fabric Installer, you must update the Installer to the most current 1.18.0.3 version or later. Earlier versions of the Installer will not work with the new repository. See Updating the Installer.

HPE Ezmeral Ecosystem Pack (EEP) Support

Release 7.6.1 requires EEP 9.2.1 or later. EEP 9.2.1 is new for this release and delivers updates to various ecosystem components but no new components. EEP 9.2.1 can be used with releases:
  • 7.6.1
  • 7.5.0
  • 7.4.0
  • 7.3.0*
  • 7.2.0*
*Requires a patch. See EEP Support and Lifecycle Status.

For more information about new features delivered as part of the Ecosystem Pack, see What's New in EEP 9.2.1. For reference information, see EEP 9.2.1 Reference Information.

For information about the EEPs that can be used with different versions of core releases, see EEP Support and Lifecycle Status.

SSO Support for Keycloak

HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric release 7.6.1 supports SSO when configured with the Keycloak identity and access management (IAM) solution. Other IAM solutions are not currently supported.

Configuring SSO is optional. If you do not configure SSO, you must use Data Fabric user names and passwords for access to the fabric. While SSO is supported for Data Fabric core, it is not currently supported for ecosystem components or the Installer.

Beginning with release 7.5.0, Keycloak is preconfigured and preinstalled if you:
  • Install the mapr-keycloak package as part of cluster creation
  • Specify the -keycloak option when you run the configure.sh script

For more information, see Configuring SSO.

Data Access Gateway 6.2 Support

For the gateway to lightweight client applications, release 7.6.1 requires Data Access Gateway 6.2. Data Access Gateway 6.2 can only be used with core 7.6.1, 7.5.0, 7.4.0, 7.3.0, and 7.2.0 with some restrictions.
CAUTION Streams users who upgrade from release 7.1.0 (DAG 5.0) or release 7.2.0 (DAG 5.1) to release 7.3.0 (DAG 6.0) or 7.4.0 (DAG 6.1) or 7.5.0 (DAG 6.2) or 7.6.1 (DAG 6.2) will not be able to access topics configured using the pre-DAG 6.0 mapping rules.

For more information, see Understanding the HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric Data Access Gateway and the Data Access Gateway 6.2 Release Notes.

JDK 17 Support

As indicated in the Java Support Matrix, release 7.6.1 can be used in JDK 11 or in JDK 17 installations. EEP 9.2.1 can also be used in JDK 11 or JDK 17 installations. However, the Installer is supported only on JDK 11, and if new cluster nodes require a JDK at installation time, the Installer can only install JDK 11.