To help ensure that you optimize your FabricPool configurations, you should familiarize yourself with a few considerations and requirements about using FabricPool.

General considerations and requirements

You must be running ONTAP releases for the following FabricPool functionality:
- The auto tiering policy
- Specifying the tiering minimum cooling period
- Inactive data reporting (IDR)
- Using Microsoft Azure Blob Storage for the cloud as the cloud tier for FabricPool
You must be running ONTAP 9.7 or later releases for the following FabricPool functionality:
- Specifying the tiering fullness threshold
- Volume Encryption of the cloud tier, enabled by default.
You must be running ONTAP 9.7 or later releases for the following FabricPool functionality:
- The all tiering policy
- Inactive data reporting enabled manually on HDD aggregates
  
  ONTAP monitors system load, and if the load remains high for 4 continuous minutes, IDR is disabled, and is not automatically enabled. You can reenable IDR manually, however, manually enabled IDR is not automatically disabled.

Using Google Cloud Platform as the cloud tier for FabricPool
Volume move without cloud tier data copy
- You must be running ONTAP 9.7 or later releases for the following FabricPool functionality:
Non transparent HTTP and HTTPS proxy to provide access to only whitelisted access points, and to provide auditing and reporting capabilities.
FabricPool mirroring to tier cold data to two object stores simultaneously
FabricPool mirrors on MetroCluster configurations

NDMP dump and restore enabled by default on FabricPool attached aggregates.

If the backup application uses a protocol other than NDMP, such as NFS or SMB, all data being backed up in the performance tier becomes hot and can affect tiering of that data to the cloud tier. Non-NDMP reads can cause data migration from the cloud tier back to the performance tier.

You must be running ONTAP 9.8 or later for the following FabricPool functionality:

Cloud migration control to enable you to override the default tiering policy
Promoting data to the performance tier
FabricPool with SnapLock Enterprise. FabricPool with SnapLock Enterprise requires a Feature Product Variance Request (FPVR). To create an FPVR, please contact your sales team.
Minimum cooling period maximum of 183 days
Object tagging using user-created custom tags
FabricPools on HDD platforms and aggregates

HDD FabricPools are supported with SAS, FSAS, BSAS and MSATA disks only on systems with 6 or more CPU cores, including the following models:
- ETERNUS HX6100
- ETERNUS HX2200
- ETERNUS HX2100
- ETERNUS HX2300
  - FabricPool supports the following aggregate types:
On ETERNUS AX/AC series, you can use only all flash (all SSD) aggregates for FabricPool.
On ETERNUS HX series, you can use either all flash (all SSD) or HDD aggregates for FabricPool.
You cannot use Flash Pool aggregates, which contain both SSDs and HDDs.
On Cloud Volumes ONTAP, you can use either SSD or HDD aggregates for FabricPool.

However, using SSD aggregates is recommended. * FabricPool supports using the following object stores as the cloud tier:
ONTAP S3 (ONTAP 9.8 and later)
Amazon Web Services Simple Storage Service (AWS S3)
Google Cloud Storage
Microsoft Azure Blob Storage for the cloud
- The object store “bucket” (container) you plan to use must have already been set up, must have at least 10 GB of storage space, and must not be renamed.
- HA pairs that use FabricPool require intercluster LIFs to communicate with the object store.
- You cannot detach a cloud tier from a local tier after it is attached; however, you can use FabricPool mirror to attach a local tier to a different cloud tier.
- If you use throughput floors (QoS Min), the tiering policy on the volumes must be set to none before the aggregate can be attached to FabricPool.
  
  Other tiering policies prevent the aggregate from being attached to FabricPool. A QoS policy will not enforce throughput floors when FabricPool is enabled.
- You should follow the best practice guidelines for using FabricPool in specific scenarios.

Additional considerations when using Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Cloud Volumes ONTAP does not require a FabricPool license, regardless of the object store provider you are using.

Additional considerations for tiering data accessed by SAN protocols

When tiering data that is accessed by SAN protocols, we recommends using private clouds due to connectivity considerations.

Important

You should be aware that when using FabricPool in a SAN environment with a Windows host, if the object storage becomes unavailable for an extended period of time when tiering data to the cloud, files on the LUN on the Windows host might become inaccessible or disappear.

Functionality or features not supported by FabricPool

Object stores with WORM enabled and object versioning enabled.
Information lifecycle management (ILM) policies that are applied to object store buckets

FabricPool supports StorageGRID’s Information Lifecycle Management policies only for data replication and erasure coding to protect cloud tier data from failure. However, FabricPool does not support advanced ILM rules such as filtering based on user metadata or tags. ILM typically includes various movement and deletion policies. These policies can be disruptive to the data in the cloud tier of FabricPool. Using FabricPool with ILM policies that are configured on object stores can result in data loss.

RAID SyncMirror, except in a MetroCluster configuration
SnapLock volumes when using ONTAP 9.7 releases
Tape backup using SMTape for FabricPool-enabled aggregates
The Auto Balance functionality
Volumes using a space guarantee other than none

With the exception of root SVM volumes and CIFS audit staging volumes, FabricPool does not support attaching a cloud tier to an aggregate that contains volumes using a space guarantee other than none. For example, a volume using a space guarantee of volume (-space-guarantee volume) is not supported.
Clusters with DP_Optimized license
Flash Pool aggregates