Scaling out an existing Portworx Cluster

This document presents the non-Kubernetes method of scaling your Portworx cluster. Please refer to the Scale or Restrict page if you are running Portworx on Kubernetes.

Scaling out an existing Portworx Cluster

This document illustrates how to add a new node with attached storage to a Portworx cluster

Display current cluster status

pxctl status

Status: PX is operational
Node ID: a56a4821-6f17-474d-b2c0-3e2b01cd0bc3
	IP: 192.0.2.0
 	Local Storage Pool: 2 pools
	Pool	IO_Priority	Size	Used	Status	Zone	Region
	0	LOW		200 GiB	1.0 GiB	Online	default	default
	1	LOW		120 GiB	1.0 GiB	Online	default	default
	Local Storage Devices: 2 devices
	Device	Path				Media Type		SizLast-Scan
	0:1	/dev/mapper/volume-27dbb728	STORAGE_MEDIUM_SSD	200 GiB		08 Jan 17 16:54 UTC
	1:1	/dev/mapper/volume-0a31ef46	STORAGE_MEDIUM_SSD	120 GiB		08 Jan 17 16:54 UTC
	total					-			320 GiB
Cluster Summary
	Cluster ID: bb4bcf13-d394-11e6-afae-0242ac110002
	Node IP: 147.75.198.197 - Capacity: 2.0 GiB/320 GiB Online (This node)
	Node IP: 10.99.119.1 - Capacity: 1.2 GiB/100 GiB Online
	Node IP: 10.99.117.129 - Capacity: 1.2 GiB/100 GiB Online
Global Storage Pool
	Total Used    	:  4.3 GiB
	Total Capacity	:  520 GiB

The above cluster has three nodes and 520GiB of total capacity.

Provision a new node with storage

Provision a server or a cloud instance from a provider of your choice with some storage.

In this case, for e.g., this node comes with 100GiB of storage

multipath -ll

volume-a9e55549 (360014055671ce0d20184a619c27b31d0) dm-1   ,IBLOCK
size=100G features='0' hwhandler='1 alua' wp=rw
`-+- policy='round-robin 0' prio=1 status=active
  |- 2:0:0:0 sdb 8:16 active ready running
  `- 3:0:0:0 sdc 8:32 active ready running

The storage is available at /dev/dm-1.

Add this node to the Portworx Cluster

Below is an example of how to run Portworx in a new node so it joins an existing cluster. * Follow the instructions in the Installing Portworx as OCI page on starting Portworx in a new node * Use the same CLUSTER_ID as the ID of the cluster which you want the node to join for the -c parameter

Note the -s /dev/dm-1 command which picks up the storage that comes with the new node and the same cluster token ensures that the node is added to the same cluster.

Check cluster status

As seen below, the 100G of additional capacity is added to the cluster with total capacity of the cluster going to 620GB

pxctl status

Status: PX is operational
Node ID: a0b87836-f115-4aa2-adbb-c9d0eb597668
	IP: 192.0.2.0
 	Local Storage Pool: 1 pool
	Pool	IO_Priority	Size	Used	Status	Zone	Region
	0	LOW		100 GiB	1.0 GiB	Online	default	default
	Local Storage Devices: 1 device
	Device	Path				Media Type		Size	Last-Scan
	0:1	/dev/mapper/volume-a9e55549	STORAGE_MEDIUM_SSD	100 GiB08 Jan 17 21:46 UTC
	total					-			100 GiB
Cluster Summary
	Cluster ID: bb4bcf13-d394-11e6-afae-0242ac110002
	Node IP: 10.99.119.1 - Capacity: 1.2 GiB/100 GiB Online
	Node IP: 147.75.198.197 - Capacity: 2.0 GiB/320 GiB Online
	Node IP: 147.75.104.185 - Capacity: 0 B/100 GiB Online (This node)
	Node IP: 10.99.117.129 - Capacity: 1.2 GiB/100 GiB Online
Global Storage Pool
	Total Used    	:  4.3 GiB
	Total Capacity	:  620 GiB

Scale down nodes