Configuring the Upgraded System

Parallels Cloud Server 6.0 comes with two major new features:

• Parallels Cloud Storage . Parallels Cloud Storage transforms low-cost commodity storage hardware and network equipment into a protected enterprise-level storage, like SAN and NAS. It is optimized for storing virtual machines and Containers, providing replication, high-availability, and self-healing features for your data.

  Warning: Parallels Cloud Storage has redundancy built in, so you should avoid running Parallels Cloud Storage on redundant types of RAID like 1, 5, or 6 over local storage. In this case, a single write operation may affect a significant number of HDDs resulting in very poor performance. For example, for 3 Parallels Cloud Storage replicas and RAID5 on servers with 5 HDDs each, a single write operation may result in 15 I/O operations. For recommendations on optimal local storage configurations, consult the Parallels Cloud Storage Administrator's Guide .

• New Container-in-an-image-file layout . The new Container-in-an-image-file layout is a replacement for the obsolete VZFS layout. The new layout has been redesigned to store all files in a single image, enabling easy Container migrations and backups and improving server performance.

During the upgrade, the installer does not upgrade your system to be compatible with these new features. You need to manually configure the system to start using them:

• To learn how to set up a Parallels Cloud Storage cluster and move your Containers and virtual machines to it, consult the Parallels Cloud Storage User's Guide .
• For detailed information on how to upgrade your Containers to use the new layout, see Creating Containers with the New Layout .

Note: Both using Containers with the new layout and storing them in a Parallels Cloud Storage cluster requires that the /vz partition be formatted as ext4 . Notice that remounting the /vz partition formatted with another file system (e.g., ext3 ) as ext4 is not enough, and you need to convert the partition to enable all ext4 features once the upgrade is complete.