Getting Started - DataEngine

Access and Permissions

DataEngine is provisioned on a tenant of a VAST Cluster.

To access DataEngine on any given VAST Cluster tenant, you will need a valid user account, provisioned by a VAST Management Service (VMS) cluster or tenant administrator.

Your administrator must grant permissions to your user to enable you to perform actions such as creating, modifying and deleting triggers, functions, function deployments and pipelines.

You will need an S3 access key pair for DataEngine to use to access S3 buckets for various purposes. If you don't have one, you will be prompted to create one when you log into DataEngine. You can manage your own S3 access keys.

Logging into VAST DataEngine

Obtain the following from the administrator of your VAST Cluster or VAST Cluster tenant:
- The URL for a VAST Cluster tenant.
- The user name and password of a user with access to DataEngine on the tenant. The password may be temporary.
Browse to the URL and log in with your user name and password.
Note
The first time you log in, you may be prompted to set a new secure password and to create s3 keys:
1. Enter a secure password of your choice in the New password field. The password you enter is validated for several security criteria, which are displayed. Ensure that your password meets the criteria and enter the same password in the Repeat password field. Obtain the login URL for the VAST Cluster tenant to which you have been granted access.
2. Click Save Password or, if you don't have an S3 access key pair, Save and Generate Access Key.
  The password is saved.
  If an access key pair is created for you, copy the secret key to the clipboard and keep a record of it for future use, since the secret key is not retrievable.
3. Click Done.
The VAST DataEngine Dashboard appears.

Managing Your Access Keys

S3 access keys are required for DataEngine to be able to access source views for element type triggers, to access VAST Event Broker, which is hosted on a view, and to browse resources such as functions and triggers.

To manage your access key pairs:

At the top right of the page, click your Avatar and select Manage Access Keys.
Your active S3 access keys are displayed. You can delete keys and generate new keys. When done, click Done.

To generate a new key

Click Generate Another Key.
The secret key is displayed.
Copy the secret key to the clipboard (a button is provided for copying) and store it for safe keeping. You will not be able to retrieve the secret key again.

To delete a key

Click the trash can icon next to the key.

Installing the VAST DataEngine CLI

The VAST DataEngine CLI provides commands that perform the same tasks as the VAST DataEngine web user interface. The CLI also enables you to package a function as an image to upload to the container registry. You will need to initialize and package functions in order to deploy them within DataEngine pipelines (as described in Creating a DataEngine Function).

Browse to the VAST DataEngine CLI repository and select the binary file for your OS and architecture.
Save the file locally.

Run the vastde config init command with the following syntax to initialize and edit the CLI configuration:

vastde config init --password PASSWORD
                   --tenant TENANT_NAME
                   --username USERNAME
                   --builder-image-url BUILDER-IMAGE-URL
                   --vms-url VMS-URL

Substitute the arguments for the following values:

`PASSWORD`	The password associated with the username you provide as USERNAME.
`TENANT_NAME`	The name of the tenant you want to connect to (running DataEngine).
`USERNAME`	A username of a user with access to the specified tenant. This can be an application user, a tenant admin user or a cluster admin user.
`BUILDER-IMAGE-URL`	The URL of the VAST DataEngine Builder docker image, in the format `vastdataorg/vast-builder:TAG`, where TAG is a version tag. To find a version tag, browse to `https://hub.docker.com/r/vastdataorg/vast-builder/` and click Tags. For example, `vastdataorg/vast-builder:v5.5.0-dev.gefa84f46`.
`VMS-URL`	The URL to the cluster's VAST Management Service (VMS) in the format `https://VMS_IP`, where `VMS_IP` is the VMS IP.

To view the content of the configuration file:
```
vastde config view
```

Now that the configuration is initialized, you can run CLI commands against the specified tenant's DataEngine.

Note
VAST DataEngine CLI documentation is available here.