Nexenta NexentaEdge Includes Integration With OpenStack and Docker Environments

Nexenta Systems, Inc. announced updates to its block and object storage platform, NexentaEdge, including integration with OpenStack and Docker environments.

NexentaEdge is a software-only, scale-out, multi-service storage solution to deliver cluster-wide inline deduplication and compression, offering high-performance, simplified management of petabyte-scale repositories. Now, with the latest updates, the block and object software-defined platform includes additional performance optimisations for all-flash and hybrid configurations, integrates with the OpenStack ecosystem to simplify deployments in OpenStack clouds, and adds support for container-based deployments and Docker environments.

“While both OpenStack and container technologies are growing in adoption, scalable storage is a key component in optimising these ecosystems for the enterprise,” said Henry Baltazar, research director, storage, 451 Research. “Legacy hardware appliances cannot provide the scalability demanded by rapidly growing data volumes. Companies need to look to software-defined storage to take advantage of the inherently flexible nature of OpenStack and container environments.“

In addition to iSCSI, NexentaEdge supports native block device services, allowing hyperconverged OpenStack deployments to run Nova nodes directly on the NexentaEdge cluster. To automate deployment and configuration of NexentaEdge nodes in Canonical OpenStack environments, Juju Charms are available from the Canonical Ltd.‘s Juju Charms store. All NexentaEdge Cinder drivers are also integrated in the OpenStack Mitaka release.

“We selected NexentaEdge as our scale-out storage solution to support a petabyte scale OpenStack cloud for the university,” said Dr. Paul Calleja, director, HPC Service (HPCS), University of Cambridge. “NexentaEdge’s storage efficiency using cloud copy-on-write, inline cluster-wide deduplication and compression allowed us to get the most out of our existing hardware and provision more VMs. The ease of management with a self-healing, self-balancing core for automatic avoidance of hot spots and failed components has been critical in supporting more than 20,000 students and faculty.“

“We have implemented a content delivery solution using NexentaEdge along with Pluribus Networks switch software on Dell switches,” said Joe Little, representing technology department, private university in California. “The combination of the NexentaEdge Replicast protocol and the Multi-Listener Discovery support provided by Pluribus Networks VCF-powered switches allow for the deployment to scale out as needed while maintaining low latency between storage nodes.“

Additional product enhancements include:

• Cinder drivers for OpenStack Icehouse, Juno, Kilo, Liberty and Mitaka releases, with full integration in the OpenStack Mitaka release

• High performance block services for hybrid and all-flash configurations

  • Contrary to most scale-out software solutions on the market, NexentaEdge runs directly on raw physical devices in its storage nodes, eliminating the complexity and performance overhead of local file systems on these devices. For hybrid configurations, it leverages SSDs in each storage node to coalesce random write IOs and serialize the data that is pushed to backend disks

• Simple deployment and configuration through Canonical Juju Charms

• Performance profle based software deployment and strealined management through self-documenting REST APIs and cluster CLI

• Container-based deployment option, providing persistent storage services to Docker based application microservices running on the same servers

• While NexentaEdge can be deployed on a variety of x86 based industry standard servers, the company maintains detailed NexentaEdge configuration guidelines for:

  • Cisco Technology, Inc., Dell Inc., Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Lenovo Co., Ltd., and Super Micro Computer, Inc. servers

  • Arista Networks, Inc., Cisco, Dell, Mellanox Technologies, Ltd., Pluribus Networks, Inc., and Supermicro networks

Existing key features of NexentaEdge include:

• High performance Swift and S3 object services

• Patented cloud Copy on Write design delivering enterprise grade data integrity, high performance distributed caching and unlimited space optimised snapshot and clone capabilities.

• Cluster wide in-line deduplication and compression of all data stored in the cluster, at any scale

• Ability to scale storage capacity and performance (I/O per second or throughput) independently of each other, supporting all flash, hybrid and all disk configurations

• Low touch operational model with automated capacity and performance balancing with real-time data placement optimisation.

“The introduction of NexentaEdge brought the first high performance block and object software-defined scale-out storage solution to deliver cluster-wide inline deduplication and compression to the market,” said Oscar Wahlberg, director, product management, Nexenta. “We are now furthering this innovation by enabling storage freedom and application mobility in Docker environments and offering seamless integration with Canonical OpenStack clouds.“

“Rancher is pioneering how Docker will be implemented in the enterprise by helping organisations build private container services that run on any infrastructure,” said Sheng Liang, co-founder and CEO, Rancher Labs, Inc. “Nexenta is truly leading the way in building SDS solutions on the container ecosystem, enabling the mobility of application microservices with persistent storage.“

“High performance networking is an integral part of a scale-out storage solution, especially when storage media gets faster with Solid State Drives (SSD) and Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) technologies seeing wider adoption. We’re excited to work with Nexenta to enable linear scalability of their scale-out software-defined storage solution, NexentaEdge, with Mellanox flagship Spectrum switches that feature not only high throughput of 25/40/50/100Gb/s, but also low latency, fairness and zero packet drop,” said Chloe Jian Ma, senior director, cloud market development, Mellanox. “With NexentaEdge’s ability to take advantage of advanced networks solutions through NBD support and Replicast, we are confident that this partnership and the joint solution will deliver new value to our customers, meeting the demand for high performance, cost-efficient cloud storage solutions.“

NexentaEdge’s perpetual license lists from $0.15/GB to less than $0.10/GB at capacity plus maintenance and support. NexentaEdge is available for purchase directly from the Juju Charm store or from a Canonical sales representative.

Additional resources and details on announced NexentaEdge integrations:
Lenovo integration
Canonical integration
Micron and Supermicro integrations
NexentaEdge Datasheet
NexentaEdge blog