SwiftStack Contributes to OpenStack Object Storage

SwiftStack Inc. announced its development contributions to the OpenStack Object Storage project (code named Swift) are part of the latest release of OpenStack Swift.

Together with contributions from HP, IBM, Intel, Rackspace, and Red Hat, the latest release (code named Havana) has a total of 64 contributors, and has added features and robustness to the engine that powers the world’s largest storage clouds. The addition of support for global clusters in OpenStack Havana enables users to deploy cloud storage between geographies for disaster tolerance and improved levels of service.

“Key to OpenStack’s success will be a robust ecosystem of global technology leaders backing the project,” said Mike Werner, senior director, global ecosystems, Red Hat Inc. “We are pleased to collaborate with SwiftStack through Red Hat’s OpenStack ecosystem on OpenStack’s advancement in the enterprise.”

DR and Availability for Open Object Storage
As enterprise applications evolve from their traditional software architecture to today’s user-centric model, applications must retain the requirement for HA and disaster tolerance. However, delivering consistent data replication across geographies is a challenge in a distributed architecture. OpenStack Object Storage supports global clusters with open source technologies, offering deployers the availability across geographies that their applications require.

Enterprises can take advantage of cost savings, leveraging open source software on commodity hardware, while scaling capacity and performance across multiple dimensions – all this without sacrificing availability and distribution of their data across data centers. By selecting an open solution, customers are not locked-in, enjoying the maximum flexibility possible when operating in public, private or hybrid cloud use cases.

Added in the 1.8 release, a region tier for data placement allowed deployers to group availability zones into regions, and have adjustable replica counts for better availability across those regions. The 1.9 release had support for using a separate replication network and control of read and write affinity, which enabled clients to be served more quickly by nearby data centers. The 1.10 release completes the solution with optimization to replication. SwiftStack is powered by OpenStack Object Storage, and its private cloud solution offers a controller interface for deploying and operating storage clusters that span multiple geographies.

Community Development Effort
It is one of the original projects at the core of OpenStack, and continues to see increased contribution with every release. The total number of contributors to OpenStack Swift has reached 136, with as many as 16 different contributors committing code in a single week in July 2013. More than 30 developers contributed to the project for the first time in this latest release. Supported by a base of contributors, feature development addressing real-world use cases is driving increased adoption, particularly among enterprises.

“SwiftStack is powered by OpenStack Object Storage, a decision I made when founding the company. The vibrant contribution to OpenStack and its proven performance at scale is the reason OpenStack Swift powers many of the world’s largest storage clouds,” said Joe Arnold, CEO, SwiftStack. “Our customers require a storage solution that supports HA and disaster tolerance across geographies, which has been made possible with the community effort bringing support for global clusters to OpenStack Swift.”

Supporting Today’s Applications
SwiftStack user Concur will share their experiences at the OpenStack Summit on November 5-8 in Hong Kong. Dan Wilson, senior manager of hosting operations, Concur, will share his view on options in the market and cover the advantages of the Swift architecture to support SaaS applications, along with how Swift fits into the architecture at Concur.