UPDATED 11:00 EDT / OCTOBER 12 2021

BIG DATA

Pure Storage and NetApp bring more data management capabilities to cloud-native apps

Data storage companies Pure Storage Inc. and NetApp Inc. are pushing forward in their efforts to solve the problem of data portability for cloud-native software.

Pure Storage today announced a major update to Portworx by Pure Storage’s PX-Backup platform, while NetApp unveiled an entirely new product as part of its Astra suite of Kubernetes storage solutions.

Pure Storage first announced PX-Backup last year as an attempt to solve some of the key challenges around storage for cloud-native applications. The problem enterprises face is that traditional storage platforms aren’t suitable for modern apps hosted in software containers as they cannot provide the data resiliency, mobility, security and backup they require.

Moor Insights & Strategy analyst Steve McDowell told SiliconANGLE that cloud-native workloads are popular because they promise far greater portability than traditional applications have ever had. But unless those cloud-native apps come with tools to make the data they rely on equally portable, he said, their utility is limited.

PX-Backup attempts to fix that by providing scalable storage for software containers, which host the components of modern, cloud-native apps. It does this by transforming commodity server hardware into a converged storage node that’s able to scale across clusters and automatically provision itself when needed. Users can then manage their storage requirements on a per-container basis.

The updates in PX-Backup 2.1, which will be available in November, are aimed at enhancing multicloud mobility and reliability. The release introduces true application portability between clouds or on-premises data centers, Pure Storage said, so with the latest version, customers can back up Kubernetes applications running in one cloud or data center and restore them in another.

Other updates focus on improving compliance. PX-Backup 2.1 adopts what’s known as the “3-2-1 Backup Rule,” which the company says is an industry standard for any data protection plan that ensures it will be possible to recover from several different failure scenarios. With the new release, PX-Backup 2.1 can offload backups from Container Storage Interface snapshots to object storage.

It means that any Kubernetes-based apps running on the Portworx PX-Store, and any CSI-compliant or cloud-based storage service, can now use PX-Backup to maintain three copies of data in the form of production data, snapshots and a backup copy across both disk and object storage.

McDowell said the new features in PX-Backup 2.1 make it much easier to migrate cloud-native apps between clouds from a backup, or to replicate an entire app in a new environment.

“This is a very powerful capability,” he said. “Flexibility is also the name-of-the-game with PX-Backup’s new 3-2-1 data protection support. Integrated support for multiple levels of backup, including replicating snapshots to object storage, such as AWS S3, is a critical data protection feature. Users could do this before, but it was a manual process.”

NetApp debuts Astra Data Store

NetApp is taking a similar approach to solving the cloud-native data problem with NetApp Astra, which is a family of tools that bring advanced data management capabilities to Kubernetes-managed container workloads. Those capabilities include simplified application portability that’s made possible using “active clones” of apps, the ability to protect data with regular snapshots, and disaster recovery through remote backups.

Today’s new addition to the Astra family is the NetApp Astra Data Store, which the company explains is a Kubernetes-native shared file service that will be available later this year.

NetApp said Astra Data Store solves a key challenge for companies around the lack of a reliable, Kubernetes-native file service for enterprise data management. Most container-based apps need to use file services for shared access, but the majority of Kubernetes-native data stores are built on block storage. So deploying those apps on block storage requires rearchitecting them, which slows down adoption, NetApp says.

Other challenges exist around the need to install proprietary file clients and the need to manage data stores for virtual machines and containers separately. That can create data silos and management headaches and thus stall digital transformation efforts.

The NetApp Astra Data Store has been built to tackle all three challenges. The company says it’s the first Kubernetes-native unified shared file service for containers and virtual machines with advanced data management features. The main advantage is that by enabling containers and VMs to share a data store, operational complexity is reduced, NetApp said. It also provides multiple, parallel file systems on the same resource pool, enabling cloud-like ease-of-use and scale, the company promised.

“I really like the new file services capabilities that NetApp is bringing to Astra,” McDowell said. “While most cloud-native deployments rely on block-storage, NetApp recognizes that enabling enterprise-class file services in Astra will remove the burden for entire classes of application to be easily deployed into a Kubernetes environment.”

NetApp said Astra Data Store will become available in preview in the coming months, with general availability slated for next year.

Image: Buffik/Pixabay

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