Container data availability and reuse
Containers provide rapid deployment in a lightweight framework. They are ideal for scaling up and down services, rapid provisioning for development and an integral part of many DevOps workflows. Containers have less overhead than virtual machines and the flexibility for practically any workload.
As organizations adopt containers more broadly, data management and availability requirements have expanded. Unlike transient microservices, most applications require persistent storage to function properly. IBM Storage can provide the critical tools required to help you deploy containers with persistent storage, protect, replicate and use snapshots to maintain the multiple versions required for your development, analytics and other secondary data reuse.
The IBM history with containers is strong, going back to the original Open Source LXC project on which most of the container technology has been built. Recently, IBM introduced a complete environment for supporting containers for private cloud called IBM Cloud Private. When deployed as the Spectrum Access Blueprint, the administrator can deploy persistent data volumes on-demand on IBM Storage.
One of the many advantages of using an enterprise storage platform to support your container environment is the myriad of features, functions and tools that are already available and part of existing operations to help protect and manage your important data. For the storage teams and the CIO, it can enable the use of established processes and tools for data protection, archiving and data growth management across containerized, virtual machine and bare metal application deployments.
The container users, developers, and administrators need to be equally enabled. IBM integrates storage container management and orchestration through IBM Spectrum Connect. IBM Spectrum Connect enables Docker and Kubernetes administrators to use IBM storage for persistent data volumes. Available for no charge, Spectrum Connect provides a common interface across the IBM block storage families of IBM Spectrum Virtualize, IBM Spectrum Accelerate and VersaStack platforms.
This week at the IBM Think Conference in Las Vegas, we will demonstrate how IBM Storage provisions a persistent data volume, delivers regular snapshots and restores data. When using native snapshots in IBM Storage and advanced data protection and reuse features in IBM Spectrum software, this approach to container-aware data protection and availability is designed to be fast, flexible and familiar. IBM Spectrum CDM and IBM Spectrum Protect Plus are programmatic and role-based interfaces which provide a common platform for storage, container and DevOps teams to help build workflows processes to balance the need for rapid deployment and application data protection.
Join us at Think to see the latest demonstration of IBM Storage, IBM Cloud Private, and IBM Spectrum Software working together. We will be at the Modern Infrastructure Campus, Mandalay Bay, Level 1, Bayside A, next to the fast car; rapidly provisioning, snapshotting and restoring container data.
Additional reading:
IBM Spectrum Connect, which includes IBM Storage Enabler for Container Environments:
https://www.ibm.com/blogs/systems/ibm-storage-systems-go-cloud-native/
IBM Spectrum Access and IBM Cloud Private:
https://www.ibm.com/blogs/systems/flexible-storage-solutions-for-a-hybrid-it-environment/
Snapshot Management and Data Reuse with IBM Spectrum Software:
https://www.ibm.com/blogs/systems/pt-2-bringing-data-protection-into-the-cognitive-era/
IBM Cloud Private:
https://www.ibm.com/blogs/bluemix/2017/06/ibm-announces-kubernetes-base-ibm-cloud-private-platform/