StorPool Storage says, due to increasing demand from VMware clients, it has expanded the capabilities of its Apache CloudStack integration. Reducing vendor lock-in, optimizing IT environment costs, and future-proofing enterprises are among the reasons StorPool believes VMware clients are gravitating toward CloudStack.
A highly available and highly scalable Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) may be created by deploying and managing vast arrays of virtual machines using Apache CloudStack, an open-source cloud computing software platform.
Even when other primary storage types, including faster block-level storage, are used, CloudStack’s present KVM-hypervisor host High Availability (HA) capability relies on having an NFS primary storage to identify which nodes are available, stated StorPool. To enhance KVM host high availability for non-NFS storage in Apache CloudStack settings, StorPool adds a technique that gets around the NFS main storage heartbeat need.
The new approach would make it possible to use StorPool Storage for HA heartbeats, doing away with the need for NFS main storage, streamlining CloudStack installations, and guaranteeing that host HA depends on the storage used to hold virtual machine data. Accoring to StorPool, block-level main storage is now an option for cloud builders globally in all shapes and sizes, including managed service providers, cloud & hosting providers, cloud services providers, SaaS vendors, and even businesses, who want to develop a cloud using CloudStack. This would be in contrast to the NFS-only option.
The Broadcom-VMware Deal
According to StorPool with the help of this most recent feature, cloud and storage architects may set up a highly automated cloud that offers cloud architecture that is built on CloudStack, compatible with KVM hosts and StorPool Storage, and that would be “reliable, agile, quick, manageable, and economical.” Future upgrades would enable KVM host high availability for Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) setups whereby StorPool storage and CloudStack computation operate simultaneously on the same machines.
“CloudStack and KVM are being adopted very quickly, especially since the Broadcom-VMware deal, but there aren’t many storage options for this stack when trying to use high availability deployments,” said Alex Ivanov, the product lead for StorPool Storage. “Through the heartbeat protocol, which locks users onto NFS main storage, StorPool has created a workaround. We have successfully avoided using NFS primary storage as a required component of the cloud by implementing changes on the agent side, where the heartbeat occurs, rather than the HA framework itself. Instead, we are able to deliver reliability, agility, speed, and cost-effectiveness that surpass those of other primary storage products.”
With a bring your own servers (BYOS) approach, the StorPool platform provides Storage as a Service (STaaS). It turns ordinary hardware into “quick, highly available, and scalable” block-first storage systems by combining software and a fully managed data storage service.
