Nexenta Bolsters Its Open Source Software-Defined Storage Platform and Partnerships for Containers and Cloud Native Apps
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Nexenta Bolsters Its Open Source Software-Defined Storage Platform and Partnerships for Containers and Cloud Native Apps

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SANTA CLARA, CA: Nexenta, a provider of Open Source-Driven Software-Defined Storage (OpenSDS) solutions, today announced its comprehensive plan and strategy for bringing enterprise and cloud grade storage and data management to container-based cloud native application deployments. Nexenta is integrating container technology with its NexentaEdge, a Software-Defined Storage solution, embracing microservice architectures to provide a high performance, enterprise-grade storage foundation for cloud-native applications.

The agility, simplicity and efficiency of microservices and container-based architecture have established them as the de facto standard for developers building cloud applications at scale. This is particularly true for stateless applications that require little or no persistent storage capability from the infrastructure. As enterprises look for ways to bring these same agility, simplicity and efficiency benefits to stateful applications, the need for persistent storage solutions that tightly integrate with, and seamlessly support container deployments has developed and come to the forefront.

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Nexenta is actively working with its partners to address these emerging requirements with its open software-defined storage solutions, enabling customers to simply deploy cloud-native applications whether they require persistent storage or not. In the process, Nexenta is enabling true software-defined container-converged infrastructure: scale-out server based infrastructure that concurrently runs NexentaEdge storage microservices and application microservices, providing high performance persistent storage services and simple container mobility.

 Nexenta's portfolio of OpenSDS solutions provides an ideal foundation for agile container-based infrastructure. As part of this initiative, Nexenta is:

1. Joining the Open Container Initiative (OCI) and Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF). Other members include: Apcera, AT&T, AWS, Cisco, ClusterHQ, CoreOS, Datera, Docker, EMC, Fujitsu, Google, Goldman Sachs, HP, Huawei, IBM, Intel, Joyent, Kismatic, Kyup, the Linux Foundation, Mesosphere, Microsoft, Midokura, Nutanix, Oracle, Pivotal, Polyverse, Rancher, Red Hat, Resin.io, Suse, Sysdig, Twitter, Verizon and VMware

2. Integrating container technology into NexentaEdge, enabling NexentaEdge nodes to be deployed as microservices on any scale-out cluster of Linux servers, providing high performance block and object storage services with enterprise grade functionality such as inline deduplication, inline compression, unlimited snapshots and clones

3. Enabling low latency data access between application microservices and NexentaEdge storage microservices running concurrently on the same server infrastructure, eliminating the overhead associated with traditional iSCSI block access methods and delivering true container-converged infrastructure.

4. Delivering unlimited container mobility across the entire cluster by leveraging NexentaEdge scale out architecture for any time, any server access to any container image or any application backend data.

5. Ensuring seamless integration and management of NexentaEdge storage microservices with Kubernetes.

6. Building ClusterHQ Flocker volume plug-ins for NexentaEdge and NexentaStor to support customers who prefer to keep compute and storage running on separate physical infrastructure

7. Offering compatibility with Canonical's Juju, Charms and LXD

"Containers and microservice architectures have changed the way new applications are developed, deployed and managed at scale. At Nexenta, we’re focusing on the next stage of infrastructure evolution, building software-defined storage management for containers and enabling seamless stateful container mobility on truly container-converged infrastructure. NexentaEdge is a natural fit for enabling these new architectures,” said Thomas Cornely, Chief Product Officer at Nexenta.

“Containers are revolutionizing the computing industry and delivering on the dream of application portability,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation. “We applaud Nexenta’s vision for making software defined storage a critical part of OCI and CNCF and the next generation of cloud applications.”

“Nexenta’s integration with containers expands the choice of storage platforms for enterprise customers looking to deploy containers which require data persistence.  We look forward to new innovations from ecosystem partners like Nexenta and working with them on VMware's container initiatives," said Kit Colbert, vice president and CTO, Cloud-Native Apps, VMware.

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