Gluster adds data storage management, virtual server support to open-source clustered NAS

Gluster is joining a recent wave of emerging vendors adding enterprise storage management features to clustered network-attached storage (NAS) systems based on commodity hardware with this week’s release of the Gluster Storage Platform.

Gluster came out of stealth in 2007 with GlusterFS, a scale-out file system for clustered NAS based on open-source code but reengineered “from the ground up,” according to senior director of marketing Jack O’Brien. Version 2 of GlusterFS came out last May with striping, data replication and management tools.

The Gluster Storage Platform, which became available this week, continues to build on those management features with a new software delivery model, an updated Web-based management GUI, and new support for virtual servers, including the ability to self-heal data errors in virtual server environments.

With the Gluster Storage Management Platform, users can now get GlusterFS, the Linux operating system kernel layer and management tools in one package loaded on a thumb drive. Gluster calls this “clustered storage on a stick.” This package also includes a two-step installation process with the goal of making the open-source software accessible to customers who aren’t used to working with code. “We call this release rated ‘E’ for everyone,” O’Brien said.

Similarly, the Gluster Storage Platform uses a Web-based GUI that’s added support for more of Gluster’s management features, such as event logging, which used to require a command line interface.

Finally, though not officially certified with any major server virtualization vendor yet, Gluster is offering support for running virtual machines (VMs) on its clustered NAS. Customers who choose this option can use the cluster’s internal replication to provide high availability (HA) failover for VMs running on the cluster, which is set up using a checkbox at the time of installation. From there, the file system automatically handles the replication using the underlying object-based storage system.

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The FreeBSD Foundation has announced that is funding a new funded project: HAST

“Pawel Jakub Dawidek has been awarded a grant to implement storage replication software that will enable users to use the FreeBSD operating system for highly available configurations where data has to be shared across the cluster nodes. The project is partly being funded by OMCnet Internet Service and TransIP BV.

The software will allow for synchronous block-level replication of any storage media (GEOM providers, using FreeBSD nomenclature) over the TCP/IP network and for fast failure recovery. HAST will provide storage
using GEOM infrastructure, which means it will be file system and application independent and could be combined with any existing GEOM class. In case of a master node failure, the cluster will be able to
switch to the slave node, check and mount UFS file system or import ZFS pool and continue to work without missing a single bit of data.

High-availability is the number one requirement for any serious use of any operating system,

said Pawel Jakub Dawidek, FreeBSD Developer.

Highly available storage is one of the key components in such environments. I strongly believe there are many FreeBSD users that have been waiting a long time for this functionality. I’ll do my best to deliver software that matches FreeBSD quality and that will satisfy the needs of our users.

Pawel has been an active FreeBSD committer since 2003. During this period, he has touched almost every part of the kernel. But, his main interest in FreeBSD is storage and security related topics. Pawel is the author of various GEOM classes (eli, mirror, gate, label, journal, hsec, etc.), geom(8) utility, various opencrypto improvements as well as port of the ZFS file system from OpenSolaris to FreeBSD.

The project will complete by February 2010.”

If you want, you can support this project too.