The Application Use Cases for Kubernetes-Native Storage

Kubernetes-Native Storage (K8sNS) is taking the enterprise by storm. With K8sNS, global organizations can support enterprise-class data and storage management all within one common platform. Kubernetes Native Storage is simple, inexpensive, and quickly moves your data around multiple clouds whether private, public, or hybrid. Ultimately, K8sNS works to improve the operational costs, utilization, and portability of data across the enterprise.

We estimate that by 2024, 75% of enterprises will prioritize infrastructure agility and operational efficiency leading to a 5x increase in cloud-native core business applications. In this article, we’re outlining and discussing the top application use cases of Kubernetes Native Storage for the enterprise. But first, let’s discuss the benefits of Kubernetes Native Storage and Cloud Native Storage.

Who Can Benefit from Kubernetes Native Storage?

Kubernetes Native Storage eliminates Data Gravity, allowing application data to move at the speed of applications. With ionir K8sNS, full volumes, regardless of size or amount of data, are transported across clouds or across the world in 40 seconds or less. Enterprises are enabled to make decisions faster, innovate quicker, operate more effectively, and achieve the vision of Kubernetes at enterprise scale.

In addition to data mobility, instant restore to any-point-in-time simplifies backup and replication while eliminating the need for complex, time-consuming snapshots. On-the-fly deduplication and AI-driven tiering ensure data is efficiently stored on the most appropriate media for each application. Moreover, enterprise data is better protected with Kubernetes Native Storage.

Kubernetes Cloud Native Storage Beats Cloud Ready Storage

Essentially, there are two types of cloud storage. One is Cloud Native Storage (CNS) and the other is Cloud Ready Storage (CRS). The main difference between these two is CNS allows IT teams to effectively deploy and manage data, and the storage of data, for modern applications. Within a single platform, it enables unified management of storage for containers. On the other hand, CRS works with an ecosystem of multi-cloud management and automation tools. Cloud Ready Storage doesn’t have the elastic scalability or the ability to increase resilience or performance capabilities.

There are unique key benefits to implementing Cloud Native Storage. For instance, CNS has the capability of elastic scale. This means that as your organization grows and more customers come onto the service, the more demand is placed on your systems. In order to meet that demand without compromising on the quality or speed of your systems, scalability is a must.

Another benefit of CNS is the ability to scale horizontally. Horizontal scaling enables IT teams to run multiple instances of the same services and provides a greater level of resilience to ensure zero interruption — if one service stops working, there are multiple others that are prepared to step in and take charge. Ultimately, these micro services are only available options for those using Cloud Native Storage.

Kubernetes Native Storage is considered Container Native Storage which is a subset of Cloud Native Storage. Container Native Storage pools local media resources and presents logical storage objects to applications to generate unique enterprise-class data management capabilities such as:

• continuous data protection
• instant restore to any point in time
• instant copy to any location
• global deduplication
• automated tiering

Keep in mind, Kubernetes is designed to kill/restart any container in the infrastructure at will. When a container is killed, its data is lost. Using a CNS ensures data persists even if the container doesn’t. Any stateful app that requires data to persist (transaction apps, etc) requires a CNS. With this knowledge base, let’s dive into the 4 use cases for Kubernetes Native Storage.

1. CI/CD Development Scalability

Kubernetes is often used to run Continuous Integration or Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) pipelines. Fundamentally, CI/CD development closes any gap between development and operations via automating the building, testing, and deployment of applications. Kubernetes Native Storage helps deployments with instant copy of applications across clouds. Additionally, K8sNS instantly clones at one-second granularity for acceleration development and testing.

Often, the main challenges organizations face when it comes to CI/CD development are scalability, speed, and cost. Adding remote worker nodes creates bandwidth and latency issues causing an inability or limit on scalability. Meanwhile, the deployment speed can be affected by the pulling images and artifacts as this slows incremental builds. Not to mention, the time spent on logic and configuration errors between test iterations as well as time wasted copying data sets. To only add to the complications, legacy storage overhead is expensive.

Here’s where Kubernetes Native Storage comes in. K8sNS helps with CI/CD development by:

• Instantly scaling CI across multiple worker nodes by teleporting clones
• Accelerating incremental builds by cloning artifacts between builds
• Accelerating app delivery by optimizing workflows
• Eliminating test errors by resetting configuration between iterations from Time Volumes
• Instantly copying data sets from development to production clusters
• Eliminating legacy storage to reduce infrastructure & and operational costs by over 40%

Jenkins, an open source automation server, and the HR software Bamboo, use ionir Kubernetes Native Storage to better scale, accelerate app delivery, and instantly move data from development to production.

ionir provides persistent, resilient, and high-performance storage that reduces run times for builds and tests, in both monolithic & scaled Jenkins environments. Download the full whitepaper to learn more.

2. Database Performance & Resilience

Kubernetes Native Storage provides high-performance storage for databases, and common data management and protection workflows across hybrid and multi-cloud deployments. When K8sNS is done right, the following elements occur:

• Integrated data protection services
• Data orchestrated and managed by K8s
• Performance and capacity scale in tandem
• Move/copy of application data takes seconds
• Ensures all the benefits of a converged K8s environment

With Kubernetes Native Storage, data is enabled to be instantly restored to any point in time, along with the benefit of unlimited snapshots, replication, and more. Moreover, the unique microservices architecture of K8sNS means K8s orchestrates both apps and data services to deliver performance and resilience. Additionally, Advanced Machine Learning ensures data is mapped to the optimal storage resource based on performance, density, cost, location, and other key factors.

MongoDB, a database program, uses Kubernetes Native Storage to benefit from instant scaling and movement between clouds.

3. Edge IoT Computing at Speed

5G implementations benefit from instant movement of data to the edge for scale and availability, and from the edge for analysis. What does this mean exactly? 5G is the new age of network speed and connection. Unlike previous networks, 5G will offer significantly faster speeds and a much more reliable connection to mobile devices. Therefore, 5G implementations will bring forth exponential growth for edge IoT computing with the capacity to carry more data at a faster rate than ever before.

Similarly, the ionir platform can be deployed anywhere from core to edge, be it public or private cloud. ionir provides seamless mobility, moving application data to and from the edge at the speed of applications. With ionir Kubernetes Native Storage, enterprises can distribute to and protect edge, (re)install golden images, and consolidate edge to core.

4. Performance Analytics On Demand

The preparation and delivery of data for analysis often involves copying data from a variety of sources, as well as making interim copies as data is cleansed and filtered. Kubernetes Native Storage provides capacity and performance scaling on demand as well as optimized infrastructure for full range of applications in data analytics and AI/ML pipelines.

Let’s get started. Contact our team of experts to drastically improve your enterprise with ionir Kubernetes Native Storage.

Final Thoughts

No matter the use case, ionir Kubernetes Native Storage empowers enterprises to achieve their Kubernetes Everywhere vision by making data as agile as applications. By 2022, enterprises will modernize over 50% of their existing applications to cloud-native services. 2022 is less than a year away. Will your enterprise be stuck in the past using complex silos and dedicated infrastructure? Or will you implement the necessary digital transformation throughout your enterprise to remain ahead of the competition?