NetApp Debuts Astra Kubernetes Portability Service

NetApp today formally debuted Astra (formerly Project Astra), its enterprise-class storage and data services platform for Kubernetes that enables both application and data portability. NetApp today formally debuted Astra (formerly Project Astra), its enterprise-class storage and data services platform for Kubernetes that enables both application and data portability. “We designed Astra so that our customers don’t have to learn and relearn how to manage Kubernetes in every environment,” NetApp’s Sayan Saha, senior director of product management, wrote in a blog post. “And they don’t have to develop a patchwork of scripts and admin tools to accomplish these tasks, which do not scale as they scale their Kubernetes deployments.” Over the last two years NetApp has shifted its focus to Kubernetes with its eyes set on becoming a leading on-premises hybrid cloud platform capable of automating infrastructure for Kubernetes. NetApp kicked off the Astra project last April to address the complications its customers encounter in orchestrating large clusters of software containers, turning to the data storage specialists for the answer to managing thousands of volumes.  Pushing Astra to general availability is a monumental step in NetApp’s evolution to support stateful, cloud-native applications with any Kubernetes distribution across all clouds. The platform offers a normalized application data management approach that results in the  portability of data rich or stateful applications, moving them from one cluster to another. NetApp’s vision is to allow companies to work seamlessly with their choice of Kubernetes distribution on any cloud. Storage has been one of the more difficult areas for Kubernetes to proliferate for fear of losing a piece of data — and understandably so, as containers have continuously missed the mark on persistent data. Each container acts as a physical server or virtual machine (VM) where all applications have a little piece of data. This eliminates the opportunity to manage a single storage volume.  Astra’s application awareness is made up of three capabilities to intelligently identify application boundaries within namespaces and discover applications automatically, Saha writes. First, it uses snapshots to protect data so users can revert a cluster if data is corrupted or deleted. Second, it enables a full restore of applications across and within cloud through remote backup. Finally, Astra uses what NetApp calls “active clones” to simplify application portability and migration. Basically this means users can migrate, restore a full stack, storage volume, and application regardless of location. This service is available exclusively on Google Cloud, with support for Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and on-premises environments coming soon, the vendor said.