Storage
Mobility
Protection
Analysis and control
TOPICShare
We’re excited to announce the general availability of the latest update for NetApp® Astra™ Control. Astra Control provides application-aware data protection and is now enhanced to support cloud block storage providers (Microsoft Azure Disk Storage and Google Persistent Disk) and new Kubernetes platforms (Rancher Kubernetes Engine and community Kubernetes). Astra Data Store is also now available as a preview and provides native files services for your Kubernetes and VMware deployments.
“NetApp continues to enhance our family of Astra products to support our customers as they develop, deploy, run, and scale business critical applications on Kubernetes,” said Ronen Schwartz, GM/SVP, Cloud Volumes at NetApp. “This update of Astra Control and Astra Data Store demonstrates our ongoing commitment to provide richer data management features, and broad support for Kubernetes platforms and public cloud storage providers that our customers have requested.”
Astra Control is an application-aware data management solution that protects, recovers, and moves data-rich Kubernetes workloads in both public clouds and on-premises. It enables data protection, disaster recovery, and migration for your Kubernetes workloads by leveraging NetApp’s industry-leading data management technology for snapshots, backups, replication, and cloning.
Astra Control has two variants – Astra Control Service (ACS) and Astra Control Center (ACC). Astra Control Service is a managed service operated by NetApp, while Astra Control Center offers the same data management functionality that is delivered to customers, packaged as a self-managed software suite.
This update of Astra Control delivers key application-aware data management features and expands support for storage providers and Kubernetes platforms that customers have requested.
Support for applications deployed using Operators
Astra Control now allows you to protect and move applications that are deployed and managed using Kubernetes Operators, in addition to supporting applications deployed using Helm and Labels. Operators are becoming a popular design pattern for deploying, managing, running, and scaling Kubernetes workloads. With support for Operator-deployed apps, you can now manage a broader set of applications that use this design pattern with a user experience that is consistent with apps deployed using Helm and Labels. Astra Control automatically discovers the Operator-deployed applications, along with their custom resources and the associated controllers. You can then do application-aware snapshots, backups, restores, and clones, just as you can with any other application.
Read “Astra now supports Kubernetes operators! “ for more details on Operators support.
Application data management for custom and home-grown apps using execution hooks
You can now use Astra Control to take application-consistent snapshots and backups of any application by leveraging the execution hooks feature. With this feature, you can provide custom freeze/thaw logic for your home-grown applications before and after taking snapshots to ensure application consistency.
Astra Control currently provides automatic freeze/thaw logic for a catalog of popular applications like PostgreSQL, MariaDB, MySQL, and Jenkins, which it discovers and protects automatically. Additionally, Astra Control supports crash-consistent snapshots for all other applications. With execution hooks, you can extend the ability of Astra Control to take application-consistent snapshots and backups of your home-grown applications by providing application-specific freeze/thaw logic with minimal effort.
Read “Achieve application consistency for your Kubernetes Apps using Astra Control Execution hooks” for more details on execution hooks.
Restore applications in place
With Astra Control, you can now restore a Kubernetes application from an existing snapshot or a backup within the original namespace where the application resides. This feature allows you to easily restore your K8s applications in place (in the same namespace within the same cluster). You can quickly recover from service disruption scenarios like accidental or malicious data corruption or deletion, a failed application upgrade, and other similar issues. This operation allows you to replace your existing application and associated data with a previous instance of the same application and its associated data that you can select from one or more previously recorded application-aware snapshots or backups.
Support for Azure Disk Storage and Google Persistent Disk (in ACS)
Astra Control Service now supports Azure Disk Storage in addition to Azure NetApp Files on Azure and Google Persistent Disks in addition to Cloud Volumes Service on Google Cloud. You can now protect, recover, and move your existing and new applications that are backed by Azure Disk Storage or Google Persistent Disks, as long as they are accessed using the respective CSI drivers with support for snapshots and cloning functionality. Support for these two block storage providers also enables complete application-data management for your applications that use a combination of file and block storage, like Azure Disk Storage and Azure NetApp Files on Azure or Google Persistent Disks and Cloud Volumes Service in Google Cloud.
Read “Astra Control Protects workloads running Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Service and Azure Disk Storage” for more details on Azure Disk Storage support.
“Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Service users can now leverage NetApp's Astra Control Service for application-aware data management of stateful workloads using Azure Disk Storage, making it easier to protect and migrate their cloud-native applications,” said Aung Oo, Head of Product, Azure Disk & File Storage.
Read “Astra Control Service now supports Google Kubernetes Engine workloads backed by Google Persistent Disk” for more details on Google Persistent Disk support.
“Customers running stateful workloads in Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) often use Google Cloud Persistent Disks as their main data storage solution,” said Brian Schwarz, Director, Product Management at Google Cloud. “NetApp’s Astra Control Service will provide additional backup, recovery, and cloning capabilities for GKE workloads, providing greater protection, value, and control for customers running business-critical applications on GKE.”
Certified Operator for Red Hat OpenShift
The Astra Control Center Operator is now a Red Hat OpenShift Certified Operator, making it even easier to deploy, manage, and run ACC on OpenShift clusters. The ACC Operator is monitored and updated automatically to reduce interoperability failure and minimize security risks. Jointly supported by Red Hat and NetApp, the certified ACC Operator is tested and validated to run on OpenShift, accelerating the delivery of rich application-data management functionality to business-critical OpenShift workloads.
“We are pleased to recognize NetApp’s Astra Control Center as a Red Hat OpenShift Certified Operator,” said Chris Morgan, senior director, Customer & Field Engagement, Hybrid Platforms, Red Hat. “OpenShift is the industry’s leading enterprise Kubernetes platform, offering a consistent foundation to deliver Kubernetes applications across hybrid cloud environments. With certified OpenShift Operators such as the Astra Control Center, customers can benefit from a tested, validated solution to streamline application management and deployment.”
Read “Protecting your OpenShift apps with NetApp Astra and ONTAP” for more details on certified Operator support for Red Hat OpenShift
Also for deployment steps read “Deploy NetApp Astra from Red Hat OpenShift OperatorHub “
Support for Rancher Kubernetes Engine (RKE) and community Kubernetes (in ACC)
This release of Astra Control Center (ACC) extends K8s platform support for Rancher Kubernetes Engine (RKE) and community Kubernetes in addition to OpenShift Container Platform (OCP). You can now protect, recover, and move your K8s applications running on RKE and community Kubernetes with NetApp ONTAP® as the storage provider.
Read “Astra Control adds Rancher and Upstream Kubernetes Support” for more detail on Rancher and Upstream Kubernetes Support .
Astra Data Store Preview for the Cloud-native Datacenter
Astra Data Store (ADS) is NetApp’s cloud native SDS for Kubernetes and virtual machine workloads. ADS combines the enterprise data management that customers expect from NetApp with the flexibility of scale-out deployment on customers’ hardware. We built ADS to address customers’ challenges as they rethink their cloud-native datacenter strategy with the rise of Kubernetes. As part of this change, customers are asking how to best run their containerized workloads whether on bare metal or in virtualized environments. The need to enable their container adoption and dual support for virtual machines is what led us to build Astra Data Store. Sign up for the Astra Data Store preview here.
Summary
This update of Astra Control delivers on all fronts – exciting new data management functionality, broader support for storage providers, K8s platforms, and certification on OpenShift incorporating feedback from our customers and partners. Free trials are available for both Astra Control Service and Astra Control Center. Sign up and get started today.