Our recent SNIA Cloud Storage Technologies Initiative (CSTI) Kubernetes in the Cloud series generated a lot of interest, but also more than a few questions. The interest is a great indicator of Kubernetes rising profile in the world of computing.
Following the third episode in the series, we’ve chosen a few questions that might help to better explain (or bring additional context to) our presentation. This post is our answer to your very important questions.
If you’re new to this webcast series about running Kubernetes in the cloud, you can catch the three parts here:
The rest of this article includes your top questions from, and our answers to, Part 3:
Q. What databases are best suited to run on Kubernetes?Read More
This series of webcasts, hosted by the SNIA Networking Storage Forum, is going to tackle an ambitious project – the scope of securing data, namely storage systems and storage networks. Obviously, many of the concepts and realities contained in this series are going to be broadly applicable to all kinds of data protection, but there are some aspects of security that have a unique impact on storage, storage systems, and storage networks.
Because of the fact that security is a holistic concern, there has to be more than “naming the parts.” It’s important to understand how the pieces fit together, because it’s where those joints exist that many of the threats become real.
Understanding Storage Security and Threats
This presentation is going to go into the broad introduction of security principles in general. Read More
A Best of Show award, over 12 hours of content, three days of demos, and a new program drawing attention to persistent memory programming completed – Flash Memory Summit 2019 is officially a success!
SNIA volunteers were again recognized for their hard work developing standards for datacenters and storage professionals with a “Most Innovative Flash Memory Technology” FMS Best of Show award. This year, it was SNIA’s Object Drive Technical Work Group who received kudos for the SNIA Technical Position Key Value Storage API Specification. Jay Kramer, head of the FMS awards program, presented the award to Bill Martin, Chair of the Object Drive TWG, commenting “Key value store technology can enable NVM storage devices to map and store data more efficiently and with enhanced performance, which is of paramount significance to facilitate computational storage. Flash Memory Summit is proud to recognize the SNIA Object Drive Technical Work Group (TWG) for creating the SNIA Technical Position Key Value Storage API Specification Version 1.0 defining an application programming interface (API) for key value storage devices and making this available to the public for download.
SNIA Sessions at FMS Now Available for Viewing and Download
SNIA Executive Director Michael Oros again took the mainstage to describe “Standards that Can Change Your Job and Your Life” encapsulating SNIA work in three core areas: persistent memory, computational storage, and storage management.
Also at Flash Memory Summit, SNIA work and volunteers were on display in eight sessions on persistent memory, highlighting advances in persistent memory, PM software and applications, remote persistent memory, and current research in PM, sponsored by SNIA, JEDEC, and the OpenFabrics Alliance. A new 2019 SNIA-sponsored track on computational storage featured four sessions on controllers and technology, deploying solutions, implementation methods, and applications.
SNIA’s SFF Technology Affiliate highlighted their work on the Enterprise and Datacenter 1U Short SSD Form Factor (E1.S) specification SFF-TA 1006, while the Object Drive TWG expanded on their work in standardization for a key value storage interface underway at SNIA and NVM Express. SNIA also presented a preconference seminar tutorial on persistent memory and NVDIMM, and a session on Storage Management with Swordfish APIs for Open Channel SSDs.
A new session on programming to persistent memory featured a tutorial (video available soon) and a 2 ½ day Persistent Memory Programming Hackathon where attendees programmed to persistent memory systems and discussed their applications. Next up for the Hackathon series – a 2-day event at SNIA Storage Developer Conference.
Find PDFs of these sessions by clicking on Flash Memory Summit 2019 under Associated Event in the SNIA Educational Library.
We continued our discussions on the exhibit floor featuring JEDEC-compliant NVDIMM-Ns from SNIA Persistent Memory and NVDIMM SIG members AgigA Tech, Micron, SMART Modular Technologies, and Viking in a Supermicro box running an open source performance demonstration. If you missed it, the SIG will showcase a similar demonstration at the upcoming SNIA Storage Developer Conference September 23-26, 2019, and at the 2020 SNIA Persistent Memory Summit January 23, 2020, both at the Hyatt Regency Santa Clara. Click on the conference names to register for both events.
A Best of Show award, over 12 hours of content, three days of demos, and a new program drawing attention to persistent memory programming completed, Flash Memory Summit 2019 is officially a success!
SNIA volunteers were again recognized for their hard work developing standards for datacenters and storage professionals with a “Most Innovative Flash Memory Technology” FMS Best of Show award. This year, it was SNIA’s Object Drive Technical Work Group who received kudos for the SNIA Technical Position Key Value Storage API Specification. Jay Kramer, head of the FMS awards program, presented the award to Bill Martin, Chair of the Object Drive TWG, commenting “Key value store technology can enable NVM storage devices to map and store data more efficiently and with enhanced performance, which is of paramount significance to facilitate computational storage. Flash Memory Summit is proud to recognize the SNIA Object Drive Technical Work Group (TWG) for creating the SNIA Technical Position Key Value Storage API Specification Version 1.0 defining an application programming interface (API) for key value storage devices and making this available to the public for download.SNIA Sessions at FMS Now Available for Viewing and DownloadRead More
Our expert presenters, Paul Burt and Ingo Fuchs, have provided additional resources to help keep you in the know on Kubernetes. Here they all are:
Anyone running Kubernetes needs to put a bit of thought into how they approach stateful workloads. Containers by their nature are ephemeral. So, what options are there for the average Kubernetes user? This talk aims to provide an overview of the most obvious options, and provide resources for learning more about them. https://twitter.com/kubernetesio/status/840257886202683392 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x1r3Osu1Kg
Kubernetes is a hot topic these days, generating lots of interest and questions. The goal of our SNIA Cloud Storage Technologies Initiative Kubernetes in the Cloud webcast series is to cut through the hype and provide a vendor neutral look at what Kubernetes is and how it is being used. Our most recent webcast, Kubernetes in the Cloud (Part 2), generated some interesting questions. Here are answers from our expert presenters.
Q. If I’m running my Kubernetes infrastructure at a cloud service provider, do I need CSI support by the cloud provider? If this is not available, I will need a virtual storage array that provides CSI leveraging the underlying cloud storage. Do you know whether there are solutions on the market that I can deploy as a virtual machine at my cloud provider?
A. Current solutions using the CSI interface for public cloud storage are not available at this point. It will be up to the cloud provider to decide whether to support those interfaces to their storage layers.
Q. Does each pod run on one CPU core? I am trying to understand how to size the server configuration?
A. Containers use Linux cgroups to limit the amount of CPU and memory a container can consume and this is exposed in Kubernetes as limits that you can set.
Q. In today’s environment for Kubernetes Flex storage, what is the suggested process to “backup” these stateful PVs or is that not necessary anymore?
A. Backups are still as important with containers as they are today with traditional applications. There are many different approaches available to backup containers: storage snapshots via native storage interfaces, deployment of backup clients in containers, application level backups, etc.
Q. You mentioned Kubernetes a lot – but what is the status of native Docker CSI support? Can I use CSI for usage within Docker without deploying Kubernetes? And if yes: Can I get rid of the need for docker volume drivers then?
A. Docker universal control point (UCP) support of CSI is currently in beta. Once UCP is generally available, we’ll be able to answer your question in more detail.
Kubernetes is a hot topic these days, generating lots of interest and questions. The goal of our SNIA Cloud Storage Technologies Initiative Kubernetes in the Cloud webcast series is to cut through the hype and provide a vendor neutral look at what Kubernetes is and how it is being used. Our most recent webcast, Kubernetes in the Cloud (Part 2), generated some interesting questions. Here are answers from our expert presenters.
Q. If I’m running my Kubernetes infrastructure at a cloud service provider, do I need CSI support by the cloud provider? If this is not available, I will need a virtual storage array that provides CSI leveraging the underlying cloud storage. Do you know whether there are solutions on the market that I can deploy as a virtual machine at my cloud provider?
A. Current solutions using the CSI interface for public cloud storage are not available at this point. It will be up to the cloud provider to decide whether to support those interfaces to their storage layers.
Q. Does each pod run on one CPU core? I am trying to understand how to size the server configuration?
A. Containers use Linux cgroups to limit the amount of CPU and memory a container can consume and this is exposed in Kubernetes as limits that you can set. Read More
Kubernetes is great for running stateless workloads, like web servers. It’ll run health checks, restart containers when they crash, and do all sorts of other wonderful things. So, what about stateful workloads? Large implementers like Uber say to avoid it if you can [1], and gurus like Kelsey Hightower echo that sentiment [2].
It’s the topic we’ll address on August 20th at our live SNIA Cloud Storage Technologies Initiative webcast “Kubernetes in the Cloud (Part 3): Stateful Workloads.” In this session, we’ll explore when it’s appropriate to run a stateful workload in cluster, or out. We’ll discuss the best options for running a workload like a database on the cloud, or in the cluster, and what’s needed to set that up.
We’ll cover:
Secrets management
Running a database on a VM and connecting it to Kubernetes as a service
Running a database in Kubernetes using a `stateful set`
Running a database in Kubernetes using an Operator
Kubernetes is great for running stateless workloads, like web servers. It’ll run health checks, restart containers when they crash, and do all sorts of other wonderful things. So, what about stateful workloads? Large implementers like Uber say to avoid it if you can [1], and gurus like Kelsey Hightower echo that sentiment [2].
It’s the topic we’ll address on August 20th at our live SNIA Cloud Storage Technologies Initiative webcast “Kubernetes in the Cloud (Part 3): Stateful Workloads.” In this session, we’ll explore when it’s appropriate to run a stateful workload in cluster, or out. We’ll discuss the best options for running a workload like a database on the cloud, or in the cluster, and what’s needed to set that up.
We’ll cover: Read More
Our recent SNIA Cloud Storage Technologies Initiative (CSTI) Kubernetes in the Cloud series generated a lot of interest, but also more than a few questions. The interest is a great indicator of Kubernetes rising profile in the world of computing.
Following the third episode in the series, we’ve chosen a few questions that might help to better explain (or bring additional context to) our presentation. This post is our answer to your very important questions.
If you’re new to this webcast series about running Kubernetes in the cloud, you can catch the three parts here:
This series of webcasts, hosted by the 
Our recent SNIA CSTI webcast, “
Kubernetes is a hot topic these days, generating lots of interest and questions. The goal of our SNIA Cloud Storage Technologies Initiative Kubernetes in the Cloud webcast series is to cut through the hype and provide a vendor neutral look at what Kubernetes is and how it is being used. Our most recent webcast,