MayaData Unveils Kubera to Manage Data on Kubernetes Clusters
MayaData this week launched a platform dubbed Kubera for managing data accessed by stateful applications stored on Kubernetes clusters.
Company CEO Evan Powell says Kubera addresses logging, alerting, reporting, backups, maintenance, compliance checks, troubleshooting, automation and visualization requirements for IT teams looking to manage data on Kubernetes clusters at scale.
Previously, MayaData built OpenEBS, an open source project that makes it easier to access container-attached storage, and Litmus Chaos, a set of testing tools based on chaos engineering techniques that run natively on Kubernetes.
Available to be deployed on-premises or accessed as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform, Kubera is intended to make it easier to operationalize stateful containerized applications deployed across what will become fleets of Kubernetes clusters running instances of OpenEBS, says Powell. OpenEBS provides an abstraction layer between an applications and any local, network or cloud storage resource.
Fresh off raising an additional $26 million in funding, Kubera automates the lifecycle management of all the data layer components within a Kubernetes environment, Powell says.
Priced at $49 per user month, Kubera was created as part of MayaData’s effort to provide commercial support services of OpenEBS, which is now being advanced under the auspices of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), Powell says.
Most of the early adoption of containers was driven by stateless applications. More recently, organizations have begun to deploy stateful applications that require access to persistent storage in larger numbers. As such, Powell says the need for management platforms has become more pronounced, especially among IT organizations looking for management tools that make Kubernetes clusters more accessible.
It’s not clear to what degree the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the rate at which stateful containerized applications are being deployed. There is no doubt more applications are being deployed in the cloud. However, a significant percentage of those applications still are likely to be based on legacy monolithic applications. Many IT teams still don’t have the skills required to build and deploy microservices-based application on Kubernetes clusters. Nevertheless, more IT organizations than ever are looking to deploy applications that are more flexible and resilient, and as such are deploying microservices-based applications on Kubernetes clusters.
As part of that transition, it’s also likely the control plane for managing storage systems will shift to the cloud as stateful containerized applications become more distributed across cloud and on-premises IT environments.
It’s also expected Kubernetes will provide the foundation for hybrid cloud computing. The goal is to make it easier to move workloads between clouds and on-premises IT environments as needed. However, Powell notes achieving that goal will require IT organizations to make sure they have not inadvertently locked their application into any specific cloud by invoking proprietary interfaces or services.
Of course, storage doesn’t always get its full due whenever IT organizations are adopting new platforms. Given how much impact storage has on the performance of containerized applications, however, it’s only a matter of time before a lot more attention is paid optimizing storage for stateful containerized applications that are becoming more widely employed.
