NetApp has added Azure public cloud support to its Astra software-as-a-service product. Astra manages the storage functions of Kubernetes-orchestrated containers.
Last month it pushed out Astra support for the Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) in the Google Cloud. NetApp Cloud Volumes Service provides persistent storage for the offering.
Now they can do the same for apps using the Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), with Azure NetApp Files as the storage provider.
Sayan Saha, NetApp senior director of Product Management, said: “[It] brings AKS users a rich set of application-aware data and storage management functionality… with just a few clicks from the Astra console.”
How it works
Once you add an AKS cluster application to Astra, it automatically discovers the available clusters in the user’s Azure account. It then creates three storage classes corresponding to Azure NetApp Files’ performance tiers. So the user selects a default from Standard, Premium, or Ultra.
Astra automatically discovers AKS applications that run on the clusters and manages those a user selects. You can back them up with snapshots and recover and clone to either Azure’s or Google’s cloud. Astra-managed apps in the Google cloud can be moved to Azure.
There is an Astra API which you can use to automate app-data management workflows for any Kubernetes cluster in any cloud.
Customers can pay for Astra with pay-as-you-go billing via a credit card or buy annual subscriptions in packs of 10 applications each.
Saha said: “Our next stop is Astra support for on-premises Kubernetes clusters with NetApp ONTAP backing stateful applications.”
So, next up, support for AWS? It’s almost inevitable.
