Containerizing applications? Don’t forget the data!

[StorageExperts]

Using Docker containers with Docker, Kubernetes or Mesos? Learn about the top challenges for containerizing data intensive applications and what today’s persistent storage solutions can do to address them.

Docker containers and data should always go together.Last year, we saw organizations of all sizes evaluating Docker Containers. Gartner has confirmed that production container use is on the rise, and advised all IT leaders to plan upfront to meet stateful application requirements for persistent data. Organizations are containerizing more enterprise applications for greater portability and efficiency, and faster growth.¹   Containers are transformative because they make it easy for developers across organizations to re-use and build on each other’s code.

What is a stateful application and why does it matter?

Whether you’re in banking, retail or healthcare, your enterprise applications rely on persistent data to improve key business metrics—for supply chain, operations, customer engagement and even ROI. With the rise of IT generalists,² everyone needs to be able to manage, copy and deliver this data without the help of a storage expert.

What are the top challenges for containerizing data-intensive applications?

You and your team should consider these three questions:

1. How will you ensure data is protected and available when you need it?

2. When moving applications across environments, will the data move with them?

3. What does your team need to manage data at the scale and speed of Docker or Kubernetes?

Check out the complete infographic: How Docker early adopters use containers

Make data as easy to manage as containers

Data should be easy to consume, re-use, and manage for virtualization admins, container admins and cluster admins. Whether you choose Docker, Kubernetes, Mesos—or all three, you need persistent storage that delivers rich data services that are powerful enough to match.

To achieve Docker container-style sharing, reuse and deployment for application data, storage should go way beyond volume creation to modern data management. Here are examples of some of the capabilities the best persistent storage solutions provide: 

• On-board data easily—Instantly convert legacy virtual volumes to persistent volumes when containerizing applications.
• Just-in-time data copies—Automate the delivery and cleanup of hundreds of data copies for devs, QA and staging. Data should be there when they need it, gone when they don’t.
• Data protection made easy—Schedule your snapshot backups right from Docker, Kubernetes and Mesosphere.
• Set Quality of Service (QoS) IOPS and capacity limits—Set for tenants while letting developers choose a container type: Linux or Windows.

Learn more at our BrightTalk webinar on stateful containers

For an overview of more advanced capabilities today’s solutions can provide, attend our upcoming BrightTalk webinar:  Stateful Containers for DevOps and Beyond

When: February 22, 2018

Speakers: Michael Mattsson, Containers Technical Marketing Engineer & Stacey Gilmore, Container Solutions Marketing

You can also check out Michael’s latest blog on ground breaking policy-based storage provisioning for Kuberenetes.

 Meet Around the Storage Block blogger Stacey Gilmore, Containers Solutions Marketing, HPE. A former HPE DevOps Engineer, Stacey is surprised and delighted to be back where she first began her career: at HPE.

¹ Docker Containers Will Impact Enterprise Storage Infrastructure

²Forbes: New Problems, New Approaches: The Rise of the Generalist & VMware: The Rise of the IT Generalist