NetApp announced general availability for the latest release of Netapp Astra Contol, delivering new data management functionality, broader support for storage providers, new K8s platforms, and certification on Openshift. Astra Control provides application-aware data protection and now includes enhanced support for Azure Disks and Google Persistent Disks and Azure NetApp Files and Cloud Volumes Service in Azure and Google Cloud. The update also extends Kubernetes platform support for Rancher Kubernetes Engine (RKE) and community Kubernetes in addition to OpenShift Container Platform (OCP).
Astra Control includes Astra Control Service (ACS) and Astra Control Center (ACC). ACS is a NetApp Managed Service, while ACC is a self-managed software suite with the same functionality as ACS. NetApp also announced the preview release of its Astra Data Store, a Kubernetes-native, shared file, unified data store for containers and VMs.
Astra family ecosystem
Support for Operator Deployed Applications
With Astra Control, operators can protect and move applications deployed and managed using Kubernetes Operators and support applications deployed using Helm and Labels. The added support for Operator-deployed apps provides a broader set of applications that use Operator-deployed patterns with a user experience 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. Application-aware snapshots, backups, restores, and clones are available as with any other application.
Application Data Management
Astra Control provides the ability to take application-consistent snapshots and backups of any application by leveraging the execution hooks feature. This feature includes custom freeze/thaw logic for home-grown applications before and after taking snapshots to ensure application consistency.
Automatic freeze/thaw logic is currently available for PostgreSQL, MariaDB, MySQL, and Jenkins applications. Astra Control also supports crash-consistent snapshots for all other applications. Execution hooks extend the ability to take application-consistent snapshots and backups of home-grown applications by providing application-specific freeze/thaw logic with minimal effort.
Restore Applications in Place
The updated Astra Control can restore a Kubernetes application from an existing snapshot or a backup within the original namespace where the application resides. With this feature, it’s easy to restore K8s applications in place. Quickly recover from service disruption scenarios like accidental or malicious data corruption or deletion, a failed application upgrade, and other similar issues. Replace existing applications and associated data with a previous instance of the same application and its associated data with this release of Astra Control.
ACS Supports Azure Disk Storage and Google Persistent Disk
The updated Astra Control Service now supports Azure Disk Storage and Azure NetApp Files on Azure and Google Persistent Disks and Cloud Volumes Service on Google Cloud. Protect, recover, and move existing and new applications 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.
The Astra Control Center Operator is now a Red Hat OpenShift Certified Operator, making it 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. Red Hat and NetApp jointly support this feature.
Astra Control Center (ACC) now extends K8s platform support for Rancher Kubernetes Engine (RKE) and community Kubernetes in addition to OpenShift Container Platform (OCP). Protect, recover, and move your K8s applications running on RKE and community Kubernetes with NetApp ONTAP as the storage provider with ACC.
Summary
This update of Astra Control delivers new data management functionality, broader support for storage providers, K8s platforms, and certification on OpenShift. NetApp offers free trials for Astra Control Service and Astra Control Center.
