Latest release of Red Hat Gluster Storage enhanced with container support, file-based auto tiering, writable snapshots, and more

By Alok Srivastava, Senior Product Manager, Red Hat Gluster Storage and Data, Red Hat

Red Hat Gluster Storage 3.1.2 became generally available today, adding such key functionality as containerization and file-based auto tiering to its already feature-rich base. For detailed information on all the latest Red Hat Gluster Storage features and enhancements, see the documentation and read on here. For my interview on the topic, watch our video below.

Key feature enhancements

Red Hat Gluster Storage image on Red Hat’s container registry for persistent file storage for containerized applications

Persistent file-based storage from containerized Red Hat Gluster Storage can be consumed by containerized applications over the network (see following figure). You can quickly bring up a Red Hat Gluster Storage container in a Red Hat Atomic Host or on Red Hat Enterprise Linux by simply pulling a Red Hat Gluster Storage image from Red Hat’s container registry.

File-based auto tiering to leverage innovation in flash and HDD design

The file-based auto tiering feature of Red Hat Gluster Storage 3.1.2, initially available only in tech preview and supported on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 based on Red Hat Gluster Storage, places frequently accessed or “hot” data on fast media (e.g., flash, SSDs) and seldom-accessed or “cold” data on higher capacity yet slower-spinning media (see following figure).

Tiering combines SSDs and HDDs to enable intelligent data placement and thereby boost performance and cost efficiencies. For example, a new or an existing volume may be distributed (erasure coded) on HDDs and the hot tier could be distributed on SSDs. The “attach” operation of tiering, transparent to applications, converts existing volumes into a cold tier. Together, the combination is one tiered volume.

Writable snapshots with shared backend LVM store

This release of Red Hat Gluster Storage supports writable snapshots--clones of snapshotted volumes with read/write permissions. Until today, only thin, LVM-based, read-only snapshots were available in the product. The writable clones, which are space efficient and instantly created, share the backend LVM store with their parent snapshots (see following figure).

Other feature enhancements

Bit rot detection status

The bit rot detection functionality in Red Hat Gluster Storage periodically scans all data bricks in the product, compares checksums, and identifies and sometimes proactively fixes corrupted files. This release augments this feature so that you can identify corrupted files easily and take any necessary corrective action.

Faster SMB access

SMB shares back-ended by Red Hat Gluster Storage now perform better for streaming workloads. With this release, asynchronous IO from Samba to Gluster is supported and the relevant option is enabled by default in smb.conf. We have seen up to 100% performance increase from the previous release in our performance labs!

Offline console installation

Offline installation of the Red Hat Gluster Storage console is now enabled by offering an OVA image. You can now import RHGS-C OVA image to Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager and install the console s/w on virtual machines.