Container infrastructure storage is taking a role in the app world
Just a few months ago at DockerCon in Austin, Texas, it was reported that the main concern for attendees had become storage for container infrastructure, taking the lead from the previous year's hot topic, security.
The reason is that application developers see great value in using the stateless computing platform of containers in not just creating the apps, but delivering them to the end user. The problem is, stateless means no nonvolatile storage is used, and when the container use ends, the data ends with it. Not a good model for a database-driven application.
So the most action in the field lately is in using container infrastructure for stateful applications and creating the storage for containers the applications need to use.
One of the hottest storage startup areas in the past year was persistent storage for use with containers. One of the ways you can tell a sector is hot is that the startups start buying each other up, as Docker Inc. did with Infinit. Another is when the established storage players get into the game, as Red Hat has for a few years and as Dell EMC recently did.
Not to be outdone, Hewlett Packard Enterprise teamed up earlier this year with Mesosphere to provide persistent storage for container infrastructure using all-flash versions of its 3PAR storage line.
It's fair to say that persistent storage for a container infrastructure is a field still in its infancy, even if investor money is being thrown at it with vigor and established storage vendors are all getting in the game. But it is an infant with real potential to improve application performance and save enterprises money.
