NetApp Astra Trident Supports More Cloud Workloads

This blog, dated June 27, 2024, was written by Sayan Saha, product executive with open-source software product management experience spanning Linux-based platform software, containers, Kubernetes, high-availability/clustering software, virtualization, hyper-converged systems, and SDS. At NetApp, Inc., he runs product management for Astra – a fully managed SaaS multihybrid cloud data management platform for Kubernetes applications. Before NetApp, he was a product management leader at AWS and Red Hat, where he led cloud file storage, distributed storage, and Kubernetes storage products.

NetApp Astra Trident Supports More Cloud Workloads

To enable developers to focus on building applications instead of worrying about the underlying infrastructure, platform engineering teams are building on-premises and cloud platforms on Kubernetes. With the 24.06 release of NetApp Astra Trident software, NetApp’s Container Storage Interface (CSI) driver for Kubernetes, we aim to deliver a best-in-class solution for Kubernetes storage access and management.

In this blog post, I talk about the different features that NetApp introduced in the Astra Trident 24.06 release that help organizations like yours build a scalable and cloud-agnostic infrastructure based on Kubernetes. Astra Trident supports all Ontap-based systems on-premises, and all Ontap-based first party cloud services, including Amazon FSx for NetApp Ontap, Azure NetApp Files, and Google Cloud NetApp Volumes. 

AWS Bottlerocket support for NFS workloadsWith AWS Bottlerocket OS support for Astra Trident, you can run stateful applications on secure, container-optimized worker nodes that are backed by Amazon FSx for NetApp Ontap. Bottlerocket is a Linux-based OS that’s optimized for running containers. It can help improve your organization’s security posture by reducing the attack surface, and it helps improve your resource usage and lower your management overhead. You no longer need to prioritize between storage management and security. With Astra Trident, you can now seamlessly run containerized applications on Bottlerocket-based worker nodes and still get all the features of a fully managed, reliable, and high-performing storage service like FSx for Ontap. With AWS Bottlerocket OS support for Astra Trident, you can run stateful applications on secure, container-optimized worker nodes that are backed by Amazon FSx for NetApp Ontap. Bottlerocket is a Linux-based OS that’s optimized for running containers. It can help improve your organization’s security posture by reducing the attack surface, and it helps improve your resource usage and lower your management overhead. You no longer need to prioritize between storage management and security. With Astra Trident, you can now seamlessly run containerized applications on Bottlerocket-based worker nodes and still get all the features of a fully managed, reliable, and high-performing storage service like FSx for Ontap. 

Tech preview support for Google Cloud NetApp Volumes
Astra Trident now supports a CSI-compliant dynamic storage orchestrator for Kubernetes that’s in technical preview for Google Cloud NetApp Volumes, a fully managed built-in file storage service in Google Cloud. With Astra Trident, you can use NetApp Volumes to automate day-1 operations like dynamic volume provisioning and mounting volumes to Kubernetes clusters. Astra Trident also simplifies your day-2 operations like volume snapshots and volume resize for your persistent volumes. You can choose from four service levels (Extreme, Premium, Standard, and Flex) when you use Astra Trident, giving you full flexibility and choice.

Reduced operational overhead with customizable naming templates
When you use Astra Trident, you can take advantage of a new customizable feature and set naming templates as part of your storage back-end configuration. Any volume that’s dynamically provisioned on specific back ends employs the user-defined template to appropriately create the Ontap volumes. This feature reduces your operational overhead by enabling your team to easily organize, identify, and monitor persistent volumes at scale instead of trying to interpret system-generated volume names for day-2 operations. 

Other enhancements
These new features are just a few of the enhancements in the latest release of Astra Trident.

With Astra Trident 24.06, your organization can now also:

• Get official support for Kubernetes 1.30 and Red Hat OpenShift 4.15 versions.
• Limit the qtree size and match it to the requested persistent volume size. This feature enables your team to precisely control the maximum storage volume that’s provisioned automatically by Astra Trident by using the ontap-nas-economy storage driver.
• Resize Kubernetes persistent volumes that were provisioned by the ontap-san driver even when the Ontap LUN has been expanded out of band by using Ontap autogrow. Trident properly handles conflicting volume resizing commands when Kubernetes requests a size that is smaller than ONTAPs autogrow settings.
• Get support for volume cloning and resizing operations during storage maintenance activities.

Focus on building for the future
With Kubernetes now 10 years old, organizations are building applications with a Kubernetes-first mindset. With Astra Trident, the company supports users and customers like you by alleviating any storage management challenges and by helping to build applications for the future.

The ecosystem of Astra Trident users continues to grow, and support for the entire NetApp storage portfolio remains consistent. Find out how to take full advantage of the new Astra Trident user-requested functionality that strengthens this industry-leading Kubernetes CSI driver.

For further information about Astra Trident enhancements, check out these resources:

• Implementing Astra Trident with Google Cloud NetApp Volumes
• Seamless Kubernetes storage with Google Cloud NetApp Volumes Flex & Astra Trident
• Astra Trident release notes 
• Astra Trident videos