Flocker with Dell SC Storage

Sean McGinnisDell Storage

Ryan WallnerClusterHQ

Introduction to Flocker

Agenda

Dell SC Flocker Driver

References

Introduction to Flocker

• Market-leading solution for container data volume management

• Volumes are presented as a mount point to the container and they follow containers as they get scheduled on a cluster.

• Integrates northbound with Docker Swarm, Kubernetes & Mesos.

• Southbound is agnostic of underlying infrastructure stack and storage platform.

• Provides information about volume state and status.

• REST API, Command Line and UX interfaces for superior operational visibility.

Intro/Capabilities/Features

Swisscom, HealthDirect, Packet.net• Database as a Service • In-house stateful apps • Baremetal storage automation

Use Cases / Integrations

Other• Database Failover.• Fungibility for Jenkins Master.• Alternative to RDS.• Operational flexibility with many Swarm clusters.

Flocker Roadmap

Data management throughout the DevOps lifecycle.• Development• Q/A• Test• Production

Seamless Data Management.• Across all stages of app lifecycle.• Integrates with development, test, and

production pipelines.• Provides access and security for data.

Dell SC Flocker Driver

• Started discussing solution with ClusterHQ early 2015• Able to quickly prototype Flocker driver using a lot of our Cinder

driver code.• Decided to create native driver rather than using Cinder for

customers not using OpenStack.• Useful functional tests included in Flocker help to validate each part

of the driver as it was being implemented.• Full development and QA testing complete starting with the 1.7.0

Flocker release.

Driver Background

• Worked with ClusterHQ and EMC engineers to add new “storage profiles” feature.

• Now able to use “gold”, “silver”, and “bronze” storage profiles for Docker volumes that map to SC Storage Profiles for control over storage properties.

• Can create user defined Storage Profiles matching the names for specific custom settings.

Dell/ClusterHQ Collaboration

• Flocker controller issues command to agent.

• Agent communicates with Dell SC driver.• Driver uses DSM REST API to service

requests.• DSM manages one or more SC arrays.

Integration ArchitectureFlocker Control

Flocker Agent

Dell Storage Manager(Enterprise Manager)

Dell SC Driver

Dell SC Array

High Level Overview• User (CLI, orchestration service, etc.)

interacts with Docker• Flocker plugin allows seamless

integration with Docker• Flocker agent is able to use SC driver

to perform requested operations on backend storage

References

Flocker Introduction:• https://clusterhq.com/flocker/introduction/Flocker Documentation & Blog:• https://docs.clusterhq.com/en/latest/• https://clusterhq.com/blogDell SC Driver:• https://github.com/dellstorage/storagecenter-flocker-driver/Dell Knowledge Center:• http://kc.compellent.com/

Links and References

Thank you!