Docker recently announced that over two billion Docker container images have been pulled from its Docker Hub. The popularity of Docker, the open-source software that allows independent containers to run within a single Linux instance thereby avoiding virtual machines overhead and costs, continues to soar.

When it comes to storage and Docker containers however, ensuring data persistence and portability for use cases such as moving database containers between hosts and reattaching existing data volumes from shared storage environments can be challenging. When a Docker container moves with a standard volume driver, its data volume stays in place and the container starts with an empty volume.

Flocker for Docker

In order to make moving Docker containers and data volumes together easy, ClusterHQ developed Flocker. Flocker is an open-source container data volume manager for Dockerized applications that gives DevOps teams the ability to run containerized stateful services such as databases in production.

According to ClusterHQ, unlike a Docker data volume that is tied to a single server, “a Flocker data volume, called a dataset, is portable and can be used with any container in your cluster. Flocker manages Docker containers and data volumes together. When you use Flocker to manage your stateful microservice, your volumes will follow your containers when they move between different hosts in your cluster.”

QuantaStor’s Flocker Plugin

For QuantaStor customers that either have existing Docker container deployments or those of you who would like to use Docker with QuantaStor, OSNEXUS has developed a QuantaStor plugin for Flocker. The QuantaStor Flocker plugin provides fast, local and persistent data for Docker containers and also supports Flocker Storage profiles (Figure 1). We’ve posted a demo of the QuataStor Flocker plugin here and the download and installation instructions here.

Figure 1

Conclusion

We would love to know what you think about using QuantaStor with Flocker to manage your container storage and your use cases. Feel free to comment on this post or reach out to OSNEXUS support with questions.

Categories: Storage Appliance Hardware