Nexenta Plug-ins and Applications

A plug-in implies adding new functionality and is installed into an existing application in order to enhance its capability. NexentaStor delivers optional, high-level plug-ins that can be added without restarting NexentaStor and without upgrading the entire system.

The power of the NexentaStor platform is extended and leveraged by Nexenta Plug-ins, which typically provide vendor-specific functionality and extend the platform’s service for specific storage systems, such as SAN; provide enhanced capabilities for management and administration; and integrate fully with other products, such as virtualization suites.

Nexenta Plug-ins and Applications include:

  • HA Cluster
  • Namespace Cluster
  • Cloud Archive
  • Target FC
  • VMDC Plug-in
  • OST Plug-in for Symantec NetBackup

These plug-ins are built and supported by Nexenta. However, the rapid increase in Developer Kit downloads already has resulted in a wide range of OpenStorage, community created plug-ins. We do encourage the entire storage community to develop compatible plug-ins.

High Availability (HA) Cluster

The HA Cluster eliminates, as a single point of failure, the NexentaStor instances themselves. The HA Cluster Plug-in enables two NexentaStor instances to be configured as an active / active pair. At the same time, along with another NexentaStor instance, the plug-in provides high availability for shared storage accessible from both appliances.

The storage jointly managed via HA Cluster is configured as shared storage. You can establish RAID and replication policies to protect the data itself in a number of ways with the aid of NexentaStor. Other new enhancements include:

  • Support for multiple virtual IPS
  • Removal of requirement for alternate dedicated heartbeat device
For more information, see the Documentation page.

Namespace Cluster

Namespace Cluster adds horizontal scalability to NexentaStor, can migrate data and associated workloads between nodes without end-user disruption, simplifies management of files across up to 256 storage machines, and manages multiple nodes from a single node. For more information, see its product page.

Cloud Archive

The Nexenta Cloud Archive Plug-In is a NexentaStor plugin which provides backup and restore capabilities for NexentaStor volumes to and from the specified cloud storage. Cloud Archive allows you to periodically back up NexentaStor volumes and folders to one or more cloud storage areas. It also allows you to restore directly from the Cloud to your NexentaStor appliance.

Target FC

The Target FC Plug-in provides a set of capabilities, including an intuitive user interface, which assists in the use of NexentaStor as a block-level Fibre Channel target. Target FC includes adaptive multi-pathing so that performance scales up, as needed, with additional threads.

The plug-in manages these threads over time, including closing them if not needed. It creates logical groups of initiators and targets, so that a particular application has, for example, unique access to a particular ZVOL, or virtual block device, and, thereby, inherits the storage management policies unique to that ZVOL, such as replication and protection schemes.

Target FC has added support for multiple mappings of LUNs. Target FC works with NexentaStor 3 and above only. In NexentaStor 3.0, Target iSCSI functionality was moved from the Target 2.0 Plug-in into the NexentaStor base code.

Virtual Machine Data Center (VMDC)

VMDC is an optional plug-in that manages storage for a VM (VMware, Xen, Hyper-V). The NexentaStor VMDC application dramatically simplifies the work of system administrators in setting storage policies for virtual environments and in performing common tasks, such as stopping and starting VMs and performing template-based clones.

OST Plug-in for Symantec NetBackup

The Nexenta OST (OpenStorage Technology) plug-in allows NetBackup Media servers to take advantage of intelligent disk devices, as well as cloud storage solutions. Storage vendors, working in tandem with Symantec, can use the OST Software Developers Kit to create plug-ins that more tightly integrate their devices with NetBackup. The Nexenta OST Plug-in enables a NetBackup Master Servers to specify a duplication process and delegate execution of it to the Nexenta Storage server. For more information, see the Nexenta OST product page.