Robin Systems Unveils Hyperconverged Platform for Kubernetes

Robin Systems today announced a hyperconverged platform that promises to simplify the ongoing management of stateful applications running on Kubernetes clusters.

Company CEO Premal Buch says stateful applications employing databases, sources of big data such as Hadoop and machine learning algorithms that have containerized need seamless access to data to maintain specific levels of service. The ROBIN platform is specifically designed to provide a level of abstraction to ensure the required level of storage I/O needed to meet those application service levels is both achieved and maintained, Buch says.

As interest in Kubernetes continues to rise, the number of organizations looking to deploy stateful applications that can access persistent storage also will rise. But simply providing these applications with access to persistent volumes is not enough, Buch says, noting IT organizations running stateful applications running in the enterprise need a platform through which they can guarantee that service level agreements (SLAs) for each containerized application are met.

Robin Systems is fresh off raising an additional $17 million in funding, which also was revealed today. Buch says the challenge enterprises soon will face is figuring out how to support thousands of microservices trying to access massive amounts of data. The ROBIN platform addresses that issue by enabling IT organizations to deploy a layer of software that unifies compute, storage and networking at scale. That platform can be invoked via either an application programming interface (API) or a graphical user interface (GUI) that Robin Systems exposes—a capability that will be especially relevant in enterprise IT organizations where most administrators don’t have programming skills, he notes. The ROBIN platform can automate a wide range of DevOps tasks that can now occur in a matter of minutes on a Kubernetes cluster via a single click, Buch adds.

Those capabilities include the ability to provision, scale, clone and migrate data sets and databases; clone an entire application; manage multiple application states; back up and restore an application; upgrade applications; and assign quality of service (QoS) levels to specific applications, which will be critical in minimizing the level of I/O contention that likely exists, Buch says.

One of things that makes Kubernetes so attractive to IT organizations is the ability to programmatically converge the management of compute, storage and networking with a cluster. Robin Systems’ platform will make it easier for enterprise IT organizations to adopt Kubernetes running either on-premises or in a public cloud, using either virtual or physical machines, says Buch.

Although keenly interested in Kubernetes, most IT organizations don’t yet have the skills required to manage it. It’s not yet clear whether Kubernetes will create demands for higher-level abstractions such as the ROBIN Platform or whether the existence of such platforms will make enterprise IT organizations comfortable with Kubernetes. Whatever the path taken, however, the one thing that is clear is large numbers of Kubernetes clusters will be strewn across the enterprise one way or another.

Mike Vizard

Mike Vizard is a seasoned IT journalist with over 25 years of experience. He also contributed to IT Business Edge, Channel Insider, Baseline and a variety of other IT titles. Previously, Vizard was the editorial director for Ziff-Davis Enterprise as well as Editor-in-Chief for CRN and InfoWorld.

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