BLOCKBRIDGE SOFTWARE VERSION 6.0 RELEASE NOTES We’re excited to announce the arrival of NVMe-over-TCP support for the Blockbridge data engine! This project has been a true labor of love for the entire team here at Blockbridge. It promises major gains in performance backed by widespread industry support. NVMe Over Fabrics (TCP) We have more than a decade of hard-won experience in iSCSI and SCSI. iSCSI is robust, ubiquitous, and well-supported. And, as we have demonstrated, it can also be really fast. However, many client implementations (i.e., initiators) do not exploit the full potential of the transport protocol and are weighed down by baggage in the client storage stack. Almost a decade ago, NVMe was introduced into the Linux kernel. With it came the blueprints for an optimized datapath that bypasses the traditional block layer, dramatically improving performance. Years later, NVMe-over-fabrics extended the reach of the NVMe command set and [...]

BLOCKBRIDGE SOFTWARE VERSION 5.1 RELEASE NOTES Blockbridge Version 5.1 updates the widely deployed 5.x AnyScale architecture. This release brings numerous performance and stability improvements alongside support for Proxmox, multi-cloud Openstack deployments, Grafana, and an updated Kubernetes driver. This post is current as of version 5.1.5. It incorporates all changes from the minor versions of 5.1 (5.1.1, 5.1.2, etc.) Management Release 5.1.5 includes several improvements in management for both the web application and the command line tool. CLI Roles and Levels: The CLI tool now offers a more focused workflow for tenants by appropriately restricting the visibility of administrative and infrastructure commands. Admins can further limit or expand the number of commands and options shown with levels like “advanced” and “expert” levels. Hourly Roll-up Datastore Statistics: You can now view a robust set of utilization statistics from the CLI, via the “datastore stats” subcommand. Enclosure and Volume Visibility: The web [...]

BLOCKBRIDGE SOFTWARE VERSION 5.0 RELEASE NOTES Blockbridge Version 5.0 is the second major release of the AnyScale architecture. The major feature of this release is Multi-Complex. Multi-Complex Multi-Complex provides in-the-box performance scalability designed to take advantage of dense NVMe systems and server platforms with high core-count processors, with a specific focus on AMD EPYC Naples and Rome. In IOPS dense environments, a multi-complex system can reduce hardware footprint by 8 to 1 or more! Multi-Complex boosts efficiency by extracting additional performance from your hardware. Conisder multi-complex when you need to: Reduce hardware costs when scaling storage performance Reduce hardware costs for dedicated multi-tenant scenarios Implement classes of storage with independent QoS guarantees Maximize performance density Multi-complex configurations maintain full compatibility with your existing applications and deployments (i.e., VMware, Kubernetes, OpenStack, etc.). Management Release 5.0 includes several improvements in the visibility into dataplane performance and tenant usage: New Datastore Statistics: [...]

Blockbridge 4.1 is the GA release of the AnyScale architecture. It includes improvements across the entire product. Highlights include: ethernet-attached backplanes with high availability support for NVMe & SATA improved data mobility using remote-basis clones enhanced monitoring, notification and support capabilities simplified base imaging via ISO and USB integration with Kubernetes via CSI 1. Software Installation Bare-metal and Virtual Imaging via ISO Installation of Blockbridge on bare-metal platforms and virtual environments is simplified through the use of a “Live-style” bootable ISO. Boot the ISO (via USB, virtual CD-ROM, UEFI or legacy), select the disk media to install on, and write an image for the desired installation type. The platform characteristics are auto-detected and the kernel is configured with the appropriate parameters. Upon booting into the image, the system is ready for configuration. Additionally, you can specify the initial network configuration directly from the Live shell. Openstack Cloud Images For [...]

Version 3.1 is hot off the CI/CD pipeline.  This update focused on storage operators and services providers: improved controls, increased efficiency and higher availability. We also updated all of our host orchestration tools and topped the release off with a Certified Plugin for Docker Enterprise! Even better, new trial options and tutorials... Here's the rundown of the release: Control Plane Service Templates Service templates precisely define the performance characteristics of storage services. You can control how performance scales with capacity, data/network placement, and bursting policies. The software now ships with 3 predefined templates (you can create as many as you like). The ‘general purpose’ and ‘provisioned iops’ templates mimic AWS EBS. The ‘unlimited’ template mimics traditional SAN. Account Templates Blockbridge implements a rich set of tenant permissions that allow an administrator to control nearly every aspect of the tenant’s experience: from creating asynchronous replicating disks and backing up snapshots to object storage, to [...]

Anti-Gravity is the 3rd generation of Blockbridge Elastic Storage. We're introducing several new technologies that deliver on the promise of elastic block storage in public, private and hybrid cloud. In this blog post, we'll run through the high-level list of features. Stay tuned for in-depth technical posts on some of the new concepts. Object Exchange Object Exchange (aka, "OX") integrates Elastic Block Storage with any S3 compatible object storage provider. Example providers include Amazon Web Services, Google Compute Engine, Microsoft Azure, Swift, and CEPH. OX allows you to snapshot a volume from block storage directly into object storage. Additionally, OX allows you to instantly clone volumes from object storage. Cloned volumes provide immediate access to data, even if your object storage provider is off-premises. OX delivers seamless data mobility for backup, disaster tolerance and hybrid cloud applications. HEAL - Heuristic Evaluation with Autonomous Layout HEAL provides automated device-level data protection. [...]