Red Hat posts beta release for big data appliance

Red Hat has released the first beta version of its Storage 2.0 software appliance platform.

The company said that the update would bring the full integration of the Gluster storage platform for cloud and large-scale database storage, which it acquired in October 2011 for $136m.

Ranga Rangachari, Red Hat general manager for storage, told V3 that the since the acquisition, the company has looked to integrate the development Gluster with its other enterprise Linux offerings.

"Soon after the acquisition closed we had the storage software appliance," he explained.

"This is the first release from soup to nuts after the acquisition which has gone through the traditional Red Hat hardening."

The release will also be aimed at higher performance applications, bringing Red Hat into areas such as big data and high performance computing. The update will bring support for Apache Hadoop and improved storage cluster management.

"What this release does is at the bottom of the layer, it allows you to run Map-Reduce applications," Rangachari said.

"This release is a step in the direction of helping customers who want to go into big data."

The update will also introduce a new file system to the storage appliance.

By eliminating the need to separate files and objects for stored data, the appliance is able to offer improved performance while maintaining a single pool for stored data.

Red Hat said that the beta release of the appliance would largely be limited to proof-of-concept and test systems. The company is not giving a formal target for a final release.