Cloudy Object Storage Mints Developer Currency

Having just been to VMWorld 2017 and getting pre-briefs for Strata Data NY coming up soon, I’ve noticed a few hot trends aiming to help foster cross-cloud, multi-cloud, hybrid operations. Among these are

1. A focus on centralized management for both on-prem and cloud infrastructure
2. The accelerating pace of systems Management as a Service (MaaS!?) offerings
3. Container management “distributions” with enterprise features
4. And an increasing demand for fluid, cross-hybrid infrastructure storage

We all know about AWS S3, the current lingua franca of object storage for web-scale application development and de facto REST-based “standard” for object storage API’s.  Only it’s not actually a standard. If you want to write apps for deployment anywhere, on any cloud or on-premise server or even your laptop, you might not appreciate being locked in to coding directly to the ultimately proprietary S3 API (or waiting for your big enterprise storage solutions to support it).

Which is where the very cool object (“blob”) storage solution from Minio comes in to play.  Minio is effectively a software defined object storage layer that on the backend virtually transforms just about any underlying storage into a consistent front-end developer friendly (and open source) object storage interface (still S3 compatible). This means you can code to Minio — and actually deploy Minio WITH your application if needed — onto any cloud, storage infrastructure, or local volume. And it adds all kinds of enterprise features like advanced reliability with erasure coding which will no doubt please those IT/devops folks that want to manage a consistent storage footprint no matter where the application deploys.

So this sounds at first like this could all be complicated, but I installed and ran Minio locally with but two commands in less than a minute.

[pastacode lang=”bash” manual=”%24%20brew%20install%20minio%2Fstable%2Fminio%0A%0A%24%20minio%20server%20–address%20localhost%3A9500%20%2Fusers%2Fmike%2Fminio%0A” message=”Minio Install and Launch” highlight=”” provider=”manual”/]

Done. We can immediately code with Minio’s universal REST API based calls to that URL/port. And of course, point a browser at it and you get a nice browser based interface – this is all you need to do if you just want something like a photo “dropbox” repository of your own.

But wait! One more step gets you a lot of really useful functionality. Install the Minio Client (mc) and configure it with your Mino server key. Now you have a powerful, consistent command line interface to manage and muck with both object and file stores.

[pastacode lang=”bash” manual=”%24%20brew%20install%20minio%2Fstable%2Fmc%0A%0A%23%20This%20line%20(and%20keys)%20is%20provided%20as%20output%20by%20the%20minio%20server%20start%20above%0A%0A%24%20mc%20config%20host%20add%20myminio%20http%3A%2F%2Flocalhost%3A9500%20%3CACCESS%20KEY%3E%20%3CSECRET%20KEY%3E%0A” message=”Minio Client” highlight=”” provider=”manual”/]

The “mc” interface has supersetted a whole bunch of familiar UNIX command line utilities.  It’s likely many of your existing administrative scripts can be trivially updated to work cross-hybrid_cloud cross-file/object etc.

[pastacode lang=”bash” manual=”%24%20mc%0A%0ANAME%3A%0A%20%20mc%20-%20Minio%20Client%20for%20cloud%20storage%20and%20filesystems.%0A%0AUSAGE%3A%0A%20%20mc%20%5BFLAGS%5D%20COMMAND%20%5BCOMMAND%20FLAGS%20%7C%20-h%5D%20%5BARGUMENTS…%5D%0A%0ACOMMANDS%3A%0A%20%20ls%20%20%20%20%20%20%20List%20files%20and%20folders.%0A%20%20mb%20%20%20%20%20%20%20Make%20a%20bucket%20or%20a%20folder.%0A%20%20cat%20%20%20%20%20%20Display%20file%20and%20object%20contents.%0A%20%20pipe%20%20%20%20%20Redirect%20STDIN%20to%20an%20object%20or%20file%20or%20STDOUT.%0A%20%20share%20%20%20%20Generate%20URL%20for%20sharing.%0A%20%20cp%20%20%20%20%20%20%20Copy%20files%20and%20objects.%0A%20%20mirror%20%20%20Mirror%20buckets%20and%20folders.%0A%20%20diff%20%20%20%20%20Show%20differences%20between%20two%20folders%20or%20buckets.%0A%20%20rm%20%20%20%20%20%20%20Remove%20files%20and%20objects.%0A%20%20events%20%20%20Manage%20object%20notifications.%0A%20%20watch%20%20%20%20Watch%20for%20files%20and%20objects%20events.%0A%20%20policy%20%20%20Manage%20anonymous%20access%20to%20objects.%0A%20%20admin%20%20%20%20Manage%20Minio%20servers%0A%20%20session%20%20Manage%20saved%20sessions%20for%20cp%20and%20mirror%20commands.%0A%20%20config%20%20%20Manage%20mc%20configuration%20file.%0A%20%20update%20%20%20Check%20for%20a%20new%20software%20update.%0A%20%20version%20%20Print%20version%20info.%0A” message=”Minio Client Help Text” highlight=”” provider=”manual”/]

One can easily see that Minio delivers a nice, really robust object storage service that insulates developer and resource admin (devops) from infrastructure/architecture.

Minio can be pointed at/deployed on many different cloud providers to enable easier cross-cloud multi-cloud migration. And it’s locally efficient. For example, when in AWS, it uses S3,  when on Azure it uses native Azure blob storage services.

Folks looking at taking advantage of hybridizing operations with something like VMware on AWS might also want to deploy Minio over both their local storage solutions (SANs, NASs, even VSAN et.al) AND on the cloud side (AWS S3). This solves a big challenge when transitioning to hybrid ops – getting consistent, enterprise grade storage services everywhere.

There is a lot more to be said about Minio’s advanced feature set and exciting roadmap, but you can read all about those on the Minio website!  Have fun!