DRBD backed storage is now integrated into OpenNebula with the new DRBD Manage addon.

DRBD provides transparent, real-time replication of block devices without the need for specialty hardware. DRBD Manage is an administrative tool which facilitates easy Logical Volume Management (LVM) and configuration files for multi-node DRBD clusters.

With the DRBD Manage driver, create each new image for your virtual infrastructure as a DRBD volume. Volumes intelligently balance the load on your storage nodes. Alternatively, assign volumes to the specific nodes that you want in use. This is a simple scale-out storage solution, supporting the capability to add new nodes to your storage cluster at any time. This, combined with the flexibility of LVM, allows DRBD to keep up with your ever-increasing storage requirements.

DRBD 9 and DRBD Manage allow transferring Images to Virtualization hosts via the DRBD Transport protocol. This allows images to be available nearly instantly on host nodes without requiring them to have storage space available.

Below is a diagram showing a simple OpenNebula cluster using the DRBD Manage Driver. This cluster has a Front End, two storage nodes, and a single virtualization host. The host has two images attached to it via DRBD Transport. Both images are deployed to double redundancy and are being replicated in real time across both storage nodes. This means that the failure of a single storage node will not disrupt IO on the host. All nodes have a local copy of DRBD Manage’s control volume.

Features

• Data redundancy
• Automatic fail-overs if a storage node fails
• Database and high I/O application compatible
• Transfers images over the network with DRBD Transport
• Quickly attaches images to VMs
• Fast image clones