Unlock enterprise-grade virtualization at the edge with two-node Red Hat OpenShift and Arctera's InfoScale

From remote offices to factory floors, organizations are extending their virtualization capabilities to where data is generated and consumed, unlocking new opportunities for innovation and efficiency. This shift to the edge brings a unique set of challenges, particularly for running virtualized workloads. How can you ensure the same level of resilience, performance, and simplicity for your virtual machine (VM) at the edge as you do in your core datacenters? The answer lies in a powerful combination of technologies: Red Hat’s new two-node OpenShift with arbiter architecture and Arctera's InfoScale for Kubernetes. This article explores how this solution can help address the unique demands of edge virtualization, enabling organizations to deploy enterprise-grade VMs with greater confidence, even in the most resource-constrained environments. Challenges of edge virtualization The move to VMs at the edge is driven by the need to modernize legacy applications, consolidate infrastructure at remote sites, and deliver low-latency services closer to end users. By bringing VMs to the edge, organizations can reduce dependency on centralized datacenters, minimize WAN bandwidth consumption, and deliver a superior user experience. However, edge environments are often characterized by limited infrastructure, unreliable network connectivity, and a lack of on-site IT staff. These constraints can make it difficult to deploy and manage traditional virtualization platforms, which typically require a robust and resilient infrastructure. Organizations using OpenShift Virtualization, a feature in OpenShift that enables containers and VM workloads to be run on a single platform, experience these challenges most acutely. While OpenShift provides a powerful foundation for running VMs alongside containerized applications, its standard architecture requires a minimum of three master nodes. This can often be too resource-intensive for the limited hardware typically found at edge locations. This has led to a growing demand for a compact and cost-effective solution that can deliver the power of OpenShift Virtualization without increased edge infrastructure. Red Hat’s new two-node OpenShift with arbiter architecture Recognizing this need, Red Hat has introduced the two-node OpenShift with arbiter architecture, which is now generally available in OpenShift 4.20. This innovative topology is specifically designed for edge and remote office deployments, offering a compact and cost-effective alternative to the standard three-node cluster. The two-node OpenShift with arbiter architecture consists of two control plane nodes that run VM workloads, and an additional lightweight arbiter node. The arbiter node's primary role is to maintain an etcd quorum, preventing split-brain scenarios in the event of a node failure. It does not run any VMs or control plane components, but it's how two-node OpenShift with arbiter provides the same rock solid resilience and high availability as a regular three-node compact cluster instance. The two-node OpenShift with arbiter architecture represents a significant step forward for OpenShift Virtualization at the edge, providing a much needed balance between footprint and resilience. However, one of the most critical pieces is enterprise-grade shared storage. Without a shared storage layer, the VMs running on OpenShift Virtualization are tied to the local storage of the individual nodes, limiting their mobility and resilience. Live migration, a cornerstone feature of enterprise virtualization, is impossible without shared storage. This is where Arctera's InfoScale for Kubernetes comes in. InfoScale resilience – VMs on two-node OpenShift with arbiter As a leading enterprise-class persistent storage and data services platform, InfoScale is purpose-built to address the storage challenges of virtualized environments running on Kubernetes. Combined with two-node OpenShift with arbiter architecture, InfoScale provides a comprehensive solution for enterprise-grade edge virtualization. InfoScale for Kubernetes seamlessly integrates with OpenShift Virtualization, providing a rich set of data services that enhance the native capabilities of the platform. Key features for virtualization include: - Shared storage for VMs: InfoScale creates a shared storage pool from local or external storage, enabling live migration of VMs between nodes without any service disruption. It supports both ReadWriteOnce (RWO) and ReadWriteMany (RWX) access modes without relying on external protocols like NFS, which are often unsuitable for edge environments. - High availability for virtual environments: With built-in data integrity mechanisms and support for quorum-based decisions, InfoScale ensures the high availability of virtual machines, even in a two-node OpenShift with arbiter cluster. VMs can be automatically recovered on the surviving node in the event of a failure. - Disaster recovery for VMs: InfoScale provides continuous block-level replication between clusters, enabling robust disaster recovery for edge virtualization deployments. VMs can be failed over to a remote site with minimal data loss. - Unified management: InfoScale is fully integrated with the OpenShift operator lifecycle, simplifying deployment and management of storage for VMs. - Optimized storage for virtual workloads: InfoScale allows you to create multiple storage classes with different performance characteristics, enabling you to optimize storage costs and performance for different types of VMs. Architectural synergy: Two-node OpenShift with arbiter and InfoScale for OpenShift Virtualization The combined architecture of two-node OpenShift with arbiter and InfoScale for Kubernetes creates a powerful and resilient platform for edge virtualization. Two-node OpenShift with arbiter architecture provides the minimal-footprint infrastructure, while InfoScale delivers the enterprise-grade storage layer that enables critical virtualization features like live migration, high availability, and disaster recovery. This synergy enables organizations to deploy a mission-critical VM at the edge with the same level of confidence as they do in their core datacenters. At the top layer, OpenShift Virtualization manages VM pods that house your VMs. These VMs connect to storage through the InfoScale container storage interface (CSI), which acts as the bridge between your virtual environments and the underlying storage infrastructure. The InfoScale for Kubernetes management layer provides the intelligence and orchestration required for advanced storage operations, including live migration, snapshots, and replication. This layer manages multiple storage backends, from high-performance drives for production virtual machines to cost-effective hard disk drive storage for development and test VMs. Unlocking new possibilities: Virtualization use cases at the edge The combination of two-node OpenShift with arbiter and InfoScale for Kubernetes opens up a wide range of possibilities for optimizing your edge virtualization infrastructure. Here are three compelling use cases that demonstrate the power of this integrated solution. Use case #1: Live migration for remote office VMs For organizations with multiple remote offices running business-critical VMs, ensuring continuous availability is paramount. The InfoScale and two-node OpenShift with arbiter solution enables a more seamless live migration of VMs between the two control plane nodes without any downtime. This capability is essential for performing maintenance, balancing VM workloads, or recovering from hardware issues. With InfoScale’s shared storage, you can migrate VMs on-demand or automatically based on resource utilization, ensuring optimal performance for your remote office users. Use case #2: High-performance storage optimization for enterprise workloads in VMs. Enterprise applications running inside virtual machines, such as Oracle databases, PostgreSQL, SAP HANA, and other mission-critical workloads, demand specific storage performance characteristics to operate efficiently. Traditional virtualization platforms often provide a one-size-fits-all storage approach, forcing administrators to compromise between performance and cost. InfoScale for Kubernetes updates this paradigm by enabling you to create multiple storage classes with different volume layouts and optimization strategies, each tailored to the specific requirements of the workloads running inside your virtual machines. For example, you can create a high-performance striped storage class with optimized stripe unit sizes for Oracle databases running in VMs, helping deliver that maximum I/O throughput for transaction processing. Simultaneously, you can provision a mirrored storage class for PostgreSQL VMs that prioritize data protection and read performance. For SAP HANA virtual machines, you can configure a stripe-mirror layout that combines the performance benefits of striping with the resilience of mirroring. This level of customization, which has traditionally been available only in enterprise storage arrays, is now accessible directly within OpenShift Virtualization through InfoScale's advanced volume manager capabilities. By matching storage performance to workload requirements, you can ensure that your enterprise applications running in virtual machines at the edge deliver the same level of performance as they would in your core datacenter. Use case #3: Disaster recovery for edge virtual machines Disaster recovery (DR) is often overlooked at edge locations due to the complexity and cost of traditional DR solutions. However, virtual machines running at remote offices and edge sites can be just as critical as those in core datacenters. The InfoScale and two-node OpenShift with arbiter solution provides a comprehensive, container-native disaster recovery strategy for edge virtualization. InfoScale's continuous block-level replication enables you to replicate virtual machine storage between edge sites or from edge to core datacenters, helping provide business continuity in the event of a site failure. Unlike traditional DR solutions that require complex setup and manual intervention, InfoScale’s replication is fully integrated with OpenShift Virtualization, allowing for automated failover and failback of virtual machines. This means you can protect your critical edge virtual machines with the same level of sophistication as your datacenter VMs, but with a fraction of the operational overhead. Whether you're protecting virtual machines at a remote manufacturing plant, a retail location, or a branch office, InfoScale ensures that your virtual infrastructure can recover quickly and reliably from any disaster scenario. Conclusion: The future of enterprise edge virtualization is here The enterprise edge is no longer a niche market. It's a critical component of the modern IT landscape. As organizations continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible with virtualization at the edge, the need for a robust, resilient, and efficient platform for running virtual machines is only growing. The combination of two-node OpenShift with arbiter architecture and Arctera's InfoScale for Kubernetes provides a powerful and comprehensive solution for enterprise-grade edge virtualization. By bringing together the best of both worlds, a compact and cost-effective infrastructure topology and an enterprise-class storage and data services platform, this integrated solution enables organizations to deploy mission-critical virtual machines at the edge with confidence. The time has come to embrace the future of enterprise edge virtualization, whether you're an OpenShift Virtualization administrator looking to extend your virtual infrastructure to remote locations, an IT leader evaluating edge virtualization strategies, or a cloud architect designing the next generation of distributed virtual environments. Visit Red Hat brings open source to the edge to learn more. Resource 15 reasons to adopt Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization About the author More like this Blog post Alliander modernises its electricity grid with Red Hat for long-term reliability in balance with rapid innovation Browse by channel Automation The latest on IT automation for tech, teams, and environments Artificial intelligence Updates on the platforms that free customers to run AI workloads anywhere Open hybrid cloud Explore how we build a more flexible future with hybrid cloud Security The latest on how we reduce risks across environments and technologies Edge computing Updates on the platforms that simplify operations at the edge Infrastructure The latest on the world’s leading enterprise Linux platform Applications Inside our solutions to the toughest application challenges Virtualization The future of enterprise virtualization for your workloads on-premise or across clouds