vStack

vStack is a hyperconverged product developed by ITGLOBAL.COM which replaces solutions of such vendors as VMware, Oracle and others.

Architecture

The software is based on 3 core elements: ZFS file system, FreeBSD operating system and BHyVe hypervisor.

1. FreeBSD is an open-source OS which comes with a special BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) license. The system is highly reliable and requires minimal resources.
2. ZFS is a file system on which the operating system is based. It provides shared storage, snapshots, copy-on-write, etc.
3. BHyVe is a second-generation hypervisor originally developed by NetAPP. It is compatible with all guest systems of the Windows family, Unix/Linux, and it also supports the NVMe protocol.

Composition

The vStack solution consists of 4 main components. The first is the vStack OS, which is an operating system based on FreeBSD. It is highly efficient and has a built-in BHyVe hypervisor.

The second element is vStack Storage, which is storage space with n+1, n+2 or n+3 redundancy. It operates on iSCSI, NFS and embedded access protocols. The storage supports snapshots and clones.

The third component is vStack Management which is responsible for monitoring and administration of the hyperconverged product. It is managed through any browser in a single window. It allows both online and proactive monitoring.

The last component is vStack Network, virtual switching. It allows clients to manage the selected address pool and supports VLAN/VXLAN.

Benefits

vStack is distinguished by a number of benefits:

1. Cross-platform. The solution is compatible with any brand (HPE, DELL EMC, Huawei, Supermicro, etc.). The customer chooses any platform on their own. There is no vendor lock-in.
2. Licensing. The solution is provided on a pay-as-you-go basis. In other words, the customer pays only for the actual use of resources, which leads to cost reduction of the product.
3. Open-source. The product was developed on entirely cost-free software, which reduces the final cost for the ultimate customer.