NexentaStor extension, a pluggable module or plugin, can be easily added and removed. NexentaStor plugin implements a certain well-defined extended functionality and uses the same Storage Appliance API (SA-API) as all the rest software components including 2nd tier storage services, fault management and statistic collection runners, and the management console and management web GUI. At installation time, plugin integrates itself with the appliance's core software.
Developers and Partners: please see the following F.A.Q. entry on How to create NexentaStor plugin.
The currently available plugins include:
- Auto-CDP (Continuous Data Protection). This, and the next two extension modules must be installed on a pair of appliances.
- HA plugin simple-failover
- HA plugin rsf-cluster
- virtualization management plugin VM DataCenter
- Nexenta Delorean - a windows backup solution
- SCSI Target
and in addition:
- NMV based API browser
- I/O and network performance benchmarks
- network traffic probe
- WORM (Write Once, Read Many) plugin, and more...
This list is growing, and more pluggable modules will be added in the near future.
Complete list of NexentaStor commercial plugins is available here.
Note that plugins are not downloadable from the website. Pluggable modules are distributed exactly in the same way as NexentaStor software upgrades and updates: via built-in reliable transactional upgrade mechanism (see NexentaStor overview, Section "Software Upgrade"). To list already installed plugins, as well as plugins available for installation, run:
nmc$ show plugin
To view plugins available for installaton:
nmc$ show plugin remotely-available
To administer an existing plugin or install a new one, type:
nmc$ setup plugin
Alternatively, you can view, install and uninstall the NexentaStor extension modules using appliance's web GUI, as illustrated below on an example of VM DataCenter:
Confirming the action:
Installation in progress:
VM DataCenter 2.0 successfully installed:
More plugin management screenshots follow below:
- Installing VM DataCenter - screenshot #1
- Installing VM DataCenter - screenshot #2
- Installing VM DataCenter - screenshot #3
- VM DataCenter Installed - screenshot #4
- Simple Failover older version uninstall #5
- Simple Failover older version uninstall #6
- Simple Failover older version uninstall #7
- Installing Auto CDP - screenshot #8
- Installing Simple Failover - screenshot #9
Each major component of the NexentaStor management software is, including the Management Server itself, is designed from the ground up to be extensible with plugins. The following table summarizes the differences between available NexentaStor editions, as far as plugins are concerned:
Feature | Community Edition | Free Trial Edition | Enterprise Edition |
|---|---|---|---|
Commercial plugins | Not available | Available upon request | Available1 |
1Depending on terms of the license
Free Trial users - please note that commercial plugins are available upon request. When requesting, please specify:
- Your NexentaStor license key(*)
- Pluggable module name
Developers -- if you are interested in accessing several thousands of NexentaStor installations via the cost-free plugin mechanism, please email sales@nexenta.com. We have been discussing this with many of you at events around the world. We are enjoying the collaboration.
(*) Use NMC 'show appliance license' command or NMV Help => About to display the license key. For instance, a typical trial license key will look like follows: TRIA-76D91DK8E-3HFADALE-BHKLIC
See also:
