MapR Technologies Inc. is extending its support for customers with hybrid cloud strategies through the launch of its new Orbit Cloud Suite.

The new product is designed to provide additional cloud computing capabilities for the MapR Converged Data Platform, enabling users to build data fabrics that can be used to manage data across multiple public clouds, on-premises installations and the network edge.

MapR said its new solution is necessary because many organizations are encountering challenges in adapting to hybrid cloud environments. It claims that the popular “component” approach to building applications that leverage multiple services creates too much complexity for many enterprises. In addition, it said, the incompatibility between different clouds can lead to lock-in. Furthermore, MapR reckons that some cloud services can’t extend to the network edge, hampering organizations’ hybrid cloud efforts.

To address these challenges, MapR says its new Orbit Cloud Suite adds vital features such as object tiering, cloud native cluster management and integration with the object storage systems of public cloud providers like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.

These new capabilities can help companies to leverage the cost and agility of different public clouds, MapR said. For example, object tiering data that’s stored in the MapR Platform can now be automatically offloaded to lower-cost cloud object storage, based on predefined policies, thereby reducing costs. Meanwhile, Orbit Cloud Suite’s Cloud-Native Installation and Management capabilities provide agility benefits by integrating MapR’s platform with the virtual machine provisioning application programming interfaces of major public cloud providers. This means both MapR and cloud infrastructure can be provisioned in a single click, while clusters can be resized as necessary, based on changes in data volume.

The suite also comes with the ability to synchronize data between different clouds and on-premises installations. This will enable MapR Converged Data Platform users to build distributed, global applications and data fabrics for analytics, operations and streaming, the company said.

MapR Orbit Cloud Suite also supports something called edge-to-cloud file migration, which lets users easily move files from the network edge to the cloud in real time to enable hybrid edge/cloud applications. The suite can gather and process data at its source, while simultaneously moving and replicating the same data to cloud or on-premises installations.

Lastly, the new suite also provides some advanced features targeted at cloud builders and cloud service providers. MapR Orbit Cloud Suite enables enterprises who’re building private clouds to provide cross-cloud operational, analytics and streaming services to their customers.

That’s possible thanks to something called cloud-scale multitenancy, which allows cloud builders to offer converged data services via a single shared platform that helps to boost resource usage and simplify operations. There’s also a plugin for OpenStack that allows the private cloud frameworks to provision MapR file resources in a multitenant way, so MapR can be used as the main file storage medium in both public and private clouds.

Image: MapR