What is PDS?

Portworx Data Services (PDS) is a platform for running data services on Kubernetes. Data services include relational databases, NoSQL databases, graph databases, key-value stores, document stores, message queues, search indexes, event streaming services, and more.

PDS delivers this platform as a service, providing a managed experience for users. This experience extends through the full lifecycle of data services, from initial deployment, through day 2 operations, and decommissioning.

Who can benefit from PDS?

PDS was built for organizations who want to operate their own database-as-a-service platform. In particular, organizations who are looking for:

• A single platform to operate that runs on any Kubernetes cluster, in the cloud or on-premises

• A single workflow and API for deploying any data service to any data center

• A single pane-of-glass for managing and monitoring all data services and backups

• A single organization to support the entire stack, from storage through application

PDS will specifically appeal to four groups of users: platform engineers, devops teams, database administrators, and application developers.

Platform Engineers

Platform engineers benefit by having a single platform to operate. They no longer need to manage multiple Kubernetes operators for different data services, each with their own CRDs and conventions.

Not only does PDS provide a single API for all data services, it provides federation to allow multiple Kubernetes clusters to be managed from a single interface.

Devops Teams

Devops teams benefit from the ability to stand up data services as part of their CI/CD pipelines, including support for GitOps and Infrastructure-as-Code workflows.

PDS provides an abstraction layer that allows devops teams to quickly deploy entire stacks of services to any Kubernetes cluster, whether in the public cloud, private cloud, multi-cloud, or hybrid cloud.

Database Administrators

Database administrators benefit from having a single pane-of-glass to manage all database deployments. DBAs can monitor the health of databases, schedule backups, and manage the lifecycle of deployments.

PDS automatically configures each service for high availability with monitoring and data protection built in.

Application Developers

Application developers benefit from being able to deploy data services on-demand, enabling them to reduce the burden on operations teams and speed their own development.

PDS provides secure access to data services, exposing each node with direct ingress and DNS records that allow for service discovery. Developers can configure their applications with connection strings that remain static despite the fact that the data services are running in Kubernetes.

How does Portworx Data Services work?

Portworx Data Services is built using cloud-native architecture, consisting of a number of microservices and extensions to the Kubernetes API. Some of these components are delivered as Software-as-a-Service, while others run in the customers' Kubernetes clusters.

Refer to the Architecture section for a detailed description of the Portworx Data Services architecture.