May 2018 Summaries

DigitalOcean introduced Block Storage in July 2016 as a scalable and portable block storage service, replacing the previous approach of using virtualization hypervisor's local drives. The new service uses Ceph, an open-source distributed storage system that offers redundancy, scalability, and features, and is built for performance stability and flexibility. Ceph is used to provide a 100% SSD-based Block Storage service with flexible block storage presented like a local drive, and the loss of individual components does not compromise data integrity or availability. The service is monitored using tools such as Icinga, Prometheus, and ceph_exporter, and has multiple copies of data stored across separate servers and racks to ensure high data durability and availability. The deployment into new regions brings hundreds of enterprise-class SSDs managed by the Luminous release of Ceph, allowing for transparent expansion or upgrade without downtime.

The GDPR has gone into effect, marking an important step in protecting the right of privacy for European citizens and raising industry standards for data protection, security, and compliance. DigitalOcean has created a new GDPR section on its website to guide customers through the changes, providing resources such as FAQs, data portability explanations, and updates to its Privacy Policy and Terms of Service Agreement. These measures aim to ensure the protection of customer privacy while allowing them to continue building great software without significant disruptions.

Daniel Zaltsman and the DigitalOcean community have made significant progress since the platform's inception, with notable achievements including the growth of the Projects section to 186 apps, wrappers, and integrations using the API. Jeeva has maintained a widely used Java client library for the DigitalOcean API since 2014, while Lorenzo Setale has authored and maintained one of the most used and best supported API libraries. Peter is an open source contributor who leads by example, maintaining and helping with various projects including Tugboat and Droplet_kit. The community's efforts are recognized and appreciated, inspiring others to get involved.

In response to Intel's recent statement about new vulnerabilities, the company has shared information about the situation with its customers and community. The latest vulnerability, Variant 4, does not appear to pose a significant risk, but there is a remote potential for exploitation and the company is working with Intel to validate microcode patches. As a precaution, users are advised to ensure they have the latest packages from their distributions and use the latest browser versions with fixes for Variant 4. The security of user data remains a top priority for the company, which is monitoring its hypervisors closely and will take action if necessary.

DigitalOcean has announced an enhancement to its Block Storage Volumes, improving performance by reducing cluster latency by 50% and adding burst support for spiky workloads. The upgrade, which includes the latest version of Ceph, Luminous v12.2.2, provides infrastructure needed to manage databases with low latency requirements. The new burst support automatically increases IOPS and bandwidth rates for short periods before returning to baseline performance. DigitalOcean has also invested in quality of service (QoS) features and infrastructure improvements to further enhance the experience of Block Storage Volumes.

Load Balancers` has been upgraded with significant features including `Let's Encrypt integration` and `HTTP/2 support`, making it a more secure and efficient service. These upgrades are now available at no additional cost to users, who can access them through the existing Load Balancers without any action required. The new features include automatic SSL certificate generation, management, and renewal, as well as improved performance and security benefits from HTTP/2 protocol support.

The DigitalOcean team has been delivering cloud primitives over the past 18 months to simplify cloud infrastructure management for developers, including Load Balancers, Monitoring and Alerts, Cloud Firewalls, Spaces, CPU-Optimized Droplets, a new Dashboard, and new pricing plans. Building on these primitives, they are now introducing DigitalOcean Kubernetes, a simple and cost-effective way to deploy, orchestrate, and manage container workloads, designed with developers in mind to save time and simplify configuration. The platform offers automatic deployment of load balancers, block storage, firewalls, ingress controllers, and more, as well as the option to deploy a private container registry to store images on DigitalOcean Spaces, and is being upgraded to CNCF Gold membership to support open-source container technologies. An Early Access Program has been launched with 20,000 sign-ups so far, with invitations sent in two phases, providing email updates and a webinar invitation to walk through the product as it evolves.