Across both our customers and the market, we’ve heard a consistent need for a complete infrastructure platform. The lack of a true end-to-end infrastructure solution adds unnecessary complexity and effort to an already complex landscape. And so, with v4.13, we pushed to finish the last features necessary to make the Digital Rebar Platform truly standalone, a first in the industry.
To help show the breadth and depth of Digital Rebar v4.13, we’ve created a new infrastructure operations landscape. This illustration helps visualize the many components that your operations team needs to manage and orchestrate. And with this release, we’ve got you covered!
What’s Available in v4.13
Nutanix with Zero-Touch Provisioning (ZTP): Expanding our virtualization ecosystem, Digital Rebar 4.13 includes full support for Nutanix, allowing for fully autonomous bootstrap processes.Â
Proxmox ZTP: Enhancing our virtualization management offerings, Digital Rebar now supports Proxmox with zero-touch. This facilitates easier and more efficient management of virtual machine clusters while keeping your virtualization options open.
VMware v8 Agent and ZTP: We’ve improved our VMware offerings with integrated support for a new VMware ESXi v8 agent for Digital Rebar, including secure boot capabilities with Broadcom approval. This ensures our platform remains at the forefront of machine management, offering secure and efficient deployment options.
DDI DNS Integration: Integration of DNS is managed through the API. This enables DNS at the bare metal without other infrastructure requirements and allows operators to fully template DNS for automatic machine registration. Curious for technical details? Read our Byte Sized Bits post about DNS.
DDI IPAM Integration: Digital Rebar has had DHCP support, but we’ve now added to that with a full DDI IPAM integration. The integration improves coordination and management around multiple IP address pools, giving more control during the bootstrap phase.
HTTP/HTTPS Boot: One of the most highly awaited features by scale customers, Digital Rebar boot processes now can go directly to HTTP boot and bypass TFTP bootloaders. Customers who have transitioned to UEFI BIOS see a significant performance improvement with this feature.Â
Media-Attached Boot: Offering an alternative boot method, media-attached storage caters to environments requiring no-DHCP or PXE-less provisioning. This flexible new approach is becoming more popular with customers interested in avoiding vulnerabilities in network booting.
Create/Update Audit: Enhancements in auditing capabilities provide detailed tracking of object creation and updates, improving governance and operational transparency. Now, instead of going to logs to find relevant information, it will be visible on the object itself.
Integrated Monitoring: This feature is a tech preview and isn’t included in the standard version of Digital Rebar. Instead, it’s available as a sidecar container. It provides integrated monitoring capabilities, allowing for real-time observability and operational insights within Digital Rebar environments and integration with Prometheus, Grafana, and Nagios.Â
UX: Activity Report Page: A new UX enhancement, the Activity Report Page now offers insights into system activity, machine inventory, and operational trends, improving visibility and management efficiency.Â
And more improvements & minor fixes. For a more in-depth dive on these features, check out the newest RackN YouTube video from CEO Rob Hirschfeld or v4.13 release notes!
v4.13 is about streamlined operations
Digital Rebar v4.13 is timed perfectly to address growing concerns in the industry on reinforcing virtualization and potential VMware alternatives, as well as the need for a complete infrastructure platform. This release is more than just an upgrade; it’s our commitment to providing a complete infrastructure solution that simplifies complex processes and delivers unrivaled control and efficiency. As always, trials are available for those interested in testing the new features.
We’re proud of what we’ve achieved with Digital Rebar v4.13 and look forward to what’s next. Here’s to a future where managing infrastructure is simpler, more secure, and more efficient than ever.
