Storage providers and requirements

You need persistent storage configured for your cluster to install and use IBM Cloud Pak® for AIOps and Infrastructure Automation.

IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps requires persistent storage that supports the RWO (read-write-once) and RWX (read-write-many) access modes. Infrastructure Automation requires persistent storage that supports the RWO (read-write-once) access mode. For information about the persistent volume and sizing requirements, see Hardware requirements.

It is recommended that you use thick provisioning for storage, so that storage is fully allocated for better performance and robustness.

Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) storage requirements: If your environment must support FIPS, then you must enable FIPS support when you install IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps or Infrastructure Automation. For more information, see Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS).

Recommended storage providers

The following table shows the storage providers that are tested and verified for the platforms that IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps can be deployed on. You can choose to use an alternate storage provider if they meet the requirements for deploying IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps. Your chosen storage provider must meet the same storage and hardware requirements as the recommended storage providers. For instance, for deploying IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps, your chosen provider must support the required access modes and storage modes. If you choose to use an alternate storage provider, your overall performance can differ from any listed sizings, throughput rates or other performance metrics that are listed in the IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps documentation. Work with your IBM Sales representative (or Business Partner) to ensure that your chosen storage provider is sufficient for your deployment plan.

Table 1. Verified storage providers
Platform	IBM Cloud Storage (Block and File)	Red Hat® OpenShift® Data Foundation	IBM Storage Fusion Data Foundation	IBM Storage Fusion Global Data Platform	IBM Storage Scale Container Native	Portworx	AWS native storage
Azure Red Hat OpenShift (ARO)		Yes				Yes
Google Cloud Platform (GCP)		Yes				Yes
Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform		Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud (ROKS)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
AWS GovCloud						Yes
Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS (ROSA)						Yes	Yes

Notes:

IBM Storage Scale Container Native and Red Hat® OpenShift® Data Foundation are part of IBM Storage Suite for IBM Cloud Paks.
IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps requires persistent RWX (read-write-many) storage. Red Hat® does not currently support Red Hat® OpenShift® Data Foundation (ODF) on ROSA. Portworx is the only recommended storage provider that provides a RWX storage solution for a deployment of IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps on ROSA. Portworx is available for a free 30 day trial, but will require a license for a longer timespan and production usage.

Storage classes for recommended storage providers

If you choose to use one of the recommended storage providers, you need to configure specific storage classes, which are identified in the following table. Then, when you are installing IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps, you need to specify the appropriate storage class for your chosen storage provider.

Table 2. Supported storage providers
Storage provider	storage_class_name	large_block_storage_class_name
IBM Cloud®	ibmc-file-gold-gid	ibmc-block-gold
Red Hat® OpenShift® Data Foundation	ocs-storagecluster-cephfs	ocs-storagecluster-ceph-rbd
IBM Storage Fusion Data Foundation	ocs-storagecluster-cephfs	ocs-storagecluster-ceph-rbd
IBM Storage Fusion Global Data Platform	If you are using IBM Storage Fusion, use ibm-spectrum-scale-sc. If you are using IBM Storage Fusion HCI System, use ibm-storage-fusion-cp-sc	If you are using IBM Storage Fusion, use ibm-spectrum-scale-sc. If you are using IBM Storage Fusion HCI System, use ibm-storage-fusion-cp-sc
IBM Storage Scale Container Native	ibm-spectrum-scale-sc	ibm-spectrum-scale-sc
Portworx	px-csi-aiops	px-csi-aiops
Portworx (multi-zone HA)	px-csi-aiops-mz	px-csi-aiops-mz
AWS native storage	efs-sc	gp3-csi

Note: IBM Storage Fusion HCI System provides the new ibm-storage-fusion-cp-sc storage class which is a supported version when you install IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps.

Storage class requirements

For production environments, storage classes must have allowVolumeExpansion enabled. This allows persistent volumes to be expanded if necessary, to avoid storage from filling up and causing unrecoverable failures. This is also highly recommended for starter deployments, since without it you are limited to the default capacity that might not be sufficient for your specific needs.

To enable allowVolumeExpansion, edit the storage class to enable expansion. Follow the instructions in the Red Hat documentation Enabling volume expansion support Opens in a new tab .

Important: The file system used by MinIO must be XFS, not ext4. The ext4 file system has a limit on the number of inodes that can be created for each file system. If inode usage reaches 100%, the file system becomes read-only even if enough PVC space is available and MinIO is prevented from creating new files or directories. Refer to your storage provider's documentation for information about setting XFS as the file system.

Installing recommended storage providers and configuring storage classes

Learn about installing and configuring persistent storage from one of the recommended storage providers:

IBM Cloud File Storage and IBM Cloud Block Storage
Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation (ODF)
IBM Storage Fusion Data Foundation
IBM Storage Fusion Global Data Platform
IBM Storage Scale Container Native
Portworx
AWS native storage

IBM Cloud File Storage and IBM Cloud Block Storage

For more information about IBM Cloud storage, see Storing data on classic IBM Cloud File Storage Opens in a new tab and Storing data on classic IBM Cloud Block Storage in the IBM Cloud Docs.

Installing IBM Cloud File Storage and IBM Cloud Block Storage

The storage classes that are required by IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps are created when Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud (ROKS) is installed.

Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation (ODF)

Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation is available for purchase through the IBM Storage Suite for IBM Cloud Paks. Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation is an implementation of the open source Ceph storage software, which is engineered to provide data and storage services on Red Hat OpenShift. Use version 4.12 or higher.

Installing Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation

For more information about deploying Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation, see Deploying OpenShift Data Foundation Opens in a new tab in the Red Hat documentation. Choose the appropriate deployment instructions for your deployment platform.

The storage classes that are required by IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps are created when Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation is deployed.

Important: Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation provide additional configuration steps, which can alleviate potential problems with delayed space reclamation. For more information, see Reclaiming space on target volumes in the Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation documentation.

These additional configuration steps are not specific to IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps, and are required for any application that experiences a high volume of writes that are then deleted. For IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps, this might be an event storm where large numbers of events are ingested and resolved, or when a large quantity of short-term metric data is ingested and then deleted. Failure to properly configure storage can cause out of disk space errors that might not be readily apparent. In some scenarios, you might need to contact your storage provider to ensure proper storage configuration for your needs.

IBM Storage Fusion Data Foundation

IBM Storage Fusion Software version 2.8.x and IBM Storage Fusion HCI Systems version 2.8.x are compatible with IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps.

To learn more about IBM Storage Fusion and how to install IBM Storage Fusion Data Foundation service, see the following two methods:

IBM Storage Fusion Software

IBM Storage Fusion Data Foundation is a highly integrated collection of cloud storage and data services for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform. It is available as part of the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform service catalog, packaged as an operator to facilitate simple deployment and management.

The IBM Storage Fusion Software provides the following features:

IBM Storage Fusion software is a software-only solution that can be deployed on a variety of hardware platforms.
IBM Storage Fusion software is designed to scale up to meet the needs of larger environments.
IBM Storage Fusion software can be integrated with a variety of third-party solutions.

Before you install IBM Storage Fusion, ensure that you meet all of the prerequisites. For more information, see Prerequisites Opens in a new tab .

For more information about Deploying IBM Storage Fusion, see Deploying IBM Storage Fusion Opens in a new tab .

For more information about how to install Data Foundation service using IBM Storage Fusion, see Data Foundation Opens in a new tab .

For more information about IBM Storage Fusion Software storage class, see Data Foundation.

IBM Storage Fusion HCI Systems

The IBM Storage Fusion Data Foundation service provides a foundational data layer for applications to function and interact with data in a simplified, consistent, and scalable manner.

The IBM Storage Fusion HCI Systems provides the following features:

IBM Storage Fusion HCI system is a pre-integrated, pre-tested, and pre-configured appliance that combines hardware and software.
IBM Storage Fusion HCI system is designed to scale out to meet growing storage needs.
IBM Storage Fusion HCI system is tightly integrated with IBM's other hybrid cloud solutions, such as IBM Cloud and IBM Power Systems.

For more information about Prerequisites of IBM Storage Fusion HCI system, see Planning and prerequisites Opens in a new tab .

For more information about Deploying IBM Storage Fusion HCI System, see Deploying IBM Storage Fusion HCI System Opens in a new tab .

For more information about how to install Data Foundation service using IBM Storage Fusion HCI Systems, see Data Foundation Opens in a new tab .

For more information about IBM Storage Fusion HCI Systems storage class, see Data Foundation.

IBM Storage Fusion Global Data Platform

The Global Data Platform storage type provides the following features:

File storage
High availability via capacity-efficient erasure coding
Metro and regional disaster recovery
CSI snapshot support with built-in application consistency
Encryption at rest
Ability to mount file systems hosted by remote IBM Storage Scale clusters.

Important: IBM Storage Fusion Global Data Platform provide additional configuration steps, which can alleviate potential problems with delayed space reclamation. For more information, see Enabling reclaim space operation using Annotating PersistentVolumeClaims in the IBM Storage Fusion documentation.

You can deploy Global Data Platform service by using the following two methods:

IBM Storage Fusion Software

Before you install IBM Storage Fusion, ensure that you meet all of the prerequisites. For more information, see Prerequisites Opens in a new tab .

For more information about Deploying IBM Storage Fusion, see Deploying IBM Storage Fusion Opens in a new tab .

For more information about how to install Global Data Platform using IBM Storage Fusion Software, see Installing Global Data Platform Opens in a new tab .

For more information about IBM Storage Fusion Software storage class, see IBM Storage Scale.

IBM Storage Fusion HCI Systems

For more information about Prerequisites of IBM Storage Fusion HCI system, see Planning and prerequisites Opens in a new tab .

For more information about Deploying IBM Storage Fusion HCI System, see Deploying IBM Storage Fusion HCI System Opens in a new tab .

For more information about how to deploy Global Data Platform service using IBM Storage Fusion HCI Systems, see Global Data Platform Opens in a new tab .

For more information about IBM Storage Fusion HCI Systems storage class, see IBM Storage Scale.

IBM Storage Scale Container Native

IBM Storage Scale Container Native is available for purchase through the IBM Storage Suite for IBM Cloud Paks. IBM Spectrum Scale is a cluster file system that provides concurrent access to a single file system or set of file systems from multiple nodes. The nodes can be SAN-attached, network attached, a mixture of SAN-attached and network attached, or in a shared nothing cluster configuration. This enables high-performance access to this common set of data to support a scale-out solution or to provide a high availability platform. IBM Storage Scale Container Native Storage Access must be at version 5.1.1.3 or higher, with IBM Spectrum Scale Container Storage Interface version 2.3.0 or higher.

For more information, see the IBM Storage Scale Container Native documentation Opens in a new tab .

Requirements

To use IBM Storage Scale Container Native with IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps, you do not require a separate license. You can use up to 12 TB of IBM Storage Scale Container Native storage for up to 36 months, fully supported by IBM, within your production environments (Level 1 and Level 2). If you exceed these terms, a separate license is required.

To install and use IBM Storage Scale Container Native, your cluster must meet the requirements in the IBM Storage Scale Container Native documentation Opens in a new tab .

Installing IBM Storage Scale Container Native

To install IBM Storage Scale Container Native and the IBM Spectrum Scale Container Storage Interface, follow the IBM Storage Scale Container Native installation documentation Opens in a new tab .

When IBM Storage Scale Container Native is installed, the ibm-spectrum-scale-sc storage class is installed. This class is used as both the ReadWriteMany storage class and large block storage class when you are installing IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps. This StorageClass includes a parameter to set permissions of data within the StorageClass to 777, which is required to support the Kubernetes SubPath feature. For more information about the permissions field for the class, see the IBM Spectrum Scale CSI Driver documentation Opens in a new tab .

If you encounter any errors or issues with installing or using IBM Storage Scale Container Native or the IBM Spectrum Scale Container Storage Interface, refer to the following documentation:

Portworx

Important: sharedv4 volumes require NFS ports to be open. For more information, see the Portworx documentation Open NFS Ports Opens in a new tab .

Installing Portworx

Install the Portworx operator and configure a Portworx StorageCluster.

Two editions of Portworx are available: Portworx Enterprise and Portworx Essentials. Portworx Enterprise is suitable for production deployments. Portworx Essentials is suitable only for demonstration deployments, as it can be used only on clusters of five nodes or less, and includes storage size limits. For more information, see the Portworx documentation Installing Portworx on Openshift .

Note: You must be a cluster administrator to install Portworx on the cluster.
Define a custom Portworx storage class.

The custom Portworx storage class will be used for file and block storage. The storage class is scoped to the cluster, so setting the project (namespace) is not required.

If you are not using the Multi-zone HA technical preview, then use Option 1 to define px-csi-aiops. If you are using the Multi-zone HA technical preview, then use Option 2 to define px-csi-aiops-mz.

Option 1: Define px-csi-aiops

Log in to your OpenShift cluster's console. Click the plus icon on the upper right to open the Import YAML dialog box, paste in the following content, and then click Create.
```
kind: StorageClass
apiVersion: storage.k8s.io/v1
metadata:
  name: px-csi-aiops
provisioner: pxd.portworx.com
parameters:
  fs: xfs
  io_profile: db_remote
  repl: '2'
reclaimPolicy: Delete
allowVolumeExpansion: true
volumeBindingMode: Immediate
```
Option 2: Define px-csi-aiops-mz

Log in to your OpenShift cluster's console. Click the plus icon on the upper right to open the Import YAML dialog box, paste in the following content, and then click Create.
```
kind: StorageClass
apiVersion: storage.k8s.io/v1
metadata:
  name: px-csi-aiops-mz
provisioner: pxd.portworx.com
parameters:
  fs: xfs
  io_profile: db_remote
  repl: '3'
reclaimPolicy: Delete
allowVolumeExpansion: true
volumeBindingMode: Immediate
```

AWS native storage

For more information about Amazon Web Services (AWS) native storage, see Cloud Storage on AWS in the AWS documentation.

Installing AWS native storage

The AWS native storage classes that are required by IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps are efs-sc and gp3-csi.

Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) provides block storage. The storage class is gp3-csi, and is created when ROSA is installed.

Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) provides file storage. The storage class is efs-sc, and you must create it. For more information, see Setting up the AWS EFS CSI Driver Operator and Creating the AWS EFS storage class in the Red Hat OpenShift documentation. You can also review the information in the Red Hat article Enabling the AWS EFS CSI Driver Operator on ROSA.