Storage requirements

Installing IBM Cloud storage

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

Installing Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation

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.

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

Installing IBM Fusion Data Foundation

IBM Fusion Software version 2.9.0 and IBM Fusion HCI Systems version 2.9.x are compatible with Infrastructure Automation.

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

IBM Fusion Software

IBM 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 Fusion Software provides the following features:

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

Before you install IBM Fusion, ensure that you meet all of the prerequisites. For more information, see Prerequisites .

For more information about Deploying IBM Fusion, see Deploying IBM Fusion .

For more information about how to install Data Foundation service using IBM Fusion, see Data Foundation .

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

IBM Fusion HCI Systems

The IBM 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 Fusion HCI Systems provides the following features:

• IBM Fusion HCI system is a pre-integrated, pre-tested, and pre-configured appliance that combines hardware and software.
• IBM Fusion HCI system is designed to scale out to meet growing storage needs.
• IBM 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 Fusion HCI system, see Planning and prerequisites .

For more information about Deploying IBM Fusion HCI System, see Deploying IBM Fusion HCI System .

For more information about how to install Data Foundation service using IBM Fusion HCI Systems, see Data Foundation .

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

Installing IBM 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.

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

IBM Fusion Software

Before you install IBM Fusion, ensure that you meet all of the prerequisites. For more information, see Prerequisites .

For more information about Deploying IBM Fusion, see Deploying IBM Fusion .

For more information about how to install Global Data Platform using IBM Fusion Software, see Global Data Platform .

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

IBM Fusion HCI Systems

For more information about Prerequisites of IBM Fusion HCI system, see Planning and prerequisites .

For more information about Deploying IBM Fusion HCI System, see Deploying IBM Fusion HCI System .

For more information about how to deploy Global Data Platform service using IBM Fusion HCI Systems, see Global Data Platform .

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

Installing 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 .

To use IBM Storage Scale Container Native with Infrastructure Automation, 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 following requirements:

• Minimum amount of storage: 1 TB or more of available space.

• Minimum amount of vCPU: 8 vCPU on each worker node. This minimum is a general requirement for the node, not a dedicated resource requirement for IBM Storage Scale Container Native. For more information, see the IBM Spectrum Scale requirements documentation about IBM Storage Scale Container Native.

• Minimum amount of memory: 16 GB of RAM on each worker node. This minimum is a general requirement for the node, not a dedicated resource requirement for IBM Storage Scale Container Native. For more information, see the IBM Spectrum Scale requirements documentation .

• In addition, your network must have sufficient performance to meet the storage I/O requirements. When I/O performance is not sufficient, services can experience poor performance or cluster instability when the services are handling a heavy load, such as functional failures with timeouts.Run a disk latency test and disk throughput test to verify whether your network meets the I/O requirements. You can use the DD command-line utility to run the following tests. These tests are based on the performance of writing data to representative storage locations by using two chosen block sizes (4 KB and 1 GB). Use the MB/s metric from the tests and ensure that your test result is comparable to, or better than, the expected targets:

  • Disk latency test

    dd if=/dev/input.file of=/directory_path/output.file bs=block-size count=number-of-blocks oflag=dsync
    

    The value must be comparable to or better than: 2.5 MB/s.

  • Disk throughput test

    dd if=/dev/input.file of=/directory_path/output.file bs=block-size count=number-of-blocks oflag=dsync
    

    The value must be comparable to or better than: 209 MB/s.

  Where,

  • if=/dev/input.file - Identifies the input file that you want to read using the DD command.
  • of=/directory_path/output.file - Identifies the output file where you want to write with the DD command.
  • bs=block-size - Indicates the block size that you want to use. For example, you can use 4096 (4 KB) for the latency test and 1G for the throughput test.
  • count=number-of-blocks - The number of blocks to use in the test. For example, you can use 1000 for the latency test and 1 for the throughput test.
  • oflag=dsync - Indicates the synchronization I/O for data.

To install IBM Storage Scale Container Native and the IBM Spectrum Scale Container Storage Interface, follow the IBM Storage Scale Container Native installation documentation .

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:

• IBM Storage Scale Container Native
• IBM Spectrum Scale Container Storage Interface
  

Installing Portworx

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

1. 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.

2. 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
   

Installing AWS native storage

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

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.