Storage options

You can use any storage provider that OpenShift Container Platform supports.

OpenShift Container Platform storage options

For more information about the storage providers that OpenShift Container Platform supports, see the OpenShift documentation:

• For OpenShift version 4.13, see Storage
• For OpenShift version 4.12, see Storage
• For OpenShift version 4.11, see Storage
• For OpenShift version 4.10, see Storage

For the IBM Cloud Pak foundational services installer versions on which these OpenShift Container Platform versions are supported, see Supported OpenShift versions and platforms.

Storage options for IBM Cloud Pak foundational services

The storage providers that are verified for use with IBM Cloud Pak foundational services are marked in the All foundational services row in Table 1. Storage options. All foundational services, except the ones that have specific requirements or storage options, can use these storage providers. If you plan to use NFS, see NFS support and configuration in IBM Cloud Pak foundational services.

Storage options for foundational services

Important: The following table includes storage providers that allow you to provision persistent volumes for use by your product. There is no guarantee that all features of a storage provider, such as snapshot-based backup and restore of the volumes, are supported.

Table 1. Storage options

Service	Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP (backendType: ontap-nas)	Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS)	Amazon Elastic File System (EFS)	Azure Disk	GCE Persistent Disk	IBM Cloud Block Storage at Gold level	IBM Cloud File Storage at Gold level	IBM Spectrum Fusion	IBM Spectrum Scale	Network File System (NFS)	Portworx	Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation	Rook Ceph Block Storage	VMWare vSphere
All foundational services		x	x See NFS subdir external provisioner on AWS Elastic File System	x	x	x	x	x	x		x	x	x	x
IM	x	x	x See NFS subdir external provisioner on AWS Elastic File System	x	x	x	x	x	x		x	x	x	x
Platform UI (ibm-platformui-operator)	x		x				x	x	x (Container Native)	x	x	x (Red Hat Ceph Storage)
Events	x	x		x	x	x					x		x	x
User Data Services				x		x					x	x (Red Hat Ceph Storage)

Important: Some foundational services services have specific requirements or storage options. The options are marked in the Table 1. Storage options.

The following foundational services can be used only with specific storage providers as indicated in Table 1. Storage options:

• Platform UI (ibm-platformui-operator): Requires a storage class that supports Read, Write, Once (RWO) access mode. Block storage is recommended.
  • Following storage classes are verified for use with the zen-metastoredb component:
    • Amazon EBS block Note: If you are using Amazon EBS, see the Storage known issue.
    • ibmc-block-gold
    • Custom Portworx non-shared
    • Red Hat Ceph RBD

• Events: Requires block storage. This storage must be formatted to use the XFS or ext4 file system. If you use VMWare vSphere, the accessed storage infrastructure must be block storage.

  **Note:** The Events service, which is based on open source technology, does not encrypt data that is received before it is written to disk. If the data that is received and stored on the persistent storage volumes needs to be encrypted, encrypt your storage system.
  

• User Data Services: Requires block storage only that supports RWO access mode.

The following foundational services can be used with any storage provider that is verified for use with foundational services. However, these services have specific requirements.

• MongoDB: Does not encrypt data at rest. To ensure that the stored data is encrypted, choose a storage solution that guarantees data encryption.
• Business Teams Service (ibm-bts-operator): Requires a storage class for dynamic provisioning. Business Teams Service uses the default storage class that you set in your cluster. If you do not set a default storage class, the service uses the first storage class from your list of storage classes in the cluster.

NFS subdir external provisioner on Amazon EFS

To use Amazon EFS with foundational services, configure NFS subdir external provisioner on your Amazon EFS.

1. Install and configure the AWS EFS CSI (Container Storage Interface) Driver Operator in your cluster.

2. Create the AWS EFS StorageClass.

3. Enable dynamic provisioning for AWS EFS.

4. Deploy NFS Subdir External Provisioner to your cluster. Complete steps 1 - 6.

NFS support and configuration in IBM Cloud Pak foundational services

You must use one of the following enterprise-grade NFS providers:

• IBM Spectrum Scale
• NetApp Trident
• Dell EMC Powerscale

Note: It is your responsibility to secure the NFS storage.

NFS in non-production environment

You can use NFS in production and non-production environments. It is ideal to use a separate NFS server for each environment.

For more information about setting up your OpenShift Container Platform clusters with persistent storage by using NFS, see Kubernetes NFS Subdir External Provisioner .

Minimum requirements for NFS configuration in non-production and production environments

The following list shows the minimum requirements for the NFS configuration in both non-production and production environments.

• Options that are required to export the NFS share to all the NFS clients:

  • rw
  • sync
  • no_root_squash

  • no_subtree_check

    IMPORTANT: You must export the NFS share to all the NFS clients.

• Minimum NFS configuration requirements for optimal performance of the Identity Management (IM) components:

  • Minimum input/output operations per second (IOPS): 200
  • IOPS per GB: 10