IBM Cloud Object Storage

IBM Cloud Object Storage Opens in a new tab is persistent, highly available storage that you can mount to apps that run in a Kubernetes cluster by using the IBM Cloud Object Storage plug-in. The IBM Cloud Object Storage plug-in is a Kubernetes Flex-Volume plug-in that connects Cloud Object Storage buckets to pods in your cluster.

Cloud Object Storage is designed for unstructured data, such as static web content, multimedia, backups, and archives that must be accessed frequently (read operations). Write operations require an update of the entire data object which might impact performance. You can configure Cloud Object Storage for data encryption in transit and at rest and set up data storage across multiple geographic locations.

Prerequisites

To use the IBM Cloud Object Storage plug-in to add object storage to your app pods, you must have a Cloud Object Store set up in your cluster. In IBM Cloud Private clusters, you can configure a local cloud object storage server by using Minio Opens in a new tab. Minio is an open source project that provides a high performance distributed object storage server that is designed for large-scale private cloud infrastructures.

To set up Minio in your cluster:

  1. See Minio Opens in a new tab for the steps to deploy Minio in your cluster.
  2. Retrieve the access key ID and secret access key for your Minio cloud object storage server.
  3. See Store the access key ID and secret access key in a Kubernetes secret Opens in a new tab for instructions for how to store the ID and key.

Installing the IBM Cloud Object Storage plug-in

  1. From the Catalog on your cluster dashboard, select Storage.
  2. Find the ibmcloud-object-storage-plugin.
  3. Review the Helm chart readme to find prerequisites and instructions for how to install the Helm chart by using the CLI. Installing the Helm chart with the CLI provides additional options, such as deploying the Helm chart with custom pod security policies or limiting the plug-in to access your Cloud Object Storage credentials only instead of all Kubernetes secrets in your cluster.
  4. Install the Helm chart. If you choose to run a custom installation, download the source files in the Source and Tar files section. Then, follow the steps of the Helm chart readme. If you do not want to run a custom installation, click Configure and follow the instructions in the console.

Adding cloud object storage to your apps

After the IBM Cloud Object Storage plug-in is created, see Adding object storage to apps Opens in a new tab to add object storage to your apps.