Storage options
As you plan your installation, be mindful that not all services support all types of storage. If the services that you want to install do not support the same type of storage, you can have a mixture of different storage providers. However, it is recommended to use one storage provider, if possible, for all your storage requirements.
External databases can be used to persist data by many of the FNCM components. Provision the database instances and make sure that they are accessible from the cluster, or reuse existing database instances. To improve performance, reduce as much as possible the latency between the applications or containers and the database server.
For production deployments that need high performance, use Container Storage Interface (CSI) drivers from platform-providers like IBM Storage Fusion, AWS EFS, Azure Files, and so on. Do not use open source storage providers that might have limitations when you have too many connections like, for example, the Kubernetes NFS-Client Provisioner.
You can choose from two main types of storage providers:
- Platform-provided storage
-
- Amazon Web Services (AWS) Amazon Elastic File System (EFS), Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP
- Microsoft Azure Files
- Google Filestore
- IBM Cloud® File
The cloud providers offer a range of their own built-in storage providers, which are readily accessible through IaaS or hosted OpenShift services. Usually those File providers can be used flexibly to provide persistent storage for the various FNCM components. However, some particular providers are not recommended for use with particular components.
- Bring-your-own Software Defined Storage (SDS)
-
- OpenShift Data Foundation (ODF, formerly OpenShift Container Storage or OCS)
- IBM Storage Fusion
- Portworx
In an on-premises data center deployment, you might consider a storage provider to be "platform-provided" if the team that manages FNCM does not manage the storage provider.
| Storage option | Version | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| OpenShift Data Foundation |
|
Available in Red Hat OpenShift Platform Plus. Ensure that you install a version of OpenShift Data Foundation that is compatible with the version of Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform that you are running. For more information, see https://access.redhat.com/articles/4731161
 . |
| IBM® Storage Fusion Data Foundation |
|
Available in IBM Storage Fusion. Ensure that you install a version of IBM Storage Fusion Data Foundation that is compatible with the version of Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform that you are running. |
| IBM Storage Fusion Global Data Platform |
|
Available in IBM Storage Fusion. |
| IBM Storage Scale Container Native (with IBM Storage Scale Container Storage Interface) | Version 5.1.5 or later fixesCSI Version 2.6.x or later fixes | Available in either:
|
| Portworx |
|
If you are running Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform Version 4.16, upgrade to Portworx Version 2.12.2 or later. |
| Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) | Not applicable | Not applicable |
| Azure Files for RWX | Not applicable | Not applicable |
| IBM Cloud File Storage | Not applicable | Not applicable |
| NetApp Trident | Version 22.4.0 or later fixes | Not applicable |
| Google Filestore | Not applicable | Not applicable |
Ensure that you select a storage option that best addresses the following requirements:
- Works on your chosen deployment environment
- Some storage options are supported only on a specific deployment environment.
- For clusters hosted on third-party infrastructure, such as IBM Cloud or Amazon Web Services, it is recommended that you use storage that is native to the infrastructure, if possible.
- Supports the services that you plan to install
- Some services support a subset of the storage options that are available by the platform.
- Has sufficient I/O performance.
- Provides the right level of backup and restore
Storage providers offer a range of disaster recovery support. Find a provider that meets your service level agreement (SLA) on your Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO).
The following table shows the storage options by deployment environment.
| Deployment environment | Storage Options |
|---|---|
| On-premises | The following storage options are supported on bare metal and VMware infrastructure:
|
| IBM Cloud | The following storage options are supported on VPC IBM Cloud infrastructure:
|
| Amazon Web Services (AWS) | The following storage options are supported on AWS infrastructure:
|
| Microsoft Azure | The following storage options are supported on Microsoft Azure infrastructure:
|
| Google Cloud | The following storage options are supported on Google Cloud infrastructure:
|
The following table lists the recommended storage classes to use and points to more guidance on how to create the storage classes.
| Storage option | Details |
|---|---|
| OpenShift Data Foundation | The recommended storage classes are automatically created when you install OpenShift Data Foundation. FNCM uses the following storage classes:
|
| IBM Storage Fusion Data Foundation | The recommended storage classes are automatically created when you install IBM Storage Fusion Data Foundation. FNCM uses the following storage classes:
|
| IBM Storage Fusion Global Data Platform |
The recommended RWX storage class is |
| IBM Storage Scale Container Native (with IBM Storage Scale Container Storage Interface) | The recommended RWX storage class is called ibm-spectrum-scale-sc. |
| Portworx | For more information, see Create Portworx storage classes
. Important: If you
plan to use Portworx storage on ROKS in a multi-zone region (MZR), use the
portworx-shared-sc storage class. You cannot use the
portworx-db-sc storage class. Task Manager and Aspera® integration with Business Automation Navigator does not work with Portworx storage in an MZR. The reason is that it might take up to an hour to have the applications available again if one zone of the MZR is down.
|
| Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) | The recommended RWX storage class is efs-nfs-client. |
| IBM Cloud File Storage | Use either of the following RWX storage classes:
|
| Google Filestore | Use either of the following RWX storage classes:
|
| NetApp Trident |
|
The following table provides details on storage-level backup and restore.
| Storage option | Details |
|---|---|
| OpenShift Data Foundation | Container Storage Interface support for snapshots
and clones
. Tight integration with Velero CSI plug-in for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform backup and recovery. |
| IBM Storage Fusion Data Foundation | Container Storage Interface support for snapshots
and clones
. Tight integration with Velero CSI plug-in for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform backup and recovery. |
| IBM Storage Fusion Global Data Platform | For storage level backup, see Backing up and restoring your data in the IBM Storage Fusion documentation: |
| IBM Storage Scale Container Native (with IBM Storage Scale Container Storage Interface) | For more information, see Data protection and disaster recovery
in the IBM Storage Scale documentation. |
| Portworx |
|
| Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) | All new Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) file systems created using the Amazon EFS
console are automatically backed with AWS Backup. For more information, see Amazon EFS Backup and Restore using AWS Backup
. |
| Google Filestore | For more information, see Backup and Disaster Recovery
. |
| IBM Cloud File Storage | Supported, but not enabled by default. For more information, see Backing up and restoring data
. |
| NetApp Trident | For more information, see Backup and Disaster Recovery
. |