Introduction¶

The HPE Cloud Volumes CSP integrates seamlessly with the HPE Cloud Volumes Block service in the public cloud. The CSP abstracts the data management capabilities of the storage service for use by Kubernetes. The documentation found herein is mainly geared towards day-2 operations and reference documentation for the StorageClass and VolumeSnapshotClass parameters but also contains important HPE Cloud Volumes Block configuration details.

Cloud requirements¶

Always check the corresponding CSI driver version in compatibility and support for basic requirements (such as supported Kubernetes version and cloud instance OS). If a certain feature is gated against any particular cloud provider it will be called out where applicable.

Hyperscaler	Managed Kubernetes	BYO Kubernetes	Status
Amazon Web Services	Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS)	N/A	Tech Preview
Microsoft Azure	Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)	TBA	TBA
Google Cloud	Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)	TBA	TBA

Additional hyperscaler support and BYO capabilities may become available in a future release of the CSP.

Instance metadata¶

Kubernetes compute nodes will need to have access to the cloud provider's metadata services. This varies by cloud provider and is taken care of automatically by the HPE Cloud Volume CSP. The provided values may be overridden in the StorageClass, see common parameters for more information.

Available regions¶

The HPE Cloud Volumes CSP may be deployed in the regions where the managed Kubernetes service control planes intersect with the HPE Cloud Volumes Block service.

Region	EKS	Azure	Google
Americas	us-east-1, us-west-2	TBA	TBA
Europe	eu-west-1, eu-west-2	TBA	TBA
Asia Pacific	ap-northest-1	TBA	TBA

Consider this table a snapshot of a particular moment in time and consult with the respective hyperscalers and the HPE Cloud Volumes Block service for definitive availability.

Limitations¶

Consult the compatibility and support table for generic limitations and requirements. CSI and CSP specific limitations with HPE Cloud Volumes Block is listed below.

• The Volume Group Provisioner and Volume Group Snapshotter sidecars are currently not implemented in the HPE Cloud Volumes CSP.
• The base CSI driver parameter description is ignored by the CSP.
• In some cases, your a "regionID" needs to be supplied in the StorageClass and in conjunction with Ephemeral Inline Volumes. Your "regionID" may only be found in the APIs. Join us on Slack if you're hitting this issue (it can be seen in the CSP logs).

StorageClass parameters¶

A StorageClass is used to provision or clone an HPE Cloud Volumes Block-backed persistent volume. It can also be used to import an existing Cloud Volume or clone of a snapshot into the Kubernetes cluster. The parameters are grouped below by those same workflows.

• Common parameters for provisioning and cloning
• Provisioning parameters
• Pod inline volume parameters (Local Ephemeral Volumes)
• Cloning parameters
• Import parameters
• VolumeSnapshotClass parameters

Please see using the HPE CSI Driver for base StorageClass examples. All parameters enumerated reflects the current version and may contain unannounced features and capabilities.

Common parameters for provisioning and cloning¶

These parameters are mutable between a parent volume and creating a clone from a snapshot.

Parameter	String	Description
destroyOnDelete	Boolean	Indicates the backing Cloud Volume (including snapshots) should be destroyed when the PVC is deleted. Defaults to "false" which means volumes needs to be pruned manually in the Cloud Volume service.
limitIops	Integer	The IOPS limit of the volume. The IOPS limit should be in the range 300 (default) to 20000.
performancePolicy1	Text	The name of the performance policy to assign to the volume. Available performance policies: "Exchange", "Oracle", "SharePoint", "SQL", "Windows File Server". Defaults to "Other Workloads".
schedule	Text	Snapshot schedule to assign to the volumes. Available schedules: "hourly", "daily", "twicedaily", "weekly", "monthly", "none". Defaults to "daily".
retentionPolicy	Integer	Retention policy to assign to the schedule. The parameter must be paired properly with the schedule. hourly: 6, 12, 24 daily: 3, 7, 14 twicedaily: 4, 8, 14 weekly: 2, 4, 8 monthly: 3, 6, 12 Defaults to "3" paired with the "daily" retentionPolicy.
privateCloud1	Text	Override the compute instance provided VPC/VNET.
existingCloudSubnet1	Text	Override the compute instance provided subnet.
automatedConnection1	Boolean	Override the HPE Cloud Volumes configured setting for connection automation. Connections between HPE Cloud Volumes and the desired VPC/VNET needs to be provisioned manually if set to "false".

Restrictions applicable when using the CSI volume mutator:
¹ = Parameter is immutable and can't be altered after provisioning/cloning.

Provisioning parameters¶

These parameters are immutable for both volumes and clones once created, clones will inherit parent attributes.

Parameter	String	Description
volumeType	Text	Volume type, General Purpose Flash ("GPF") or Premium Flash ("PF"). Defaults to "PF"

Pod inline volume parameters (Local Ephemeral Volumes)¶

These parameters are applicable only for Pod inline volumes and to be specified within Pod spec.

Parameter	String	Description
csi.storage.k8s.io/ephemeral	Boolean	Indicates that the request is for ephemeral inline volume. This is a mandatory parameter and must be set to "true".
inline-volume-secret-name	Text	A reference to the secret object containing sensitive information to pass to the CSI driver to complete the CSI NodePublishVolume call.
inline-volume-secret-namespace	Text	The namespace of inline-volume-secret-name for ephemeral inline volume.
size	Text	The size of ephemeral volume specified in MiB or GiB. If unspecified, a default value will be used.

Cloning parameters¶

Cloning supports two modes of cloning. Either use cloneOf and reference a PVC in the current namespace or use importVolAsClone and reference a Cloud Volume name to clone and import to Kubernetes.

Parameter	String	Description
cloneOf	Text	The name of the PV to be cloned. cloneOf and importVolAsClone are mutually exclusive.
importVolAsClone	Text	The name of the Cloud Volume to clone and import. importVolAsClone and cloneOf are mutually exclusive.
snapshot	Text	The name of the snapshot to base the clone on. This is optional. If not specified, a new snapshot is created.
createSnapshot	Boolean	Indicates that a new snapshot of the volume should be taken matching the name provided in the snapshot parameter. If the snapshot parameter is not specified, a default name will be created.
replStore	Text	Name of the Cloud Volume Replication Store to look for volumes, defaults to look outside of Replication Stores

Import parameters¶

Importing volumes to Kubernetes requires the source Cloud Volume to be disconnected.

Parameter	String	Description
importVolumeName	Text	The name of the Cloud Volume to import.
forceImport	Boolean	Allows import of volumes created on a different Kubernetes cluster other than the one importing the volume to.

VolumeSnapshotClass parameters¶

These parametes are for VolumeSnapshotClass objects when using CSI snapshots. The external snapshotter needs to be deployed on the Kubernetes cluster and is usually performed by the Kubernetes vendor. Check enabling CSI snapshots for more information.

How to use VolumeSnapshotClass and VolumeSnapshot objects is elaborated on in using CSI snapshots.

Parameter	String	Description
description	Text	Text to be added to the snapshot's description in the Cloud Volume service (optional)