Azure Disk CSI Driver Operator

Overview

OKD is capable of provisioning persistent volumes (PVs) using the Container Storage Interface (CSI) driver for Microsoft Azure Disk Storage.

Familiarity with persistent storage and configuring CSI volumes is recommended when working with a CSI Operator and driver.

To create CSI-provisioned PVs that mount to Azure Disk storage assets, OKD installs the Azure Disk CSI Driver Operator and the Azure Disk CSI driver by default in the openshift-cluster-csi-drivers namespace.

  • The Azure Disk CSI Driver Operator provides a storage class named managed-csi that you can use to create persistent volume claims (PVCs). The Azure Disk CSI Driver Operator supports dynamic volume provisioning by allowing storage volumes to be created on-demand, eliminating the need for cluster administrators to pre-provision storage.

  • The Azure Disk CSI driver enables you to create and mount Azure Disk PVs.

About CSI

Storage vendors have traditionally provided storage drivers as part of Kubernetes. With the implementation of the Container Storage Interface (CSI), third-party providers can instead deliver storage plug-ins using a standard interface without ever having to change the core Kubernetes code.

CSI Operators give OKD users storage options, such as volume snapshots, that are not possible with in-tree volume plug-ins.

OKD defaults to using an in-tree (non-CSI) plug-in to provision Azure Disk storage.

In future OKD versions, volumes provisioned using existing in-tree plug-ins are planned for migration to their equivalent CSI driver. CSI automatic migration should be seamless. Migration does not change how you use all existing API objects, such as persistent volumes, persistent volume claims, and storage classes. For more information about migration, see CSI automatic migration.

After full migration, in-tree plug-ins will eventually be removed in later versions of OKD.

Additional resources