The product described by this documentation, Anthos Clusters on AWS (previous generation), is now in maintenance mode. All new installs must use the current generation product, Anthos clusters on AWS.

Install storage drivers

This topic explains how to install a Container Storage Interface (CSI) storage driver on your clusters.

Overview

By default, GKE on AWS provisions AWS EBS volumes using the default StorageClass. If your workloads need use another type of storage volume, you can install a compatible CSI driver to provide access to it.

The Container Storage Interface (CSI) is an open standard API that gives Kubernetes workloads access to compliant storage systems. CSI also enables the use of modern storage features such as resizing and snapshots.

After installing a CSI driver, you need to create a Kubernetes StorageClass. You set the CSI driver as the provisioner for the StorageClass. Then you can set the StorageClass as default, or configure your workloads to use the StorageClass. For an example of how to create a StatefulSet with a custom StorageClass, see Using StorageClasses with your workloads.

Install a vendor's CSI driver

Storage vendors are responsible for providing installation instructions for their CSI drivers. See the list of CSI drivers in the CSI documentation.

Follow the installation instructions for your CSI driver, and then continue with the next steps on this page.

Verify your driver installation

After you install a CSI driver, you can verify the installation by running the following commands.

kubectl get csinodes \
  -o jsonpath='{range .items[*]} {.metadata.name}{": "} {range .spec.drivers[*]} {.name}{"\n"} {end}{end}'

How to use a CSI driver

To use a CSI driver:

Create a custom StorageClass that refers to the driver in its provisioner field.
To provision storage, you can either:
- Reference the StorageClass in a StatefulSet's volumeClaimTemplates specification.
- Set it as the cluster's default StorageClass.

Considerations for StorageClass backed by a CSI driver

When you create a StorageClass, consider the following:

Check your CSI driver documentation for driver-specific parameters that you provide to your StorageClass, including the provisioner name.
You should name the StorageClass after its properties (such as fast or highly-replicated), rather than after the name of the specific driver or appliance behind it. When you name a StorageClass after its properties, you can create StorageClasses with the same name in different clusters and environments. Then configure your workloads to use the same StorageClass.

What's next

Create a StorageClass which references the CSI driver.