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Version: 3.2

Install Portworx with FlashArray direct access volumes or cloud drives

You can install Portworx with Pure Storage FlashArray as a cloud storage provider or as Direct Access volumes.

Architecture​

  • Portworx runs on each node and forms a storage pool based on configuration information provided in the storageCluster spec.
  • When a user creates a PVC, Portworx provisions the volume from the storage pool.
  • The PVCs consume space on the storage pool, and if space begins to run low, Portworx can add or expand drive space from FlashArray.
  • If a node goes down for less than 5 minutes, Portworx will reattach FlashArray volumes when it recovers. If a node goes down for more than 5 minutes, a storageless node in the same zone will take up the volumes and assume the identity of the downed storage node.

Types of deployments​

Portworx can be installed to utilize the FlashArray volumes in the following three configurations:

FlashArray Cloud Drives​

When you install Portworx with FlashArray as a cloud storage provider, this allows you to store your data on-premises with FlashArray while benefiting from Portworx cloud drive features, such as:

  • Automatically provisioning block volumes
  • Expanding a cluster by adding new drives or expanding existing ones
  • Support for PX-Backup and Autopilot

Just like with other cloud providers, Portworx will create and manage the underlying storage pool volumes on the registered arrays.

FlashArray Direct Access volumes​

On-premises users who want to use Pure Storage FlashArray with Portworx on Kubernetes can attach FlashArray as a Direct Access volume. Used in this way, Portworx directly provisions FlashArray volumes, maps them to a user PVC, and mounts them to pods. Once mounted, the application writes data directly onto FlashArray. As a result, this mounting method doesn’t use storage pools.

FlashArray Direct Access volumes support the following CSI operations:

  • Basic filesystem operations: create, mount, expand, clone, unmount, delete

  • Mount options: Configure file system mount options

  • Snapshots

  • IOPS and Bandwidth settings (requires at least one FlashArray with Purity version 5.3.0 or newer and REST API version 1.17 or newer)

    note

    Portworx recommends installing Portworx with FlashArray Cloud Drive before using FlashArray Direct Access volumes.

    Limitations: FlashArray Direct Access volumes have the following limitations:

    • CSI ephemeral and volume import volumes are not supported.
    • CreateOperations is not honored by Portworx.

Multi-tenant FlashArray with Direct Access volumes or Cloud Drives​

When a single FlashArray is shared among multiple users, admins can use realms to allocate storage resources to each tenant within isolated environments. Realms set boundaries, allowing administrators to define custom policies for each tenant. When a realm is specified in the px-pure-secret file, the user must provide a pod name on the FlashArray where Portworx will create all volumes (direct access or cloud drives) within that realm. Note that the pod in FlashArray is not the same as a Kubernetes pod. This ensures that each tenant only can see only their storage volumes when logged into the array.

Depending on how you using FlashArray, proceed to one of the following topic to deploy Portworx:

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