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Version: 3.2

Install Portworx with Pure Storage FlashArray with 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 with 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 enabled with secure multi-tenancy​

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 FlashArray pod name where Portworx will create all volumes (direct access or cloud drives) within that realm. Note that the FlashArray pod 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.

FlashArray with PX-StoreV2​

PX-StoreV2 is a Portworx datastore optimized for supporting IO intensive workloads for configurations utilizing high performance NVMe class devices. It efficiently manages and balances workload across nodes by dynamically assigning tasks to the most suitable nodes based on their available resources. Hence, improving performance and scalability of your cluster.

You can install a general or multi-tenant FlashArray with PX-StoreV2

note
  • Upgrading from a previous Portworx version to deploy PX-StoreV2 datastore with cloud drives is not supported.
  • Once Portworx is deployed with the PX-StoreV2 datastore, you can use all of Portworx's features except for the following:
    • XFS volumes
    • Aggregated volumes
    • PX-Cache

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

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