Off-cluster storage

In some situations, enterprises prefer to fully separate compute and storage, or even use a centralized storage management solution that is independently operated, to support the provisioning requirements of multiple clusters. This is quite similar to the separated compute and storage (Figure 11.3) model we described previously, except that the storage cluster is not part of the same OpenShift cluster. This also enables enterprises to leverage their existing investments in storage management solutions outside of Kubernetes.

It is important to note that the use of PVCs, with their abstraction of the location of physical storage, makes it possible for Kubernetes applications to seamlessly work in this case as well. Essentially, Cloud Pak for Data services mount these volumes without having to be know if the storage is external to the OpenShift cluster. Just selecting alternative storage classes during installation would make this possible.

In this deployment...