Chapter 2. New Features

This section describes new features and major enhancements introduced in Red Hat OpenShift Container Storage 4.5.

Introducing external mode

Red Hat OpenShift Container Storage exposes the Red Hat Ceph Storage services running outside of the OpenShift Container Platform cluster as storage classes.

The external mode will mainly be used in the following cases:

  • Multiple OpenShift Container Storage clusters required to consume storage services from a common external cluster
  • Separate team (SRE, Storage, etc.) needs to manage the external cluster providing storage service

For more information, see External mode requirements and how to create external storage cluster service.

Support for proxy environments

A proxy environment is a production environment that denies direct access to the internet and provides an available HTTP or HTTPS proxy instead. Red Hat Openshift Container Platform can be configured to use a proxy, and in that case, Openshift Container Storage versions 4.5 and higher automatically use that configuration.

Support for an air-gap disconnected environment

In a disconnected OpenShift environment there is no access to the OLM catalog and the Red Hat image registries. Deployment of OpenShift Container Storage is now possible in that environment.

FIPS-140-2

Red Hat OpenShift Container Storage is now using FIPS validated cryptographic modules as delivered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux OS/CoreOS. OpenShift Container Storage is aligned with OpenShift Container Platform as described in its documentation, support for FIPS cryptography.

The cryptography modules are currently being processed by Cryptographic Module Validation Program (CMVP) and their state can be seen at Modules in Process List. For more up-to-date information, see this knowledge base article.

Note

OpenShift Container Platform cluster must use Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS). OpenShift Container Storage deployment on RHEL 7 is not supported for this feature.

For more information, see installing a cluster in FIPS mode.

RGW can now be used for object bucket claims

The RADOS Object Gateway (RGW) can now be used via object bucket claims. For more information, see the Creating an Object Bucket Claim using the OpenShift Web Console section of the Managing OpenShift Container Storage guide.

Note

The RGW OBC storage class is only available with fresh installations of OpenShift Container Storage version 4.5. It does not apply to clusters upgraded from previous OpenShift Container Storage releases.

Improved on-boarding process during deployment

You can now filter nodes on the basis of name or label to find specific worker nodes in the cluster. The filter identifies nodes based on the name or label already predefined in the Openshift Container Platform console, where a large number of nodes exist.

Filtering improves visualization and makes it easy for customers to locate the appropriate nodes.

Detailed OpenShift Container Storage Planning Guide

There are new documentation chapters with improved planning, sizing, and guidance for scaling. For more information, see the OpenShift Container Storage Planning Guide.

Support for non default Kubelet directory for Container Storage Interface (CSI) plugin pods

Administrators can now change the default Kubelet directory path in their environments using the ROOK_CSI_KUBELET_DIR_PATH environment variable.

Container Storage Interface (CSI) ports are now configurable

With the Red Hat OpenShift Container storage 4.5 release, CSI ports are configurable in OpenShift Container Storage using the rook-ceph-operator-config ConfigMap. The CSI ports can be changed to any other valid port number, providing more flexibility to the administrator. This enhancement is necessary because the default ports may be in use by other applications.

Restricted access to the NooBaa interface

Access to the NooBaa interface is now limited to accounts within the cluster-admins group.