Chapter 6. Scaling storage nodes

To scale the storage capacity of OpenShift Container Storage, you can do either of the following:

  • Scale up storage nodes - Add storage capacity to the existing OpenShift Container Storage worker nodes
  • Scale out storage nodes - Add new worker nodes containing storage capacity

6.1. Requirements for scaling storage nodes

Before you proceed to scale the storage nodes, refer to the following sections to understand the node requirements for your specific Red Hat OpenShift Container Storage instance:

Warning

Always ensure that you have plenty of storage capacity.

If storage ever fills completely, it is not possible to add capacity or delete or migrate content away from the storage to free up space. Completely full storage is very difficult to recover.

Capacity alerts are issued when cluster storage capacity reaches 75% (near-full) and 85% (full) of total capacity. Always address capacity warnings promptly, and review your storage regularly to ensure that you do not run out of storage space.

If you do run out of storage space completely, contact Red Hat Customer Support.

6.2. Scaling up storage by adding capacity to your OpenShift Container Storage nodes on Microsoft Azure infrastructure

Use this procedure to add storage capacity and performance to your configured Red Hat OpenShift Container Storage worker nodes.

Prerequisites

  • A running OpenShift Container Storage Platform
  • Administrative privileges on the OpenShift Web Console

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the OpenShift Web Console.
  2. Click on Operators on the left navigation bar.
  3. Select Installed Operators.
  4. In the window, click OpenShift Container Storage Operator:

    ocs installed operators
  5. In the top navigation bar, scroll right and click Storage Cluster tab.

    OCS Storage Cluster overview
  6. The visible list should have only one item. Click (⋮) on the far right to extend the options menu.
  7. Select Add Capacity from the options menu.

    OCS add capacity dialog azure

    From this dialog box, you can set the requested additional capacity and the storage class. Add capacity will show the capacity selected at the time of installation and will allow to add the capacity only in this increment. The storage class should be set to managed-premium.

    Note

    The effectively provisioned capacity will be three times as much as what you see in the Raw Capacity field because OpenShift Container Storage uses a replica count of 3.

  8. Once you are done with your setting, click Add. You might need to wait a couple of minutes for the storage cluster to reach Ready state.

Verification steps

  1. Navigate to OverviewPersistent Storage tab, then check the Capacity breakdown card.

    ocs add capacity expansion verification capacity card aws
  2. Note that the capacity increases based on your selections.
Important

As of OpenShift Container Storage 4.2, cluster reduction, whether by reducing OSDs or nodes, is not supported.

6.3. Scaling out storage capacity by adding new nodes

To scale out storage capacity, you need to perform the following:

  • Add a new node to increase the storage capacity when existing worker nodes are already running at their maximum supported OSDs, which is the increment of 3 OSDs of the capacity selected during initial configuration.
  • Verify that the new node is added successfully
  • Scale up the storage capacity after the node is added

6.3.1. Adding a node on Microsoft Azure installer-provisioned infrastructure

Prerequisites

  • You must be logged into OpenShift Container Platform (OCP) cluster.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to ComputeMachine Sets.
  2. On the machine set where you want to add nodes, select Edit Machine Count.
  3. Add the amount of nodes, and click Save.
  4. Click ComputeNodes and confirm if the new node is in Ready state.
  5. Apply the OpenShift Container Storage label to the new node.

    1. For the new node, Action menu (⋮)Edit Labels.
    2. Add cluster.ocs.openshift.io/openshift-storage and click Save.
Note

It is recommended to add 3 nodes each in different zones. You must add 3 nodes and perform this procedure for all of them.

Verification steps

To verify that the new node is added, see Section 6.3.2, “Verifying the addition of a new node”.

6.3.2. Verifying the addition of a new node

  1. Execute the following command and verify that the new node is present in the output:

    $ oc get nodes --show-labels | grep cluster.ocs.openshift.io/openshift-storage= |cut -d' ' -f1
  2. Click WorkloadsPods, confirm that at least the following pods on the new node are in Running state:

    • csi-cephfsplugin-*
    • csi-rbdplugin-*

6.3.3. Scaling up storage capacity

After you add a new node to OpenShift Container Storage, you must scale up the storage capacity as described in Scaling up storage by adding capacity.