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Unlocking the power of NetApp ASA r2 systems for Kubernetes block storage with FCP protocol

DhruvKharkwal
NetApp
NetApp
Wednesday
57 Views

As organizations are adopting Kubernetes at scale, simplicity has become one of the key design principles. Users want to do more with their limited time and resources. This is where the NetApp® ASA r2 systems help users: by simplifying their storage footprint for Kubernetes applications.

NetApp Trident™ software, our Container Storage Interface (CSI)–compliant storage orchestrator, already supports these systems using the iSCSI and NVMe/TCP protocol. With Trident 25.10, support has been extended for FCP Protocol. This support can provide further scalability and performance benefits of FCP with ASA r2 systems.

In this article, we’ll explore the cutting-edge features of the ASA r2 systems, demonstrate how to seamlessly integrate them with your Kubernetes workloads, and explore how to use them in Trident with FCP protocol. So, let's dive in.


Introducing the ASA r2 systems

Before we begin, let’s look at what ASA r2 systems are and, at a high level, what they offer. The NetApp ASA r2 systems, which include the NetApp ASA A1K, ASA A90, ASA A70, ASA A50, ASA A30, and ASA A20 models, offer a unified hardware and software solution tailored to the specific needs of SAN-only customers. Built on the new NetApp ONTAP® design center architecture, these systems introduce a revolutionary approach to storage provisioning, which makes them an ideal choice for modern Kubernetes workloads.

One of the key differentiators of the ASA r2 systems is their disaggregated architecture. Unlike traditional systems, they don’t expose the concept of aggregates to the user. Instead, these systems treat LUN (logical unit number) as a first-class citizen, eliminating the need for wrapping LUNs inside volumes. This innovative design enables a simplified and streamlined experience for managing block storage.


NetApp Trident and CSI integration

To enable integration with ASA r2 systems, NetApp Trident™ software, NetApp's Container Storage Interface (CSI)–compliant storage orchestrator, now supports provisioning block storage using the FCP protocol starting with the 25.10 release. The best part is that if you’re an existing Trident customer, you can seamlessly transition to using ASA r2 systems with minimal changes. All you need to do is provide the right credentials in the Trident backend, and everything else is dynamically determined


Prerequisites

  1. Netapp Trident 25.10 or latest.

  2. Configure zoning on the FC switch using WWPNs of the Host and target.

    Refer to the respecive switch vendor documentation for information.

    Refer to the following ONTAP documentation for details:


Provisioning Steps:

Whether or not you’re a new Trident user, the process of provisioning storage with Trident is straightforward. Here are the simple steps.

  • Step 1: Create a Trident backend.
     Start by creating a Trident backend with the storage driver ontap-san. You can do this either by configuring the TridentBackendConfig (TBC) custom resource definition using the Kubernetes-native approach or by using a custom JSON file with tridentctl, a command-line utility for managing Trident. You can either use a cluster management IP with administrator credentials or specify a specific storage virtual machine (SVM) with its management IP and credentials. For more information, refer to ONTAP SAN driver details in the Trident documentation.
    # Kubernetes secret required for creating Trident backend from TBC
[core@cp1 trident-installer]$ cat secret.yaml 
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: asa-r2-fcp-secret
type: Opaque
stringData:
  username: <username>
  password: <password>


[core@cp1 trident-installer]$ kubectl create -f secret.yaml -n trident
secret/asa-r2-fcp-secret created

[core@cp1 trident-installer]$ kubectl get secret asa-r2-fcp-secret -n trident
NAME                TYPE     DATA   AGE
asa-r2-fcp-secret   Opaque   2      18s

# Kubernetes CR TridentBackendConfig (TBC)
[core@cp1 trident-installer]$ cat tbc.yaml 
apiVersion: trident.netapp.io/v1
kind: TridentBackendConfig
metadata:
  name: asa-r2-fcp-backend-tbc
spec:
  version: 1
  backendName: asa-r2-fcp-backend
  storageDriverName: ontap-san
  managementLIF: 1.2.3.4
  svm: svm0
  sanType: fcp
  credentials:
    name: asa-r2-fcp-secret

# Or, Trident backend json
[core@cp1 trident-installer]$ cat backend.json 
{
    "version": 1,
    "storageDriverName": "ontap-san",
    "managementLIF": "1.2.3.4",
    "backendName": "asa-r2-fcp-backend"
    "svm": "svm0",
    "username": "<username>",
    "password": "<password>",
    "sanType": "fcp"
}

     

  • Step 2: Add the backend.
    Once the backend is configured, you can add it to Trident using either kubectl or tridentctl. These tools provide a convenient way to add the newly configured backend to Trident and make it available for use.

     

    # Create Trident Backend via kubectl
[core@cp1 trident-installer]$ kubectl create -f tbc.yaml -n trident
tridentbackendconfig.trident.netapp.io/asa-r2-fcp-backend-tbc created

[core@cp1 trident-installer]$ kubectl get tbc asa-r2-fcp-backend-tbc -n trident
NAME                     BACKEND NAME         BACKEND UUID                           PHASE   STATUS
asa-r2-fcp-backend-tbc   asa-r2-fcp-backend   36f3227c-bdbb-4052-94f2-79123a004990   Bound   Success

[core@cp1 trident-installer]$ ./tridentctl -n trident get b
+--------------------+----------------+--------------------------------------+--------+------------+---------+
|        NAME        | STORAGE DRIVER |                 UUID                 | STATE  | USER-STATE | VOLUMES |
+--------------------+----------------+--------------------------------------+--------+------------+---------+
| asa-r2-fcp-backend | ontap-san      | 36f3227c-bdbb-4052-94f2-79123a004990 | online | normal     |       0 |
+--------------------+----------------+--------------------------------------+--------+------------+---------+


# Or, create Trident Backend via tridentctl
[core@cp1 trident-installer]$ tridentctl create b -f backend.json -n trident
+--------------------+----------------+--------------------------------------+--------+------------+---------+
|        NAME        | STORAGE DRIVER |                 UUID                 | STATE  | USER-STATE | VOLUMES |
+--------------------+----------------+--------------------------------------+--------+------------+---------+
| asa-r2-fcp-backend | ontap-san      | 82141337e-e35c-6dex-2017-0h2282614f7 | online | normal     |       0|
+--------------------+----------------+--------------------------------------+--------+------------+---------+​

  • Step 3: Define a storage class.
     Create a storage class that corresponds to the type of storage driver you require. This step allows you to define the characteristics of the storage you want to dynamically provision.
    [core@cp1 trident-installer]$ cat sc.yaml 
apiVersion: storage.k8s.io/v1
kind: StorageClass
metadata:
  name: asa-r2-fcp-sc
parameters:
  backendType: ontap-san
  storagePools: "asa-r2-fcp-backend:.*"
provisioner: csi.trident.netapp.io

[core@cp1 trident-installer]$ kubectl create -f sc.yaml 
storageclass.storage.k8s.io/asa-r2-fcp-sc created

[core@cp1 trident-installer]$ kubectl get sc
NAME            PROVISIONER             RECLAIMPOLICY   VOLUMEBINDINGMODE   ALLOWVOLUMEEXPANSION   AGE
asa-r2-fcp-sc   csi.trident.netapp.io   Delete          Immediate           false                  7s

    Now that everything is ready for dynamic provisioning of storage on the ASA r2 system, let's see an example of how to use it.

  • Step 4: Create a PVC.
     Define a PersistentVolumeClaim (PVC) that specifies the amount of storage you need and references the appropriate storage class. This step ensures that your Kubernetes application has access to the required block storage.
    [core@cp1 trident-installer]$ cat pvc.yaml 
apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
metadata:
  name: asa-r2-fcp-pvc
spec:
  accessModes:
  - ReadWriteOnce
  resources:
    requests:
      storage: 1Gi
  storageClassName: asa-r2-fcp-sc


[core@cp1 trident-installer]$ kubectl create -f pvc.yaml 
persistentvolumeclaim/asa-r2-fcp-pvc created​

     

  • Step 5: Confirm PVC binding.
     After the PVC is created, verify that it’s successfully bound to a persistent volume (PV). This confirmation ensures that the block storage is ready for use by your applications.
  • [core@cp1 trident-installer]$ kubectl get pvc
NAME                STATUS   VOLUME                                     CAPACITY   ACCESS MODES   STORAGECLASS    VOLUMEATTRIBUTESCLASS   AGE
asa-r2-fcp-pvc      Bound    pvc-0794ae01-b0ae-4135-801e-2417437e9d7f   1Gi        RWO            asa-r2-fcp-sc   <unset>                 14s​

     

  • Step 6: Use the PVC.
     Congratulations! You’re now ready to use the PVC in any pod of your choice. Mount the PVC in your pod's specification, and your application will have seamless access to the high-performance block storage provided by the ASA r2 systems using FCP protocol.

    [core@cp1 trident-installer]$ cat pod.yaml 
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: asa-r2-fcp-pod
spec:
  containers:
  - image: nginx:alpine
    name: nginx
    volumeMounts:
    - mountPath: mnt/pvc
      name: local-storage
  nodeSelector:
    kubernetes.io/arch: amd64
    kubernetes.io/os: linux
  volumes:
  - name: local-storage
    persistentVolumeClaim:
      claimName: asa-r2-fcp-pvc

[core@cp1 trident-installer]$ kubectl create -f pod.yaml 
pod/asa-r2-fcp-pod created

[core@cp1 trident-installer]$ kubectl get po
NAME                 READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
asa-r2-fcp-pod       1/1     Running   0          8s


[core@cp1 trident-installer]$ kubectl exec -it asa-r2-fcp-pod -- /bin/ash -c "mount | fgrep mnt/pvc" 
/dev/mapper/3600a09803831504c315d58684978384c on /mnt/pvc type ext4 (rw,seclabel,relatime,stripe=16)​

Troubleshooting made easy

If you encounter any issues, we've got you covered with some handy commands for troubleshooting. Use kubectl describe on the problematic resource to gather detailed information. For more insights into the system's behavior, you can check the Trident logs by using kubectl or tridentctl.

[core@cp1 trident-installer]$ kubectl get pvc
NAME                STATUS   VOLUME                                     CAPACITY   ACCESS MODES   STORAGECLASS    VOLUMEATTRIBUTESCLASS   AGE
asa-r2-fcp-pvc      Bound    pvc-0794ae01-b0ae-4135-801e-2417437e9d7f   1Gi        RWO            asa-r2-fcp-sc   <unset>                 2m55s


[core@cp1 trident-installer]$  kubectl describe pvc asa-r2-fcp-pvc
Name:          asa-r2-fcp-pvc
Namespace:     default
StorageClass:  asa-r2-fcp-sc
Status:        Bound
Volume:        pvc-0794ae01-b0ae-4135-801e-2417437e9d7f
Labels:        <none>
Annotations:   pv.kubernetes.io/bind-completed: yes
               pv.kubernetes.io/bound-by-controller: yes
               volume.beta.kubernetes.io/storage-provisioner: csi.trident.netapp.io
               volume.kubernetes.io/storage-provisioner: csi.trident.netapp.io
Finalizers:    [kubernetes.io/pvc-protection]
Capacity:      1Gi
Access Modes:  RWO
VolumeMode:    Filesystem
Used By:       asa-r2-fcp-pod
Events:
  Type    Reason                 Age    From                                                                                            Message
  ----    ------                 ----   ----                                                                                            -------
  Normal  Provisioning           3m11s  csi.trident.netapp.io_trident-controller-84d7f798fc-kv8xc_9c6963aa-60f5-43a4-b25c-b8cca37b6171  External provisioner is provisioning volume for claim "default/asa-r2-fcp-pvc"
  Normal  ExternalProvisioning   3m11s  persistentvolume-controller                                                                     Waiting for a volume to be created either by the external provisioner 'csi.trident.netapp.io' or manually by the system administrator. If volume creation is delayed, please verify that the provisioner is running and correctly registered.
  Normal  ProvisioningSuccess    3m6s   csi.trident.netapp.io                                                                           provisioned a volume
  Normal  ProvisioningSucceeded  3m6s   csi.trident.netapp.io_trident-controller-84d7f798fc-kv8xc_9c6963aa-60f5-43a4-b25c-b8cca37b6171  Successfully provisioned volume pvc-0794ae01-b0ae-4135-801e-2417437e9d7f
[core@cp1 trident-installer]$ 


#For more troubleshooting check controller logs using: kubectl logs <trident-controller> -n trident


Conclusion

With the power of NetApp ASA r2 systems and integration provided by NetApp Trident, provisioning high-performance block storage for your Kubernetes applications has never been easier. Notably, ASA r2’s support for the FCP protocol leveraged by Trident enables you to deliver low-latency, scalable storage to your Kubernetes workloads with exceptional efficiency and flexibility. We hope this article has equipped you with the knowledge and confidence to configure your Kubernetes workloads on ASA r2 systems, taking advantage of FCP support. Happy configuring, and may your Kubernetes journey be smooth and successful.

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