Filestore Multishares for Google Kubernetes Engine

Beta

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With Filestore Multishares for GKE, you can share a single Filestore Enterprise instance with multiple GKE Persistent Volumes (PVs).

Why Filestore Multishares for GKE?

Filestore is a managed file storage service for applications that require a shared file system interface for data.

A Filestore instance is a fully managed network-attached storage (NAS) system you can use with your GKE instances.

With Filestore Multishares for GKE, you can allocate up to ten shares across a single Filestore Enterprise instance. Each share maps to a unique Persistent Volume (PV) in GKE.

Each GKE PV can range from 100GiB to 1TiB in size, offering greater flexibility for organizations that require both smaller volumes for multiple clients and multi-writer access across a shared network.

Use Filestore Multishares for GKE with the new GKE Filestore CSI driver for greater flexibility and performance.

The Filestore CSI driver automatically manages the underlying shares associated with each Filestore Multishare Enterprise instance and provides the following benefits:

• Increase or decrease individual instance capacity for optimal performance.

• Create or delete instances to meet PV demand.

• Scale up GKE PV capacity based on workload demands with near-zero downtime.

• Shared performance of the underlying Filestore Multishare Enterprise instance, giving higher throughput for specific GKE PVs when needed.

StorageClasses and dynamic volume provisioning

In order to access the Filestore Multishares feature, you must first enable the GKE Filestore CSI driver, version 1.23 or later. Once enabled, you can take advantage of GKE StorageClasses to leverage an automated process called dynamic volume provisioning, to effectively manage the lifecycle of their PVs and PVCs.

You can create StorageClasses within the following parameters to meet your specific needs:

Service tier	GKE PVC size	Filestore capacity	Incremental change	Deployment	Access mode
Basic HDD	1 TiB to 64 TiB	1 TiB to 64 TiB	1 GiB	Zonal	read/write many
Basic SSD	2.5 TiB to 64 TiB	2.5 TiB to 64 TiB	1 GiB	Zonal	read/write many
Enterprise	1 TiB to 10 TiB	1 TiB to 10 TiB	256 GiB	Regional	read/write many
Enterprise Multishares (Preview)	100 GiB to 1 TiB	Pool of Filestore instances, each 1 TiB to 10 TiB in size Each Filestore instance hosts up to 10 PVs (shares), each 100 GiB to 1 TiB in size	256 GiB per instance share 1 GiB per PVC (share)	Regional	read/write many

Performance by service tier

The following section describes scalability and performance by service tier.

Enterprise tier with Multishares

Filestore Enterprise tier is a regional Network File System (NFS) deployed across multiple zones and resilient to zone outages.

With an Filestore Multishares Enterprise instance, you can create persistent volumes, ranging from 100 GiB to 1 TiB in size, each hosted as a separate share on the instance. Share capacity ranges from 100 GiB to 1 TiB.

Share capacity is defined in the Persistent Volume Claim (PVC) and reflected in the Persistent Volume (PV).

Each Filestore Enterprise instance can host up to 10 shares to support up to 10 Persistent Volumes.

If the application workload exceeds 10 PVCs, the Filestore CSI driver reflexively creates more Filestore instances and allocates the necessary shares dynamically across instances.

When you delete a Persistent Volume, the Filestore CSI driver reclaims the allocated share storage and removes the share. The Filestore CSI driver also deletes the Filestore instance if all associated shares have been deleted.

When you create, delete, or edit the capacity of a PV, the Filestore CSI driver adds or reclaims capacity of the associated Filestore instance to accommodate the capacity of all shares. The size of the Filestore instance can fluctuate in increments of 256 GiB.

Enterprise tier with a single share

Filestore Enterprise tier is a regional NFS deployment across multiple zones and resilient to zone outages.

When the Filestore Multishares feature is disabled in the Filestore StorageClass, each Filestore instance holds only a single share, supporting only a single Persistent Volume.

The Persistent Volume Claim storage capacity ranges from 1 TiB to 10 TiB and can fluctuate in increments of 256 GiB.

The Filestore CSI driver automatically creates and deletes the Filestore instances according to the Persistent Volume Claims.

Filestore Basic HDD tier

Filestore Basic HDD tier is a zonal NFS deployment in a specific zone. A Filestore Basic HDD instance supports only a single share. Filestore Basic HDD storage capacity ranges from 1 TiB to 64 TiB in size and can increase in increments of 1 GiB.

Filestore Basic HDD instances can only increase in capacity. The Filestore CSI driver manages its size according to the Persistent Volume Claim.

Filestore Basic SSD tier

Filestore Basic SSD tier is a zonal NFS filesystem deployment in a specific zone. Filestore Basic SSD supports only a single share. Filestore Basic SSD storage capacity ranges from 2.5 TiB to 64 TiB in size and can increase in increments of 1 GiB.

Filestore Basic SSD instances can only increase in capacity. The Filestore CSI driver manages its size according to the Persistent Volume Claim.

Monitoring

For information on how to monitor instance performance, see Monitoring instances and quota.

Feature limitations

• Currently, the Filestore Multishares for GKE feature is limited to the Filestore Enterprise service tier.

• Each Filestore Enterprise instance can host up to 10 shares or GKE Persistent Volumes. Exceeding 10 PVCs triggers the GKE Filestore CSI driver to create more Filestore instances and allocate those shares dynamically across instances. Creating a new Filestore share or PV may, in some instances, take extra time. If your application requires fast PV creation, include the following specification in the StorageClass YAML file:

  volumeBindingMode: Immediate

• Snapshots are not yet supported for Filestore Multishares. If needed, you can use a single share Filestore StorageClass to manually create snapshots through the Filestore API.

• The Filestore CSI driver is supported for clusters using Linux.

• Multishare instances and associated shares can take several minutes to create and are not visible until create operations are complete.

• While in Preview, you should create a new project to use the feature. Production workloads should reside in projects separate from preview workloads.

Pricing

Charges apply based on the underlying Filestore Enterprise service tier. With shared capacity across multiple smaller volumes, users can benefit from a dramatic reduction in storage costs.

For more information see Enterprise tier and Allocating capacity.

Filestore SLA

The Service Level Objectives (SLOs) described in the Filestore SLA have been published during Preview for reference only and will become effective once the expanded feature becomes generally available.

Get started with Filestore Multishares for GKE

Currently, Filestore Multishares for GKE is available as a Preview feature for select customers. If you would like to request access to the feature, contact [e-mail] for a registration form.

To get started using the feature, see Use Filestore Multishares for GKE.

What's next

• Use the Filestore CSI Driver.
• Use the Filestore CSI Driver with Shared VPC.