GDC Ready storage partners

This page is for Storage specialists who connect or help connect storage with other services, such as Google Cloud. To learn more about common roles and example tasks that we reference in Google Cloud content, see Common GKE Enterprise user roles and tasks.

GDC Ready storage qualification

Google Cloud has established the following requirements to be met for a storage partner's system to achieve Google Distributed Cloud (GDC) Ready qualification. Container Storage Interface (CSI) is a vendor independent standard for vendors to expose their block and file storage systems to Container Orchestration Systems (COs) like Kubernetes. GDC Ready storage qualification ensures that our storage partners' CSI drivers can provide a seamless experience between GDC (on VMware or bare metal) and the partners' block/file storage systems.

For a partner's CSI driver to be considered for the program, the partner must support the following:

• Ability to deploy the storage CSI driver and its dependencies, using the Kubernetes framework
• Core functions that customers require today, including dynamic provisioning of volumes, by using the Kubernetes native storage APIs
• The ability to manage storage for Kubernetes scale up and scale down scenarios
• Workload portability with persistence storage for the stateful workloads

For Google Distributed Cloud (software only) on vmware qualifications, storage partners are given the option of which version of vSphere to perform their qualification with. If you do not see a specific version of vSphere included in the qualification matrix for a given partner, check with the partner to confirm their support.

For Google Distributed Cloud (software only) on bare metal qualifications, storage partners performed the qualifications on one or more operating systems based on their support of the OS. If you do not see a specific OS or version, check with the partner to confirm support.

You can find out more about the program in GDC Ready partners.

GDC version validation matrix

The following table highlights the storage partners and the validated GDC versions, based on the deployment option (VMware or bare metal). Select a partner to see their solution details.

Storage partner	GDC 1.16	GDC 1.28	GDC 1.29	GDC 1.30
Dell EMC
Hitachi	bare metal	bare metal	bare metal	bare metal
NetApp	VMware bare metal	VMware bare metal	VMware bare metal	bare metal
Portworx	VMware bare metal	VMware bare metal	VMware bare metal	VMware bare metal
Robin.io	bare metal	bare metal	bare metal	bare metal
VMware	VMware	VMware	VMware	VMware

Note: Storage partners may have validated previous GDC versions that are no longer supported and thus not displayed. To learn about the version support policy, see the GKE Enterprise support page.

GDC Ready storage partners

Dell EMC

	Solution	CSI Driver for PowerStore
	Qualification matrix	GDC version Driver version vSphere support bare metal support Additional capabilities tested vSphere version OS version(s)
	Description	Container Storage Interface (CSI) specification was designed to provide an interface that Container Orchestrators (like Kubernetes) can use to provision storage. Storage vendors implement CSI Drivers that conform to the specification which provide storage services via this vendor neutral Container Storage Interface.
	Web page	https://github.com/dell/csi-powerstore/
	Solution	CSI Driver for PowerFlex
	Qualification matrix	GDC version Driver version vSphere support bare metal support Additional capabilities tested vSphere version OS version(s)
	Description	The PowerFlex CSI Driver by Dell implements the standardized interface (CSI spec) between enabled Container Orchestrator (CO) and Dell PowerFlex Systems. It is a plug-in that is installed into Kubernetes to provide persistent storage using Dell storage systems. The CSI driver for PowerFlex offers several enterprise grade features including, but not limited to the following: static provisioning, dynamic provisioning, creation & deletion of volume snapshots, expansion, etcetera.
	Web page	https://github.com/dell/csi-powerflex https://dell.github.io/csm-docs/docs/deployment/helm/drivers/installation/powerflex/

Hitachi

	Solution	Hitachi Storage Plug-in for Containers
	Qualification matrix	GDC version Driver version vSphere support bare metal support Additional capabilities tested vSphere version OS version(s) 1.16.x 3.14.0 RHEL 8.4 RHEL 8.6 Expansion Raw Block Snapshot 1.28.x 3.14.0 RHEL 8.4 RHEL 8.6 RHEL 8.8 Expansion Raw Block Snapshot 1.29.x 3.14.0 RHEL 8.4 RHEL 8.6 RHEL 8.8 Expansion Raw Block Snapshot 1.30.x 3.14.3 RHEL 8.6 RHEL 8.8 RHEL 9.2 Expansion Raw Block Snapshot
	Description	Hitachi Storage Plug-in for Containers (HSPC) provides connectivity between Docker, Kubernetes, or Kubernetes CSI containers and Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform (VSP) E series, F series, and G series enterprise-class hybrid and all-flash storage systems. HSPC is a software component that contains libraries, settings, and commands that you can use to create a container in order to run your stateful applications. It enables the stateful applications to persist and maintain data after the life cycle of the container has ended. Storage Plug-in for Containers provides persistent volumes from Hitachi VSP series storage, utilizes built-in high-availability and orchestrates storage tasks between hosts in a cluster.
	Web page	https://docs.hitachivantara.com/v/u/en-us/adapters-and-drivers/3.14.x/mk-92adptr142 https://support.hitachivantara.com/en/user/answers/downloads/downloads-detail.html?d=Storage%20Plug-in%20for%20Containers&pptype=Hardware%20Version Note: You must REGISTER to access Hitachi Vantara's Support Site.

NetApp

	Solution	CSI Trident for Kubernetes
	Qualification matrix	GDC version Driver version vSphere support bare metal support Additional capabilities tested vSphere version OS version(s) 1.16.x 23.07.1 8.0.1 Centos 8.4 RHEL 8.4 Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Expansion Snapshot Raw Block ReadWriteMany Volume Cloning 1.28.x 24.02.0 8.0.1 RHEL 8.6 Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Expansion Snapshot Raw Block ReadWriteMany Volume Cloning 1.29.x 24.02.0 7.0.3 RHEL 8.6 Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Expansion Snapshot Raw Block ReadWriteMany Volume Cloning 1.30.x 24.06.0 RHEL 9.2 Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Expansion Snapshot Raw Block ReadWriteMany Volume Cloning
		Trident has been validated with SolidFire and ONTAP solutions using SAN and NAS protocols.
	Description	The Container Storage Interface (CSI) provides a framework to standardize communications between container orchestrators and storage systems. This is a community effort driven by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) Storage Special Interest Group (SIG). NetApp implemented CSI in Trident to simplify the consumption of persistent storage for Kubernetes users while offering a universal interface to all major NetApp storage platforms. CSI is supported by Trident versions 19.07 or above and it can be downloaded from netapp.io.
	Web page	https://netapp.io/2019/06/28/all-new-csi-trident/ https://github.com/NetApp/trident
	Note	You must upgrade to 1.28.200-gke.111 or higher with NetApp for GDCV v1.28. RHEL 8.10 is tested with GDC 1.30.x on bare metal, but it isn't supported due to observed issues with multipathd.

Portworx

	Solution	Portworx with CSI
	Qualification matrix	GDC version Driver version vSphere support bare metal support Additional capabilities tested vSphere version OS version(s) 1.16.x 3.1.0 7.0.3 Centos 8.4 RHEL 8.4 Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Expansion Snapshot ReadWriteMany 1.28.x 3.1.0 7.0.3 8.0.1 Centos 8.4 RHEL 8.4 Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Expansion Snapshot ReadWriteMany 1.29.x 3.1.2 7.0.3 RHEL 8.4 Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Expansion Snapshot ReadWriteMany 1.30.x 3.1.3 7.0.3 8.0.3 RHEL 8.8 RHEL 8.10 RHEL 9.2 Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Expansion Snapshot ReadWriteMany
	Description	The Portworx Enterprise Storage Platform for Kubernetes is built from the ground up to solve the business requirements necessary to run data-rich applications on Kubernetes in production. The Portworx Enterprise platform provides solutions for scalable, performant container storage, Kubernetes backup and disaster recovery, multi-cloud operations, data security, capacity management, and compliance and governance.
	Web page	https://docs.portworx.com/operations/operate-kubernetes/storage-operations/csi/
	ReadWriteMany access mode and Dataplane v2 (DPv2)	For Google Distributed Cloud (software only) on VMware, if you're using Dataplane V2 and sharedv4 service volumes, we recommend that you use the following clusters versions: For minor version 1.16, use version 1.16.4-gke.37 or higher. For minor version 1.28, use version 1.28.200-gke.111 or higher. For Google Distributed Cloud (software only) on bare metal, we recommend that you don't create a cluster without kube-proxy with this driver.

Robin.io

	Solution	ROBIN Storage
	Qualification matrix	GDC version Driver version vSphere support bare metal support Additional capabilities tested vSphere version OS version(s) 1.16.x 1.0 CentOS 8 Expansion Raw Block Snapshot ReadWriteMany 1.28.x 1.0 Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Expansion Raw Block Snapshot ReadWriteMany 1.29.x 5.4.8 Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Expansion Raw Block Snapshot ReadWriteMany 1.30.x 5.4.8 Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Expansion Raw Block Snapshot ReadWriteMany
	Description	The Robin Cloud Native Storage is an application-aware container storage that offers advanced data management capabilities and runs natively on any Kubernetes distribution including GKE on Google Cloud and GDC. ROBIN Cloud Native Storage delivers bare-metal performance and enables you to Protect (via Snapshots, Backups), Secure (via encryption), Collaborate (via Clones and git like push/pull workflows), and make Portable (via Cloud-sync) any Stateful application that is deployed using Helm Charts or Operators.
	Web page	https://docs.robin.io/
	ReadWriteMany access mode and Dataplane v2 (DPv2)	For Google Distributed Cloud (software only) on VMware, if you're using Dataplane V2 and RWX volumes, we recommend that you use the following clusters versions: For minor version 1.16, use version 1.16.4-gke.37 or higher. For minor version 1.28, use version 1.28.200-gke.111 or higher. For Google Distributed Cloud (software only) on bare metal, we recommend that you don't create a cluster without kube-proxy with this driver.

VMware

	Solution	vSphere CSI Driver*
	Qualification matrix	GDC version Driver version vSphere support bare metal support Additional capabilities tested vSphere version* OS version(s) 1.16.x 3.0.3 7.0.3 N/A Expansion Raw Block Snapshot 1.28.x 3.1.1 7.0.3 N/A Expansion Raw Block Snapshot 1.29.x 3.1.2 7.0.3 N/A Expansion Raw Block Snapshot 1.30.x 3.3.0 7.0.3 8.0.3 N/A Expansion Raw Block Snapshot
		*VMware vSphere CSI pre-installed with GDC is generally available as of GDC version 1.7.x. For VM configuration requirements, see the VMware prerequisites documentation.
	Description	The VMware vSphere Container Storage Interface (CSI) is an out-of-tree plug-in that exposes vSphere storage to containerized workloads on Kubernetes. The plug-in enables VMware vSAN and other types of vSphere storage. It communicates with the Cloud Native Storage (CNS) control plane on VMware vCenter Server for all storage provisioning operations.
	Web page	https://cloud.google.com/kubernetes-engine/distributed-cloud/vmware/docs/how-to/using-vsphere-csi-driver