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Learn Kubernetes: A Deep Dive

Provision Volume Using an Existing StorageClass

Explore how to use StorageClasses to dynamically provision persistent volumes in Kubernetes, particularly on Google Kubernetes Engine. Understand StorageClass configurations, reclaim policies, and volume binding modes to effectively manage storage in production environments. Learn to create Persistent Volume Claims and Pods that trigger volume provisioning, and verify resource lifecycle on Google Cloud.

We'll cover the following...

In this and the next lesson, we’ll use StorageClasses to dynamically provision volumes on external systems. These lessons will only work on Regional GKE clusters. Refer to the Getting Kubernetes chapter on how to create a cluster on GKE. Every cloud and storage system has its own CSI plugin and configuration options; we can’t create examples for them all. Don’t be upset if you don’t have a Regional GKE cluster; you’ll still learn a lot by reading through the demos.

Use the following widget to execute all the commands for this lesson.

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: volpod
spec:
  volumes:
  - name: data
    persistentVolumeClaim:
      claimName: pvc-prem
  containers:
  - name: ubuntu-ctr
    image: ubuntu:latest
    command:
    - /bin/bash
    - "-c"
    - "sleep 60m"
    volumeMounts:
    - mountPath: /data
      name: data
Playground

Use an existing StorageClass

The following command lists the precreated StorageClasses on a typical GKE Autopilot cluster. The output is trimmed, and it’s okay if the cluster has less.

$ kubectl get sc
                                                    RECLAIM                     
NAME                 PROVISIONER                    POLICY    VOLUMEBINDINGMODE 
enterprise-multi..   filestore.csi.storage.gke.io   Delete    WaitForFirstConsumer
enterprise-rwx       filestore.csi.storage.gke.io   Delete    WaitForFirstConsumer
premium-rwo          pd.csi.storage.gke.io          Delete    WaitForFirstConsumer
premium-rwx          filestore.csi.storage.gke.io   Delete    WaitForFirstConsumer
standard             kubernetes.io/gce-pd           Delete    Immediate           
standard-rwo (def)   pd.csi.storage.gke.io          Delete    WaitForFirstConsumer
standard-rwx         filestore.csi.storage.gke.io   Delete    WaitForFirstConsumer
zonal-rwx            filestore.csi.storage.gke.io   Delete    WaitForFirstConsumer
Get all StorageClasses

Precreated StorageClasses

Let’s examine the output.

First up, Kubernetes created these StorageClasses ...