Your Cloud Native Storage environment and virtual machines that participate in the Kubernetes cluster must meet several requirements.

Cloud Native Storage Requirements

  • vSphere 6.7 Update 3 or later.
  • A compatible version of Kubernetes.
  • A Kubernetes cluster deployed on the virtual machines. For details about deploying the vSphere CSI plug-in and running the Kubernetes cluster on vSphere, see the Driver Deployment documentation in GitHub.

Requirements for Kubernetes Cluster Virtual Machines

  • Virtual machines with hardware version 15 or later. Install VMware Tools on each node virtual machine.
  • Virtual machine hardware recommendations:
    • Set CPU and memory adequately based on workload requirements.
    • Use the VMware Paravirtual SCSI controller for the primary disk on the Node VM.
  • All virtual machines must have access to a shared datastore, such as vSAN.
  • Set the disk.EnableUUID parameter on each node VM. See Configure Kubernetes Cluster Virtual Machines.
  • To avoid errors and unpredictable behavior, do not take snapshots of CNS node VMs.

Requirements for CNS File Volume

  • Use vSphere version 7.0 or later with a compatible Kubernetes version.
  • Use a compatible version of CSI. For information, see the Kubernetes vSphere CSI Driver documentation on GitHub.
  • Enable and configure the vSAN file service. You must configure the necessary file service domains, IP pools, network, and so on. For information, see the Administering VMware vSAN documentation.
  • Follow specific guidelines to configure network access from a guest OS in the Kubernetes node to a vSAN file share. See Configuring Network Access to vSAN File Share.