Configure Storage in Fleet

Published April 5, 2023 | Last modified June 10, 2025

Objective

This guide provides instructions on how to set storage for your applications using the F5® Distributed Cloud Services fleet of sites. Storage configuration set using fleet gets applied to all the sites that are part of the fleet and will be accessible to the workloads on those sites. For more information on fleets, see Fleet.

Using the instructions provided in the document, you can define the following storage configuration using fleet:

Storage devices: Configuration for a specific hardware appliance.
Storage classes: Class to which the appliance belongs to and this is dependent on the appliance provider. For example, a class can be a fast pool or slow pool of devices.
Storage interfaces: Interfaces for storage devices.

Note: This guide provides instructions on setting storage for an existing fleet by editing the fleet object configuration. However, you can also define the storage configuration similarly while creating a fleet. For information on how to create a fleet, see Create Fleet guide.

Prerequisites

F5 Distributed Cloud Account is required. In case you do not have an account, see Getting Started with Console.
F5 Distributed Cloud site.
Storage devices (cloud or on-premises data centers).

Configuration

Use the following steps to configure storage for your applications.

Note: By default, a Distributed Cloud site deployed in AWS will support Elastic Block Store (EBC), GCP supports Google Cloud Storage, and Azure supports Azure Disk Storage.

Step 1: Navigate to the Fleets page.

Select the Multi-Cloud Network Connect service.
Navigate to Manage > Site Management > Fleets.

Figure: Fleet list

Step 2: Edit fleet set interfaces for storage.

Select ... > Manage for the fleet object you want to define storage configuration.
Click Edit Configuration in the upper right corner.
Navigate to the Storage Configuration section.
From the Select Storage Interface Configuration menu, select List of Storage Interface.
Select an interface from the displayed list or click Add Item. You can add multiple interfaces using the Add item option.

Figure: Interfaces for Storage Devices

Note: See Interfaces for instructions on creating network interfaces. See Multi Node Site Network Setup Using Fleet for instructions on how to configure networking using fleet for multi node sites.

Step 3: Configure storage devices.

From the Select Storage Device Configuration menu, select List of Storage Devices

Figure: Storage Devices Option

Under the List of Storage Devices field, click Add Item.
Enter a name in the Storage Device field. Ensure that this name corresponds to the class in which the storage device falls. The classes are used by vK8s for storage related actions.

Figure: Storage Devices Parameters

From the Select Storage Device to Configure menu, select an option and perform one of the following based on that option:

NetApp Trident

Figure: NetApp Device Backend LIFs

From the Select NetApp Trident Backend menu, select an option. The ONTAP NAS is selected by default.
Select an option from the Backend Management LIF menu. The Backend Management LIF IP Address is selected by default. Enter an IP address for the backend management logical interface in the Backend Management LIF IP Address field. In case you select the name option, enter the backend management interface name.
Select an option from the Backend Data LIF menu. The Backend Data LIF IP Address is selected by default. Enter an IP address for the backend data interface in the Backend Data LIF IP Address field. In case you select the name option, enter the backend data interface name.
Enter a username in the Username field. Click Configure for the Password field. Enter your password in the Secret page and click Blindfold. Wait for the Blindfold to complete encrypting your password and click Apply.
Enter a certificate in the Client Certificate field. Click Configure for the Client Certificate field. Enter your text for your secret in the Secret page and click Blindfold. Wait for the Blindfold to complete encrypting your password and click Apply.
Enter a certificate in the Trusted CA Certificate field. Click Configure for the Trusted CA Certificate field. Enter your text for your secret in the Secret page and click Blindfold. Wait for the Blindfold to complete encrypting your password and click Apply.

Figure: NetApp Device Password

Enter CIDR for your K8s nodes in the Auto Export CIDRs field in case auto export policy is enabled for your storage device.

Figure: NetApp Device AutoExport CIDRs

If you are configuring virtual storage, then in the Virtual Storage Pools section, enter a label and region for the storage, and click Add Item one or more times to add pool labels and pool zones.
Click Apply.

Pure Storage Service Orchestrator

Enter a cluster identifier in the Cluster ID field. This is used to identify the volumes used by the datastore. Alphanumeric characters and underscores are allowed.

Note: Unique cluster ID is required for multiple K8s cluster using the same storage device.

Figure: Pure Storage Orchestrator Device

Click Configure under the Flash Arrays field.
Click Add Item to add a flash array endpoint.

Figure: Pure Storage Flash Arrays

Enter an IP address in the Management Endpoint IP Address field.

Figure: Pure Storage Flash Array endpoint

Click Configure under the API Token field. Enter the token in the secret field and click Blindfold. Click Apply after the Blindfold encryption is completed.
Optionally, select labels for this endpoint.
Click Apply.
Click Configure under the Flash Blade field.
Click Add Item to add a flash blade endpoint.

Figure: Pure Storage Flash Blade

Enter the IP address in the Management Endpoint IP Address field.

Figure: Pure Storage Flash Blade Endpoint

Click Configure under the API Token field. Enter the token in the secret field and click Blindfold. Click Apply after the Blindfold encryption is completed.
Enter the IP address in the NFS IP Address field.
Optionally, add labels for this endpoint.
Click Apply.

Note: You can change the management or NFS endpoints to specify management endpoint name or NFS DNS name.

Click Apply.

Custom Storage

The custom storage classes option is used for storage devices or external storages which are deployed outside F5 Distributed Cloud Services. For example, the option allows you to configure custom storage classes for AWS, GCP, etc.

Select Custom Storage for the Select Storage Device to Configure field.
Click Add Item.

Figure: Custom Storage Device

Optionally, in the Parameter Name and Parameter Value fields, enter the required information.
Click Apply.

HPE Storage

Select HPE Storage for the Select Storage Device to Configure field.
In the Storage Name field, enter a name.
In the Storage Server IP address field, enter an IP address.
In the Storage server Port field, enter a port number.
In the Username field, enter the username used to connect to the HPE storage device.
To configure the password, click Configure. Then perform the following:
- For the Blindfolded Secret option, complete the configuration by entering the secret text to blindfold.
- For the Clear Secret option, enter the secret text in plaintext format or Base64.
- Click Apply.
- Click Apply again to complete configuration.

Note: You can add multiple devices using the Add item option.

Step 4: Configure storage classes.

You can use default storage classes supported in K8s or you can customize the classes. If you are using default classes, ensure that the storage device names correspond to the K8s classes.

NetApp Trident

Figure: NetApp Class

Click Add Item.

Pure Storage Service Orchestrator

Figure: Pure Storage Orchestrator Class

Select an option from the Backend menu. The block option is selected by default.
Optionally, enter IOPS and bandwidth limits in their respective fields.
Click Add Item.

Custom Storage Class

Figure: Storage class parameters

Select Add Custom Storage Class for the Select Configuration for Storage Classes field.
Click Add Item under the List of Storage Classes field. This opens the Storage Class Parameters page.
Enter a name for the Storage Class Name field. This name will appear in K8s.
Enter a name in the Storage Device field. This is the storage device that will be used by this class, as entered in Step 3.
Optionally, enter a storage class description.
Optionally, check the Default Storage Class box to make this storage class the default for the K8s cluster.
Select Custom Storage for the Select Storage Class Configuration field.
Enter the storage class YAML. It must have the configuration of

apiVersion: storage.k8s.io/v1
kind: StorageClass
...

Copied!

Enter a Reclaim Policy.
Optionally, check the Allow Volume Expansion box.
Optionally, enter generic/advanced parameters.
Click Add Item.

HPE Storage

Figure: Storage class parameters

Complete the required parameters.

Note: You can add multiple classes using the Add item option.

Step 5: Complete applying storage configuration to fleet.

Click Save and Exit to apply the storage configuration fleet.

Note: You can add the sites to fleet by adding the fleet label to the site configuration. See Create Fleet guide for more information.

Concepts

API References