How to Choose a Storage Platform for OpenShift Virtualization
This article has been updated from when it was originally published as “Don’t Let Storage Slow Down DevOps” on April 3, 2025.
OpenShift Virtualization (OpenShift-V) provides a powerful and flexible platform for DevOps and software developers to build, deploy and manage cloud-based applications with greater speed, agility and efficiency. Resources can be quickly provisioned, applications quickly scaled and workloads moved between cloud platforms, which inherently enables you to customize the platform to meet specific application workload needs.
As powerful as OpenShift-V is for managing containerized and virtualized cloud-based applications side-by-side, it’s only as fast and efficient as its data storage platform. Your storage platform is crucial, and bottlenecks can result in poor application performance or, worse, application timeouts.
Selecting the right OpenShift virtualization storage helps your organization achieve seamless scalability, high performance and operational efficiency. The right storage can enable persistent storage volumes that are essential for stateful applications.
The Role of Block Storage in OpenShift
Block storage delivers the performance, scalability and agility needed to unlock the full potential of OpenShift Virtualization. Block storage can integrate seamlessly with Red Hat OpenShift and other Kubernetes platforms, providing a unified storage layer for both virtual machines and containers. It can improve application reliability by providing consistent performance and availability for critical workloads. For instance, it’s commonly used for transactional and real-time analytics workloads and is becoming increasingly prevalent in AI/machine learning (ML) data pipelines.
Key benefits include low-latency access, flexible scaling and high availability. All of these are essential for performance-sensitive applications. Additionally, block storage solutions can be tailored to meet specific performance and scalability needs, ensuring seamless operations even during peak loads.
Kubernetes Storage Solutions for Virtualization
Kubernetes storage solutions for OpenShift-V provide the mechanisms that enable persistent storage for applications running within virtual machines (VMs) on the OpenShift platform. These solutions leverage Kubernetes features like persistent volumes (PVs), which provide persistent storage for stateful applications, and storage classes, which define different types of storage with varying performance and availability characteristics.
OpenShift-V integrates these capabilities to manage and provision storage resources for VMs so that applications running within those VMs have access to persistent and reliable storage. This integration allows developers to seamlessly manage storage for both containerized and virtualized workloads within the same OpenShift environment.
Container Storage Interface (CSI) and OpenShift
The Container Storage Interface is an API standard that allows easy integration of third-party storage solutions with Kubernetes for flexible storage management. CSI, therefore, makes sure that storage solutions are vendor-agnostic, offering enterprises more choices and better control over their infrastructure.
OpenShift leverages CSI to support dynamic storage provisioning, enhancing performance, scalability and ease of management for virtualized workloads. This integration simplifies storage operations and allocates resources efficiently.
Best Practices for Managing Storage in OpenShift-V
Maximize Storage Performance
To maximize the performance of your OpenShift Virtualization storage, consider implementing tiered storage strategies. This involves categorizing data based on access frequency and placing it on the appropriate storage tier — high-performance NVMe drives for frequently accessed data and lower-cost options for less critical data.
Actively manage input/output per second (IOPS) to ensure that your storage can handle the demands of your applications. Continuous monitoring of storage resources allows you to identify and address potential bottlenecks before they impact performance. Implementing automated scaling mechanisms ensures that your storage resources can adapt to fluctuating workloads, maintaining consistent performance even during peak demand.
Follow a Data Protection Plan
Protecting your data to ensure business continuity requires a data protection plan. Regular backups are essential for restoring data in case of unforeseen events. Cross-region replication provides an additional layer of protection by copying data to a different location, safeguarding against regional outages. Automated failover systems can automatically switch to a backup system in case of failure, minimizing downtime and ensuring continuous operation.
OpenShift provides comprehensive tools to help you create resilient architectures, minimizing the risk of data loss and downtime. By incorporating these strategies, you can ensure that your applications and data remain secure and available, even in the face of unexpected disruptions.
DevOps Cycles Accelerated
OpenShift-V empowers organizations to build resilient, scalable cloud environments, enabling DevOps to drive innovations and achieve operational excellence. By implementing the right OpenShift virtualization storage solution, you can improve DevOps operations through enhanced performance, reduced costs and improved flexibility.
Additionally, OpenShift’s ability to support hybrid cloud deployments makes it an attractive option for organizations needing to bridge on-premises and cloud infrastructures for data mobility. The platform’s security features, including encryption, access controls and monitoring, further enhance its appeal, ensuring that data remains protected in transit while maintaining high availability. It is this combination of flexibility, performance and security that makes OpenShift virtualization storage a cornerstone for modern development workflows.
If you want to learn more about building a reliable, scalable and highly performant storage platform for DevOps in OpenShift-V, watch this demo.
