What is CSI?

CSI is a standardized API that allows storage vendors to develop plugins for container orchestration platforms such as Kubernetes. Before CSI, storage systems had to be tightly integrated directly into the Kubernetes code base (or the code base of other orchestrators), which made supporting new storage backends difficult. Any change or addition required modifications to the core orchestration system itself, resulting in slower development and limited flexibility.

With CSI, storage providers can build standalone plugins that conform to the CSI specification. These plugins can be deployed independently alongside Kubernetes, enabling dynamic provisioning, attachment, and management of storage volumes – without modifying Kubernetes itself. This decoupling allows a much broader range of storage options, including block, file, and even object storage, to be supported more easily.

CSI empowers Kubernetes to provision storage volumes on demand. When a Pod requests...