Support for the Container Storage Interface (CSI) volume plug-in

The Container Storage Interface (CSI) standard enables storage providers to develop plugins that allow Kubernetes clusters to access block and file storage systems.

A CSI volume plugin is now deployed in clusters created by Container Engine for Kubernetes, in addition to the FlexVolume volume plugin that was previously deployed. Using the CSI volume plugin has several advantages:

• Future Kubernetes releases will add new features to the CSI interface, not the FlexVolume interface (although Kubernetes developers will continue to maintain the FlexVolume interface).
• The CSI volume plugin does not require access to underlying operating system and root file system dependencies.

For more information, see Creating a Persistent Volume Claim.