Dynamic versus static provisioning Snapshots and Data cloning System architecture heterogeneity 4.1.2 Maintainability requirements 4.1.3 Windows worker node support Storage volumes can be provisioned either manually by cluster administrator or dynamically  when the PersistentVolumeClaim object is created. At the time of writing IBM Cloud Private  did not support dynamic provisioning for NFS volumes, however there is an open source  nfs-client-provisioner implementing this functionality, which can be installed in an IBM Cloud  Private cluster. The detailed procedure is described in section “Configuring the dynamic NFS  provisioner” on page 123. For production clusters it is highly recommended to pick the storage option that supports  dynamic provisioning. Finally, do you need ability to easily snapshot and clone persistent volumes? This  functionality can prove very useful for testing the applications as well as for performing  backup of the data on persistent volumes. At the time of writing such functionality was  available from specialized commercial storage solutions like Trident by NetApp, Portworx  (with Stork), or IBM Storage Solutions for Containers. IBM Cloud Private is one of the Kubernetes distributions that supports a variety of processor  architectures (x86, ppc64le and s390). Some of the distributed file systems may be not  available on the specific architecture that you want to use for your work. In case you plan to  have heterogeneous worker nodes, we recommend that you check the latest support  statement  ( https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSBS6K_3.1.2/supported_system_conf ig/supported_os.html ).  Another consideration area is about ease and cost of maintaining the storage solution. Is your  organization familiar with the selected technology? Do you have a skilled personnel available  to monitor, tune and troubleshoot the selected storage provider? Do you have a backup  solution in place for the selected provider type?  The answers to the above mentioned questions affect also another choice: whether to use  storage provider external to the cluster or the internal one, installed directly on the IBM Cloud  Private. When using the distributed file systems installed on IBM Cloud Private nodes the  appropriate configuration of the provider is done automatically during the installation and will  be automatically upgraded with the future releases of IBM Cloud Private. The drawback of  this option is related to the additional CPU load that storage containers will introduce to your  worker nodes. For additional backup considerations see “Backing up PersistentVolume data” on page 99. With IBM Cloud Private version 3.1.2 the initial support for Windows worker nodes was  introduced ( as a Technology Preview ). If any of the worker nodes in your cluster is Windows  based, this affects the storage technologies that you may use for your persistent volumes. At  the time of writing the Windows worker nodes provided no support for dynamic storage  provisioning and the only supported volume types were: local, emptyDir and hostPath.  Chapter 4. Managing persistence in IBM Cloud Private  117