It’s no secret that Kubernetes is the de facto container orchestrator for scaling containerized applications. As the Backblaze team gets ready to head to KubeCon North America, we’ve been exploring the ecosystem of tools and integrations that make it easier to store application data in S3 compatible object storage.
From workarounds that make an object storage bucket behave like a persistent volume to cluster backups and early Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) storage projects we’re excited to watch, here’s a quick guide to making object storage services like Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage work (as close to) seamlessly with your Kubernetes clusters.
Mountpoint for Amazon S3 CSI Driver
AWS Labs released the mountpoint for Amazon S3 container storage interface (CSI) driver to allow Kubernetes clusters to access files in object storage through a file system interface. Essentially, this mountpoint disguises S3 compatible object storage as a persistent storage volume so the Kubernetes cluster can access your object storage without the need for another tool or integration. This also works with other S3 compatible storage services, including Backblaze B2. Check out our GitHub repo for step by step instructions on how to deploy a sample application to test with B2, or see this in action during our upcoming webinar, The State of K8s + S3 Compatible Storage.
MinIO
MinIO is a popular tool for running object storage natively inside Kubernetes clusters, by exposing data through standard APIs to enable containerized application to store, retrieve, and manage unstructured data. MinIO designed to run natively in Kubernetes, and allows you to bring-your-own S3 compatible storage or use your device’s local storage for a self-hosted solution. MinIO is flexible enough for individual developers to experiment with, but its power comes from its scalability, with 77% of Fortune 500 companies using MinIO in their cloud native workloads.
Velero
Rapidly creating and deleting infrastructure, and being able to quickly rebuild and recover are core tenets of Kubernetes. Velero makes it incredibly easy to back up Kubernetes clusters to your preferred object storage service. Run one-off backups as needed with one simple command, or set up a schedule to make sure your clusters are backed up consistently.
Read more about Kubernetes cluster security and backup strategy.
Rook
Rook is a storage orchestrator for Kubernetes that manages distributed storage systems (including Ceph and Cassandra) as native Kubernetes resources. Though Rook’s functionality doesn’t directly extend to S3 compatible object storage like Backblaze B2, you can mirror the data to B2 or set up your preferred object storage service as a backup destination.
Container Object Storage Interface (COSI) (Currently available in Alpha)
The COSI project is a set of abstractions currently available in Alpha that aims to provide Kubernetes with the ability to request and provision object storage buckets from multiple cloud vendors, similar to how file/block storage is abstracted with the CSI driver. Since each cloud provider builds out object storage differently, COSI intends to provide a unified set of protocols so Kubernetes can be inclusive to all object storage vendors, and adhere to the Kubernetes portability tenet.
Learn more about these tools, see a demo of how to attach a Backblaze B2 bucket via the mountpoint for Amazon S3 CSI driver, and get some initial key takeaways from KubeCon North America during our upcoming webinar, The State of K8s + S3 Compatible Storage. Register to watch live on November 20, 2025 and get access to an on-demand recording.
