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Veritas Alta™ Blog
6 MIN READ

Narrow the transformation gap with NetBackup for Kubernetes

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vLiji
Level 3
4 years ago

Organizations continue to evolve their infrastructure and look for cost-effective, agile, and secure solutions. Much of the latest phase of IT transformation has been the accelerated adoption of Kubernetes in the enterprise.  Containers have become the de facto standard for implementing microservices-based architectures to help build cloud-native applications with shorter development cycles. Organizations are choosing to adopt Kubernetes for the benefit of containers, the cloud-like management of resources, as well scalability, the power of orchestration, and for the value of distributed cloud. And this does not mean a Kubernetes environment is any less susceptible to risks ransomware attacks or human errors have just as much potential to compromise this environment as any other workload. Which is why, Kubernetes data protection is ever so important.

Just like intramodal shipping containers make it easy to move goods over truck, ship, or rail, software applications got bundled together into a container package format and deployed to help ensure the application runs reliably regardless of the underlying environment. As organizations adopt containers for production use, Kubernetes (K8s) transforms the way enterprises manage and orchestrate their container-based applications. You are not protecting a single container or Persistent Volume, but a complex distributed platform with many components shared by multiple sets of users. Kubernetes is a unique platform; therefore, it needs a unique way to protect it, but you shouldn’t have to be an expert in order to set up a backup. As a result, we designed our solution to abstract the complexity for our customers. 

NetBackup for Kubernetes

NetBackup 9.1 introduces our Kubernetes-native data protection solution to abstract the complexity for our customers. While staying platform and storage-agnostic, this leverages cloud-native attributes, that are designed to provide cross-platform portability, and integration with any distribution of K8s. The K8s cluster is logically separated into virtual clusters called namespaces, allowing multiple K8s applications to be deployed.  The shaded namespace represents the NetBackup Kubernetes Operator (NBUKOps) is installed in the same namespace as the Velero installation (see figure 1). NetBackup for Kubernetes provides native protection for Kubernetes distributions across environments by providing optimized, application-centric, and unified protection for Kubernetes.

Figure 1 - Architecture of a Kubernetes cluster.

Optimized protection

 

NetBackup for Kubernetes is not only cloud-native, but also specifically designed to protect and optimize Kubernetes environments, utilizing native Kubernetes constructs.

While K8s may be a complex platform, you can count on Veritas to abstract away all the complexity and simplify the user experience. Configuration involves exchanging API tokens and certificate thumbprints with both NetBackup and the K8s cluster. Protection is super easy. On adding a K8s cluster into NetBackup, we discover all the namespaces and K8s resources within those namespaces (see figures 2 and 3).

The NetBackup interface is secured with Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) and is ready for Self-Service by the Kubernetes administrator or their delegates. In addition to RBAC, NetBackup Kubernetes Operator (NBU KOps) embraces DevSecOps principles and is engineered to run with the least amount of privileges within the K8s cluster. Once the initial configuration is completed, NetBackup’s RESTful APIs can be used to build custom protection workflows, operate, and manage any operational workflows without ever needing to log into the backup application. Administrators can define resource limits to throttle the number of concurrent protection workflows, or even change how often we query K8s server to look for any new namespaces or resources to protect. NetBackup for Kubernetes provides simplified management using intelligent automation to orchestrate data protection processes.

Figure 2 - the namespaces automatically discovered on a K8s cluster

 

Figure 3 - individual K8s resources for a single namespace.

 

Application-Centric Approach

 

With Kubernetes, you are not protecting a single container, but a complex distributed application. When it comes to K8s recovery, our focus is to be very application-centric. Containerized applications running within Kubernetes are prime targets for threats like ransomware and ensuring that it is also recoverable in any situation is equally important. A single K8s application can be made up of as many as a hundred different K8s resources in a complex application, it is imperative to discover all the components and their relationship to each other within the namespace. This ensures we can both protect and recover all these resources as a single entity. Kubernetes administrators have flexible and granular recovery options like restoring an entire namespace or individual resources (see figure 4). In addition, if the namespace is healthy, but the data is corrupt, NetBackup also enables you to roll back snapshots of Persistent Volumes.

Figure 4 - Granular recovery options

 

Unified protection

Our Kubernetes-native solution is designed to unlock cross-distribution portability. NetBackup also solves what is perhaps the greatest challenge of Kubernetes protection: the gap between on-prem and the cloud. With various distributions and multiple cloud providers, the result can be unnecessary fragmentation. To tackle this, NetBackup is designed to facilitate cross-distribution mobility across all major Kubernetes distributions, wherever they live. Through this unified approach NetBackup gives enterprise IT greater certainty, agility, and control.

Our value differentiation

It is important to note that Kubernetes is not a traditional workload in terms of the segregation of data and infrastructure. While that, it does need both.  Veritas Enterprise Data Services platform takes a holistic yet unique approach that helps customers use high-performance storage for their critical, revenue-generating, and demanding Kubernetes applications. It also optimizes resource utilization by offering SAN alternatives and finally, shields the new DevSecOps teams from anticipating impacts of infrastructure failures causing potential inconsistencies.

It also ensures when K8s users want to move to the cloud, all these aspects don’t get lost just because of the on-prem to cloud move. Finally, unlike some of the other options available for protecting and ensuring the availability of Kubernetes applications, Veritas NetBackup takes the approach of being fully Kubernetes native, making Kubernetes protection part of the DevSecOps process right at the beginning of the cycle, while remaining integrated with the core NetBackup solution. It is not a “sidecar,” it is not a “acquire the leader in Kubernetes ONLY protection & sell it” and it is not something sold only in selective deployment models. It is Veritas NetBackup, trusted by 87% of the Fortune Global 500, and yet it is fully Kubernetes native. This enables NetBackup customers to adopt Kubernetes and containerization confidently and doing it the right way.

Jumpstart Kubernetes protection!

NetBackup for Kubernetes was fundamentally designed to unlock the power of K8s—portability and elasticity—to provide integrated data protection and resiliency. The ability to backup and restore across clusters ensures that outages, errors, and downtime are easily avoidable and application resiliency and portability remain constant. With the ease of self-service management, Kubernetes admins can simply and securely access the functionality needed to have complete control over their containerized application and metadata to deploy or recover Kubernetes namespaces anywhere. Veritas seeks to ensure that you can use Kubernetes any way you want, and your application mobility remains constant across physical, virtual, and cloud. 

Tell us what you think about this feature. Better yet, try it out yourself - download a copy of Veritas NetBackup 9.1 from our trialware page and see how easy it is to protect your modern digital apps. Existing customers can download a copy from the Veritas Download Center and be sure to renew your Veritas maintenance and services to continue to get access to free support and upgrades, so you can make the most of your Veritas products. Renewing allows you to capitalize on the innovations in the latest releases as soon as they are available to keep your products up-to-date and operating as they should. It also allows you to leverage Veritas services to get the always-on, expert technical support required to quickly resolve issues. As a result, you extract more value from your Veritas investment, reduce your risks, so you can focus on your business. Learn more about Veritas maintenance and support at veritas.com/renewals.

Veritas NetBackup enables organizations of all sizes with robust, cloud-native technologies that protect your business on every step along the cloud transformation journey. Learn more about NetBackup for Kubernetes at veritas.com/netbackup and watch this demo for more information.

For more NetBackup features, ask us questions in the comments, and stay tuned to more blogs or demos planned in our V-Bytes video series.

Updated 4 years ago
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