PowerProtect Data Manager 19.11 Kubernetes User Guide

About Kubernetes cluster asset sources and namespace assets

Kubernetes clusters and containers play an important role in the speed and efficiency of deploying and developing applications, and also in reducing downtime when a change to application scaling is required. PowerProtect Data Manager enables you to protect the Kubernetes environment by adding a Kubernetes cluster as an asset source, and discovering namespaces as assets for data protection operations.

In a traditional application, an environment might consist of a web server, application server, and database server, with the web server servicing requests in front of a load balancer. Scaling this application, for example, by increasing the web layer by adding servers, requires the involvement of many resources to manually change the configuration. In a Kubernetes cluster, however, once you develop the code and write a YAML file that indicates the required systems and configuration details, Kubernetes deploys these containers and the application can be started quickly. Also, a change to the scale of the application only requires you to change the YAML file and post the updated file to the cluster.

A typical Kubernetes cluster can contain several physical and virtual systems. Once the clusters are running, the applications, binaries, and a framework are bundled into a container, which is then wrapped in a pod. Before you can run the pod in a Kubernetes cluster, the cluster must be divided into namespaces. A namespace is a pool of resources that are divided logically in the cluster. It is these namespaces that are protected as assets within the PowerProtect Data Manager UI for the purposes of backup and recovery.

However, because pods only last for a short time, to persist state information Kubernetes uses Persistent Volumes. You can create Persistent Volumes on external storage and then attach to a particular pod using Persistent Volume Claims (PVCs). PVCs can then be included along with other namespaces in PowerProtect Data Manager backup and recovery operations.