Self-Service Database Backup & Restore in VMware Data Services Manager (Video)

In this short video, one of the really nice self-service features of VMware Data Services Manager is demonstrated. In the video, we see how someone with the role of an Org Administrator is able to build databases, and then give ownership to some end-users, possibly a developer. We will then see how this end user can consume the database, whilst also carrying out important tasks such as on-the-fly backups whenever the database has some critical data added. Finally, we will see how this same end-user can initiated a restore of the database from a particular point in time (PIT) if…

Open Source Velero Plugin for vSphere (using snapshots) in action

I recently published an article around Velero and vSAN File Services, showing how Velero and the restic plugin could be used to backup and restore Kubernetes application that used vSAN File Services. Today, I want to turn my attention to a very cool new plugin that we announced in mid-April, namely the Velero Plugin for vSphere. This open source plugin enables Velero to take a crash-consistent VADP* snapshot backup of a block Persistent Volume on vSphere storage, and store the backup on S3 compatible storage. * VADP is short for VMware vSphere Storage APIs – Data Protection. To utilize the…

Using Velero to backup and restore applications that use vSAN File Service RWX file shares

It has been a while since I looked at Velero, our backup and restore product for Kubernetes cluster resources. This morning I noticed that the Velero team just published version 1.4. This article uses the previous version of Velero, version is v1.3.2. The version should not make a difference to the article. In this post, I want to see Velero backing up and restoring applications that use read-write-many (RWX) volumes that are dynamically provisioned as file shares from vSAN 7.0 File Services. To demonstrate, I’ll create two simple busybox Pods in their own namespace. Using the vSphere CSI driver, Kubernetes…

Setting up Velero 1.0.0 to backup K8s on vSphere/PKS

I have written about Velero a few times on this blog, but I haven’t actually looked at how you would deploy the 1.0.0 version, even though it has been available since May 2019. Someone recently reached out to me for some guidance on how to deploy it, as there are a few subtle differences between previous versions. Therefore I decided to document step-by-step how to do it, but focusing on when your Kubernetes cluster is running on vSphere. I also highlight a gotcha when using Velero to backup applications that are running on Kubernetes deployed via Enterprise PKS, Pivotal Container…

Velero and Portworx – Container Volume Backup and Restores

If you’ve been following my posts for the last week or so, you’ll have noticed my write-ups on Velero backups and restores using the new release candidate (RC). I also did a recent write-up on Portworx volumes and snapshots. In this post, I’ll bring them both together, and show you how Velero and Portworx are integrated to allow backups and restores of container applications using Portworx volumes. However, first, let’s take a step back. As was highlighted to me recently, all of this is very new to a lot of people, so let’s spend a little time setting the context.…

A closer look at Rubrik

A couple of months back, I wrote a short article on Rubrik. They were just coming out of stealth mode and had started an early access program. Since they had not officially launched, there wasn’t a lot that I was allowed to say about the company, other than give a high level overview. As they have now officially launched their r300 series of products, along with news of a massive $41 million Series B of funding, I can now share some additional details about their products and technology. Just to recap on what Rubrik do, they are offering a converged…