Backup Kubernetes

To create a Kubernetes backup job, you can get started from the Backup > Kubernetes page.

The New Backup Job wizard for Kubernetes opens. Please complete the wizard follow the below steps.

Step 1. Select resource to Backup

Supports backup by namespace and backup by application, and displays the backup source.

After selecting the Kubernetes cluster, a search box will appear above where you can enter keywords to search.

Check the namespace/application that needs to be backed up, and it will appear under the Selected Backup Source column on the right, When selecting multiple namespaces/applications, only namespaces/applications from the same Kubernetes cluster can be selected.

After selecting a namespace/application, the system will not only back up the dependent resources of the namespace/application by default, but also select the associated PVC persistent volume by default. Click Selected Persistent Volumes in the upper-right corner to exclude PVCs that do not need to be backed up. During the backup, the data of the excluded PVCs will not be transferred, and only the YAML resources will be transferred to reduce the amount of backup data.

Step 2. Select Backup Destination

In the Target Node dropdown list, you can select a backup node on which you want the backup data to be processed and stored.

In the Target Storage dropdown list, the storages which belong to the selected backup node can be selected.

When done selecting the backup storage, please click on Next to continue.

Step 3. Configure Backup Strategies

General Strategy

Under the General Strategy tab, you can setup the backup Schedule, Throttling Policy, Data Storage Policy, Retention Policy.

In the Select Strategy dropdown list, you can select a preconfigured strategy template, if you had created strategy templates, otherwise choose Customize Strategy. For how to create strategy templates, please refer to Strategy Templates.

To determine the backup window of this job, the Time Windows indicator can be a reference for you to determine in which time window the job should be scheduled.

In the Mode dropdown list, you can choose to setup a Backup as Scheduled job, Once-off Backup job or a On Demand.

For a once-off backup job, the job will only run for once, and only full backup will be performed. You only have to appoint a time of when to start the backup job in the Start Time field.

For a scheduled backup job, you can schedule full backup only, full with incremental combination. The recommended backup strategy is full with incremental combination.

Vinchin backup server will suggest a time to start the backup job, please change the start time as per your requirements. When the start time of a full backup is overlapped with an incremental backup, full backup will be taken at first priority, and the incremental backup will be taken on the next scheduled start time.

If you want to customize the schedules according to your requirements, you can click on the + icon to expand and customize the settings for either full backups or incremental backups.

For example, you can schedule full backups twice a month without repeating.

Then configure several incremental backups each day, by default incremental backup will run only for once each day, to run incremental backups several times a day, you can enable the Repeat option.

For example, run full backups on day 1 and day 15 of each month, run incremental backups at 0:00 every day and repeat every 4 hours till 23:00 of the day. This is just an example, you should configure the schedules per your requirements based on your actual virtual environments.

After configuring the time schedules of the backups, next you can configure the Throttling Policy, the throttling policy settings are optional, only if the backup jobs will bring network or I/O overload to your production environment, you can configure the throttling policy accordingly otherwise leave it unconfigured.

Data Storage Policy including Compression and Encryption of the backup data.

By enabling Data Compression, you can save the bandwidth and storage resources for transmitting and storing the backup data.

By enabling Data Encryption, the backup data will be encrypted and then stored into the backup storage. A password needs to be specified to secure the data encryption, when creating a VM restore job, password verification is required to perform VM restore.

Retention Policy can be used to define how long the backup data to be reserved in the backup storage, you can either define the retention policy with Number of Restore Points or Number of Days mode.

Transmission Strategy

The Encryption, Transmission Network, and Transmission Thread can be configured in the transmission policy.

Encrypted transmission: Backup data is transmitted using SSL encryption, using the RSA algorithm. Enabling transmission encryption encrypts data transferred from the backup source to the backup storage, ensuring data security. Encrypted transmission is off by default.

Transmission Network: Select a backup node network that ensures connectivity with the host. The default is the backup node network.

Transmission Threads: You can set multiple threads for transferring backup data. The default is 3 threads, and you can configure up to 8 threads.

Security Strategy

WORM protection: A backup point with WORM (Write Once Read Many) enabled cannot be modified or deleted before expiration, and the retention period can only be extended. The default protection period is 7 days, and the supported range is 1 to 9999 days.

Integrity Check: Integrity check before performing incremental backu (if the check period is exceeded) verifies the health of the backup point by checking part of the source data information in the backup data. Options include: Check Schedule, Full Backup Point Anomaly, Incremental Backup Point Anomaly.

Advanced Strategy

This section include: Storage: Block Size, Backup data will be organized according to the specified block size

Snapshot: Number of Local PVC Snapshot Copies Retained in the Cluster: Set how many copies of PVC will be retained in the cluster.

Ignore Snapshot Exceptions: Default setting to handle snapshot anomalies and maximize backup success

Retry: When a job fails due to network, API, or other exceptions, the task can be retried.

Overload Protection: If the node has resource limiation, you could enable the Ignore Node Resource Limits for this job.

Script configuration

The Hook script is disabled by default. If enabled, it supports executing the script before backup, after backup success, and after backup failure. The execution container environment supports execution in all Pods, execution in specified Pods, execution in matching Pods, and execution in self-propelled container images.

Step 4. Review and Confirm Job Settings

After completing the above-mentioned settings, you can review and confirm the settings in one screen.

A job name can be specified for identification of the Kubernetes backup jobs, and by clicking on the Submit button to confirm the settings and create the backup job.

After creating a new backup job, you can find it on the Monitor Center > Jobs page, under the Current Job tab.