Backups for Kubernetes

You can back up Kubernetes applications and application groups automatically or manually.

How Backups Work in Metallic

In Metallic, backups function as follows:

• Initial, full backups: The first backup of an application is always a full backup.

• Scheduled, incremental backups: The server plan that is assigned to an application group includes a schedule for incremental backups. You can recover application data, even when the most recent backup was incremental.

• Manual backups: You can back up applications and application groups on demand.

If a backup cannot start, it is queued and will automatically resume when the blackout window, resource constraint, or network limitation is resolved.

Data You Can Back Up

• Kubernetes-orchestrated clusters, including namespaced and non-namespaced API resources and objects

• Applications, which includes supported API resources/objects (such as Secrets, ConfigMaps, Namespaces, and StorageClasses) that can be listed, created, or re-created using the Kubernetes API server

• Annotations on Pods, DaemonSets, Deployments, and StatefulSets

• Helm chart-based applications, including helm configuration and annotations (supported only for on-premises backup gateways)

• Configuration-related volumes (configMap, downwardAPI, projected, secret)

• Persistent storage objects (PersistentVolumeClaims, PersistentVolumes), including CSI-enabled out-of-tree volume plug-ins

• PersistentVolumeClaim volumes created from a VolumeSnapshotClass

• Container image registries (containerized, virtualized)

• etcd Kubernetes backing store and SSL certificates (on-premises environments and self-managed cloud environments only)

Data You Cannot Back Up

• Deprecated in-tree storage volume plug-ins (azureFile, cinder, fc (fibre channel), flocker, gitRepo, quobyte, storageOS)

• Deprecated out-of-tree storage plug-ins (flexVolume)

• In-tree storage volume plug-ins (cephfs, glusterfs, iscsi, nfs, portworxVolume, rbd)

• Scratch or temp storage volumes (emptyDir, hostPath, local)

• Legacy in-tree volumes (awsElasticBlockStore, azureDisk, gcePersistentDisk)

• Annotations on API resources/objects, excluding Pods, DaemonSets, Deployments, and StatefulSets

• Kubernetes PKI certificates stored in /etc/kubernetes/pki

• KubeVirt.io-managed virtual machines

• Robin.io-bundled applications and metadata

• Windows containers in Kubernetes