Kubernetes has been the bedrock on which most modern-day cloud-native apps have been built- thus providing organizations with a highly efficient way of deploying and managing their workloads. The self-healing nature, automatic scaling, and high availability features of Kubernetes give a false sense that applications are inherently resilient against failures.
However, high availability is not equivalent to disaster recovery.
While Kubernetes is capable of recovering from node failures and restarting unhealthy containers, it does not have the ability to automatically recover any deleted data or rebuild any application in case of any ransomware attack or infrastructure breakdown. Failure to implement a backup and disaster recovery strategy could result in extended downtime, data loss, and ultimately business disruption.
Therefore, Kubernetes backup and disaster recovery becomes a must-have capability for businesses.
Why Kubernetes Backup is More Challenging
While regular applications have simple structures, Kubernetes applications are composed of several connected components. Restoration of an application cannot be done through restoration of its database since the whole environment must be restored.
The recovery solution should ensure that both the application and cluster states are protected.
- Persistent Data
Persistent volumes store valuable business data like databases, customer files, transactional logs, and applications themselves. Failure of such volumes usually means loss of the most valuable asset of the application.
- Kubernetes Resources
Deployments, StatefulSets, Services, Namespaces, and Jobs describe how applications are deployed and managed. Such resources are equally important as the actual data during the recovery process.
- Configurations and Secrets
ConfigMaps and Secrets are needed by applications to be configured properly, to connect with APIs, access certificates, and connect to databases.
- Cluster Configuration
Cluster metadata such as RBAC policies, storage classes, network policies, and CRDs play an important part in Kubernetes environments recovery.
Common Disaster Scenarios
Disaster recovery should prepare for a variety of practical situations such as:
- Accidental deletion of production workloads
- Corruption of storage or hardware problems
- Ransomware attack
- Cluster upgrade failures
- Cloud region or availability zone failures
- Configuration problems during deployment
Each disaster scenario is recovered differently and thus proactive planning is necessary.
Recovery Objectives that Really Matter
A good DR plan revolves around two primary measurements.
Recovery Point Objective (RPO) specifies how much data loss is acceptable. A smaller RPO implies more frequent backups or replication.
Recovery Time Objective (RTO) defines how fast the system must be restored after a disaster. Recovery time is usually limited to several minutes for customer-facing applications.
Best Practices for Kubernetes Disaster Recovery
Backup Automation
Manual backup procedures are inconsistent. Automation of backups will allow reliable backups while minimizing operational risks.
Backup Beyond Storage
- Backup of only storage is not sufficient. Full backup needs to include:
- Persistent data
- Kubernetes objects
- ConfigMaps and Secrets
- CRDs
- Metadata of the cluster
In this way, full application recovery can be achieved.
Secure Backup Storing
Backups need to be stored outside the production cluster environment, preferable in a different cloud region or isolated object storage. Additional securing measures include encryption of backups and access control measures.
Disaster recovery as a service products have become very popular recently for simplifying offsite backups and faster recoveries from disasters.
Testing of Recoveries
Backup does not mean much without being able to recover. Testing helps to verify backup integrity and recovery times.
Why It Is Important to Have Professional Help
Since Kubernetes systems are getting more dispersed and vital for businesses, having an effective backup strategy requires more than selecting a backup tool. One should have recovery goals, protect business-critical loads, automate recovery processes, and incorporate disaster recovery into the cloud strategy in general.
That is why so many companies turn to vendors who provide kubernetes consulting services. A professional kubernetes consulting company will be able to help you develop the right architecture for backups and recoveries and make sure that your recovery plans comply with all of your requirements.
Conclusion
Kubernetes provides amazing resilience; however, resilience does not guarantee recoverability. Only when an application can be recovered along with its data, policies, configuration and infrastructure, it can be considered to be properly protected.
Developing a backup and disaster recovery strategy, you will not only be able to avoid downtime but will also make sure that all of your valuable business information will be safe and sound- even for the cloud-native world.
