Against a backdrop of unrelenting Digital Transformation and the resulting surge in IT modernization initiatives, containers and Kubernetes are becoming increasingly popular among software developers who want to increase efficiency and agility. Containers are by definition extremely flexible and portable by virtue of being API-driven and platform-independent, which simplifies deployment and ongoing management, enabling DevOps teams to deliver innovative apps to market faster. For these reasons, the trend toward containerization has kept accelerating, and today – according to the 2022 edition of Veeam’s Data Protection Trends Report that was just released – of those surveyed who were familiar with their organizations’ container strategies, 56% of organizations are using containers in production already, with another 35% headed that way.
The question is, who’s responsible for backing them up?
Why Backing up Containers in Kubernetes is Critical
Whenever you modernize production, you have to modernize protection. While many developers assume that running replication data services across failure domains is sufficient for data protection, replication isn’t equivalent to backup. It doesn’t protect against data loss or corruption – errors that result in lost data can also be replicated. What’s more, containerized applications orchestrated by Kubernetes require a backup approach that is fundamentally different, because they run microservices deployed in multiple containers across nodes within a cluster. Reliable backup means backing up not only the application, but the data and artifacts (configuration, secrets, etc) they rely on, as well – and an effective backup solution for Kubernetes applications must accommodate “Shift-Left” development frameworks to boot.
Among other factors, the unique requirements of backup procedures for containers in Kubernetes has made assigning accountability a challenge. According to the Data Protection Trends Report, the 3,000 IT decision makers and professionals surveyed are divided on this issue.
Specifically, 28% think the responsibility for backup lies with the team that manages Storage for Kubernetes, and nearly an equal number of respondents (27%) think the application owners should be responsible. Another 40% are split over whether the job should fall to the team that backs up other IT systems and the team that manages the Kubernetes framework.
What this distribution illustrates is that there are different ways people are managing container backups today, primarily because the process of backing up containers is complex and specific to cloud native environments.
For the past 15 years, Veeam has led a holistic approach to data protection. Kasten by Veeam is the dedicated business unit within Veeam focusing on cloud native Kubernetes backup, disaster recovery, application mobility and Kubernetes ransomware protection. Kasten K10 provides organizations with an intuitive and streamlined backup strategy for containers that’s simple to use and built specifically for robust, comprehensive and powerful reliable cloud-native data management.
Who’s performing your container backup procedures today? If you’re not sure, it’s time to get everyone on the same page. Learn more about how Kasten K10 can help to protect containers with full backup and recovery, application mobility and ransomware protection.
We invite you to read Veeam’s Data Protection Trends 2022. Watch this short video, which provides an overview of the report’s findings on container backup strategies.
Maziar Tamadon is Product & Solution Marketing Director at Kasten by Veeam. He is a seasoned, passionate technologist with over 25 years of industry experience and a well-rounded expertise across datacenter and cloud technologies, such as storage, networking, computing, virtualization, and security. Prior to joining Kasten by Veeam, he held product marketing, product planning and strategy, product management and engineering positions at Scality, Seagate, Broadcom, Emulex, Brocade and Hewlett-Packard, in the US and France. He holds MS in EE and CS from the Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble in France.
