As organizations continue to adopt Agile development methods, containers and cloud technologies play a significant role. It is estimated that 75% of enterprises will be running containerized applications by 2025. Why shouldn’t they? The benefits of containers include lower overhead, improved application consistency, increased portability and more effective resource management, to name a few. And, using public and private clouds in conjunction with containers enable developers to expand and shrink computing power as needed. While many organizations are cloud native (that is, everything is built with an eye toward the cloud), others are working to modernize their legacy applications, and containers are an ideal means of doing so.
Kubernetes is essentially the management layer for containers, powering cloud native development. Although Docker seemed on top of the software development world ten years ago. Kubernetes has taken over and is now the fastest-growing container orchestration tool. Some would argue that it is the de facto leader.
Enter Red Hat
When IBM acquired Red Hat in 2018, the IT industry took notice. Kubernetes was just emerging as a key container orchestration tool for multi-cloud environments, and Red Hat had made significant inroads with the platform. Not only were the folks at IBM betting big that enterprise IT would adopt a multi-cloud approach, they knew that open source technology could help them sell even more services.
IBM has “seen it all,” evolving its early business from selling mainframes to selling minicomputers a short while later, then moving into selling x86 hardware and adding software, consulting services and financing to its offerings. Today, more than 3,800 clients use IBM’s hybrid cloud platform, thanks in large part to its acquisition of Red Hat.
IBM has made Red Hat OpenShift the focal point of a broader multi-cloud and container platform strategy and, to that end, Red Hat has built a strong partner ecosystem, underscoring its commitment to Kubernetes. Through OpenShift, customers have access to a broad range of options, services and add-ons for Kubernetes in both on-premises and public cloud environments – one of which is Kasten K10 by Veeam. Containers — and by extension, cloud environments — require purpose-built backup tools, and Kasten K10 by Veeam provides reliable backup and disaster recovery for Kubernetes.
Pro Tip: Backup and disaster recovery are not the same thing. Rather, they might be considered overlapping circles in a Venn diagram. Backup typically refers to making one or more copies of data, often in a different location. Disaster recovery involves restoring data and services, such as applications.
Navigating DevOps: What Day Is It?
- Day Zero: During this phase, decisions revolve around architecture or provisioning. In the Kubernetes world, this might entail determining specific cloud resources. Will the environment be a hybrid cloud? Will everything be stored and managed on premises?
Pro Tip: Some organizations are realizing their staff may need training to adapt to this new world. Kasten has launched Learning.kasten.io, offering free Kubernetes training in the form of blogs, videos and hands-on labs to help new and experienced users acquire new skills.
- Day One: This stage involves deploying containers, installing software development tools, assigning roles (and rights), and looking at the nuts and bolts of this new test/dev environment. Developers may be ready to move ahead and issue releases immediately, now that they have the tools in place to iterate applications quickly. IBM Cloud and IBM Cloud satellite can help plan and manage Day Zero and Day One operations with Red Hat OpenShift.
- Day Two: This phase refers to the lifecycle, operating system updates and vulnerability remediations. Day Two Kubernetes data management challenges include considerations such as backup and recovery for applications running inside of Kubernetes, and application mobility – moving an application as a whole in between complete Kubernetes distributions or underlying storage infrastructure. Application mobility can also refer to moving applications from pre-production to production when those environments are on different clusters. It is during Day Two operations that Kasten K10 is most useful.
It All Sounds Complicated
In practice, protecting Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud with Kasten K10 takes just a few steps, all of which can be performed using the IBM Cloud console. Once installed, Kasten K10 automatically discovers all of the applications within a cluster. A user is guided through setting up backup profiles, targets and policies. Restore points can also be determined from within the same UI.
IBM Cloud solves Day Zero and Day One challenges, and Kasten K10 addresses a number of Day Two data management challenges. The two platforms work in an integrated fashion. With point-and-click functionality, setting up clusters and backup/restore functionality is simple.
To learn more about IBM Cloud managed services, Kasten K10 protection for Red Hat OpenShift and the collaboration between Kasten and IBM Cloud, check out this “Cloudy Conversations” webinar replay.
Try the full-featured and FREE edition of Kasten K10 today with this super-quick install in less than 10 minutes.
Adam Bergh focuses on Cloud Native Technical Partnerships and Architectures for Kasten by Veeam. Having been on the forefront on every major shift in data center storage and communications, from analog interconnectivity to cloud computing, he is known as a subject matter expert in enterprise storage technologies, hybrid cloud solutions, and data availability. Adam is a frequent speaker at global industry events delivering the value and vision of truly integrated solutions that solve real world problems.