Tenant users can back up and restore their Kubernetes clusters with VMware Cloud Director Object Storage Extension.

Backing up clusters allows data to be restored from an earlier point in time if an unplanned event occurs. Tenants can back up their entire Kubernetes cluster, or part of a cluster by backing up certain namespaces, labels, or custom parameters, such as ordered resources.

VMware Cloud Director Object Storage Extension supports backup and restore of Tanzu Kubernetes Grid clusters of VMware Cloud Director Container Service Extension and external clusters. If tenants have activated VMware Cloud Director Container Service Extension, all guest Kubernetes clusters are automatically listed under Unprotected Clusters in the Kubernetes tab. Tenants can activate protection for these clusters individually. Tenants can also add external clusters through the kubconfig files.

VMware Cloud Director Object Storage Extension uses Velero, an open source tool, to back up and restore the tenant Kubernetes resources and persistent volumes. From version 2.2.1, VMware Cloud Director Object Storage Extension supports any persistent volumes types that Velero supports.

Table 1. VMware Cloud Director Object Storage Extension and Velero Version Compatibility
VMware Cloud Director Object Storage Extension Velero
2.2.2 1.10.0
2.2.3 1.11.0

Tenants can back up and restore Kubernetes resources and persistent volumes by namespace or label.

Tenants can back up and restore entire clusters, except for resources within the namespaces kube-system and velero-$tenantId. If there are damaged resources in the kube-system and velero-$tenantId namespaces, the cluster might not restore successfully.

From VMware Cloud Director Object Storage Extension 2.2.2, tenants can migrate their data between the clusters and perform disaster recovery across regions.

The Velero backup and restore depends on the File System that the tenants are using and it has limitations, for example:
  • hostPath PV is not supported.
  • emptyDir PV is not supported.

For more information, see https://velero.io/docs/main/file-system-backup/#limitations.

Figure 1. VMware Cloud Director Object Storage Extension Kubernetes cluster backup and restore workflow
The diagram shows how VMware Cloud Director Object Storage Extension uses Velero to backup and restore tenant Kubernetes clusters.