DMaaS

Data Migration as a Service(DMaaS) is an offering from MayaData, available on both platforms - Kubera Director and Kubera OnPrem Director. DMaaS is a solution for data agility and data motion in the Kubernetes platform, providing utilities and workflows to migrate Kubernetes stateful workloads along with their persistent data from anywhere to anywhere, be it on-premise or across clouds. It is application-aware, so the application state remains consistent before and after migration. Thus, it helps the user in backup and disaster recovery of the application along with the data, with the minimized time taken for restoring back to the normal operation mode.

Scenarios where user can use DMaaS:

1. Migration of Kubernetes stateful workloads across clouds or between on-premise and cloud.
2. Disaster recovery
3. Application upgrades
4. Kubernetes upgrades
5. Data Backup and Recovery
6. Data Protection

DMaaS Operational Mode:

DMaaS backup agent will be deployed on both the source and destination clusters once these clusters are in Standard or Enterprise plan. The backup agent on the source cluster uses the provider APIs to send the backup to the object storage. The backup agent on the destination cluster retrieves the backup from the object storage and deploys the application from the backed-up configuration whenever it demands the backup data. The data motion can be scheduled for both the upload and download so that periodic backups can be uploaded from the source and the destination can be kept in sync with the source.

Prerequisites

1. Kubera Director Account with a subscription of Standard or Enterprise plan.
2. AWS S3, GCP, Cloudian or MinIO credentials.
3. Same StorageClass configuration and Service Account should exist on the destination cluster.
4. All app-specific resources like service, PVC, shared resources like Service Account, ClusterRoles, etc. should have a common label.
5. Kubernetes Version 1.12 or above is recommended.

Setting up the Environment:

1. Connect clusters to Kubera Director. To know the steps for connection Click Here.
2. Add AWS or GCP or MinIO or Cloudian credentials for the first time with the correct details of your account with a title name. Credentials with title name can be selected for subsequent backup schedules and restores.
3. Schedule the backup period using the AWS S3, GCP, Cloudian or MinIO credentials, select proper time interval and region (in case of AWS S3) while creating Data Motion schedule. Provide backup schedule by selecting the time slot.
4. Verify the list of Backup from the DMaaS page or from the corresponding application page.
5. Restore the application to the same cluster or different cluster from the selected backup.

Setting up Data Motion Schedule

1. DMaaS helps the user to do the Data Motion of the application data to a third party storage location like AWS or GCP or MinIO or Cloudian in a scheduled manner. User has to schedule the period from the DMaaS section present in the Application page.
2. With the current implementation, AWS S3,  MinIO, Cloudian and GCP are the third party storage location where the backup of the application is getting stored.

Steps to schedule the backup transfer of the corresponding application.

STEP 1:
Clicking on the application on the left sidebar redirects to a page where you can select the application. By clicking on the application name you will be redirected to the corresponding application page.

STEP 2:
Select DMaaS on the selection box. Click on New schedule button.



STEP 3:

NOTE: To create point-in-time snapshots(for backup) for the applications using cStor volume, select the cStor-based button as shown in the image below. In case of applications using volume(s) other than cStor, enabling cStor-based schedule creation won't generate backup for these volumes.



If the schedule being created is restic based(non-cStor based), the application pods will be restarted as restic annotations are added to the deployments.

STEP 4:
Next, a backup schedule needs to be created.
Follow the below mentioned steps to add credentials and schedule a backup.

NOTE: Cloudian and MinIO are supported in Kubera Enterprise plan. To know about the pricing click here.

STEP 5:
Next, select the time interval after which the next backup schedule must be created.

Enabling full backup configuration, in case of restic, stores data that got modified by using deduplication, and thus have less storage consumption at backup location. To regulate the creation of these schedules, specify the time interval as per your requirement.



Next, you need to specify Backup retention count. Retention count defines the number of full backups that will be present at any point of time.

NOTE: Older backups will be deleted from the object store along-with their data

cStor based schedules can have data backed up incrementally and completely. In case of incremental, only the modified data will be backed up as per configured incremental backup interval. To regulate the creation of these incremental backups, set Incremental backup interval field as per your requirement.



Full backup schedules will make entire data to be backed up at backup location. This takes more time compared to incremental transfers and involves consumption of storage usage at backup location. Full backups are optional and can be disabled.
To regulate the creation of full backup, click on the checkbox next to Full backup and set the time interval as per requirement.



Enabling full backup configuration gives you the ability to define retention count. Retention count defines the number of full backups that will be present at any point of time.

NOTE: Older backups will be deleted from the object store along-with their data

STEP 6:

Then, schedule the backup using Schedule now button.



STEP 7:
As soon as the DMaaS agents are in running state, backup starts automatically.
Once backup is completed you can see an auto generated schedule name on your screen.

Restoring the application Restoration of the application can be done in two ways: