Exploring Velero Alternatives: Top Kubernetes Backup and Recovery Solutions

Veeam Kasten

Kasten is a data protection platform designed for Kubernetes that was founded in 2019 and later acquired by Veeam. Kasten can be installed on a wide array of Kubernetes distributions, including all popular cloud providers (EKS, GKE, and AKS) and has built-in application support for popular databases. This is one distinguishing factor between Kasten and Velero: Where Velero supports specific Kubernetes versions, Kasten outlines support for vendor-specific distros such as OpenShift and Rancher. 

The image below shows various applications, K8s distros, storage providers, and security services. 

Source: https://docs.kasten.io/latest/index.html

Kasten meets all the basic requirements for data protection software. It can perform application-centric backups, meaning that Kasten can back up an application’s code and persistent data in a consistent state and restore it to the same location or a different one.

Kasten differentiates itself from Velero because you have more options for backing up the data and built-in support for popular databases such as MongoDB and MySQL. You generally also have finer-grained control over how you backup your applications, how you schedule them, and how and where you restore them. One of the nice features is a backup window, meaning that you can set a time interval for the backup. If the time window is too short, it will be canceled. This could be good if you find that creating backups puts stress on resources and do not want them running too long. 

Because Kasten is supported on so many different platforms, there are instructions for each platform, making it easy to follow. Installing Kasten using a Helm chart is easy, and there is support for individual marketplaces such as the Azure Marketplace or the OpenShift operator hub. 

Once installed, Kasten has a graphical user interface, which makes it easier to use than Velero. In addition to the GUI, it also has a CLI component that allows you to perform Kasten day-to-day operations.

When it comes to data security and integrity, Kasten implements role-based access controls native to Kubernetes. Kasten provides three predetermined RBAC roles to limit access to your backup operations, unlike Velero, where the default is a cluster-admin role. This makes Kasten more secure by default. All application data is encrypted by default, and the storage provider handles the encryption and protection of snapshots and volumes. Each provider can handle this part differently, so you must research your provider. Finally, Kasten supports immutable backups, which Velero cannot do. 

Kasten has some advanced features that separate it from Velero; we will only highlight a few of them. Kasten integrates with Kanister, allowing for application-specific data management through blueprints. For example, you can create a blueprint to back up and restore a MySQL database in a specific way. 

Here is an example of a blueprint for backing up and restoring all MySQL databases. Notice that you can run specific commands for backup and restore operations: 

apiVersion: cr.kanister.io/v1alpha1
kind: Blueprint
metadata:
  name: mysql-blueprint
actions:
  backup:
    phases:
    - func: KubeExec
      name: backup
      args:
        namespace: "{{ .StatefulSet.Namespace }}"
        pod: "{{ index .StatefulSet.Pods 0 }}"
        container: "mysql"
        command: ["sh", "-c", "mysqldump --all-databases > /mnt/backup/backup.sql"]
  restore:
    phases:
    - func: KubeExec
      name: restore
      args:
        namespace: "{{ .StatefulSet.Namespace }}"
        pod: "{{ index .StatefulSet.Pods 0 }}"
        container: "mysql"
        command: ["sh", "-c", "mysql < /mnt/backup/backup.sql"]

For more information on blueprints, take a look at their documentation.

In addition to Kanister, Kasten has more built-in controls for how and when you back up your application. You also have more options for restoring your application, including resource renaming and locations to restore to. If you are running multiple Kubernetes clusters, you can manage data protection for all your clusters through a multi-cluster management interface.

Kasten is free for five nodes, which makes it perfect for trying out in your environment. If you have more than five nodes, Kasten has a per-node subscription plan. Its website does not indicate how much each node costs, but looking at the RedHat MarketPlace, it appears to be $0.26 per server hour. For support, you have the options of documentation and their knowledge base and a customer portal where you can open cases.

Overall, Kasten checks many boxes for data protection software. It has all the basic functionality and extends on those functions with more options, making it a more complete product than Velero. If Kasten works for you, check out its Kasten Best Practices section and full documentation.

Portworx Backup (PX-Backup)

Portworx Backup, also known as PX-Backup, is just one product in a suite of offerings from Pure Storage. It might be a good solution if you are already using Portworx’s other services or intend to use them in the future. The company also provides storage and database management services.

PX-Backup is Kubernetes-focused data protection software that can back up and restore Kubernetes applications and persistent data, meeting the basic requirements for our comparisons. A nice feature that Velero does not have is that PX-Backup can back up VMs running under KubeVirt. 

Portworx allows you to use namespaces or labels to create your backups and schedule them using a schedule policy that defines when to create backups and how long they should be kept. The concept of backup rules helps create application-consistent backups, allowing pre- and post-backup actions to happen. 

Lastly, you can restore a backup over the same resources or map them to other resources or even a different cluster, which can be helpful with data migration. 

In terms of ease of use, PX-Backup can be installed on any Kubernetes cluster and is available in many cloud marketplaces. However, it does have specific lists of software requirements, which varies based on the platform and the number of backups you want to perform.

Portworx has its own central web dashboard from which you can configure backups and perform restores as well as get alerts for various events, such as failed backups or restores. This makes it easy to use and perform day-to-day operations. For those who prefer a CLI interface, there is pxctl, which can also perform all day-to-day operations.

For data security and integrity, PX-Backup has three built-in roles covering various application access levels, ranging from full infrastructure to application-specific access, which makes it good for a multi-tenant environment. PX-Backup also ensures that data is encrypted at rest and in transit whenever possible. Data stored on an S3-compliant object store can also be locked to prevent any change, following the best practice of making your backups immutable.

Looking at advanced features, PX-Backup builds upon the basic features with more options, including the ability to back up VMs. For example, with backups and restores, you can back up an application in one cluster and restore it to another entirely within the Portworx web dashboard. This makes application mobility easier to achieve. 

One nice feature is the ability to share single backups with other team members. This helps avoid duplicate data/work if multiple teams need a backup of specific resources. 

For disaster recovery, PX-Backup can keep a DR site in sync synchronously or asynchronously, depending on the latency between the clusters. For example, if you had two clusters in the same region, you might choose to keep them in sync synchronously so you always have an up-to-date DR site. If you are syncing a cloud outside of the same region, you would choose asynchronously, where the DR site is kept up to date, but this is done through incremental changes.

PX-Backup offers vendor support via customer portal as well as a community forum and extensive documentation. Their documentation is well laid out and easy to follow for each step of the product life cycle, from high-level concepts to day-to-day operations.

Overall, Portworx Backup has a complete set of features and great documentation. They have a 30-day free trial, so you can check it out for yourself before committing. The AWS marketplace shows the per-hour cost to be $0.20, slightly less than Kasten. 

PX-Backup is a great solution if you want to utilize and integrate more of Pure Storage’s offerings.