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.

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
3.0, 3.1	1.11.1

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.