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Velero backup to PowerScale S3 Bucket

Velero is one of the most popular tools for backup and restoring of Kubernetes resources.

PowerScale is Dell's leading scale-out NAS solution, supporting many different access protocols including S3!

Velero backup options

You can use Velero for different backup options:

  1. Protect Kubernetes resource objects like Pod, Namespace, etc.
  2. Protect PersistentVolume data with VolumeSnapshot
  3. Protect the content of PVs with restic

In all cases, Velero syncs the information to an object storage.

Note

PowerScale is not 100% compatible with S3 protocol per AWS. Nonetheless, Velero doesn't use the unsupported calls, making PowerScale S3 a production-grade solution with Velero.

Deployment

PowerScale S3 configuration

  1. Make sure S3 protocol is enabled:
PS1-1% isi s3 settings global view
         HTTP Port: 9020
        HTTPS Port: 9021
        HTTPS only: No
S3 Service Enabled: Yes

Global Settings

  1. Create a bucket with write permissions

Create Bucket

  1. Create a key for the user - note that the key is only displayed upon creation

Create Keys

Velero installation

  1. Create credentials file:
[default]
aws_access_key_id = 1_admin_accid
aws_secret_access_key = 0sncWaAsVWycj4LFTPnxi2k8RPdi

  1. Optionally, obtain the PowerScale SSL certificate for HTTPS

  2. Install Velero:

velero install \
    --provider aws \
    --plugins velero/velero-plugin-for-aws:v1.5.1 \
    --bucket velero-backup \
    --secret-file ./credentials-velero \
    --use-volume-snapshots=false \
    --cacert ./ps2-cacert.pem \
    --backup-location-config region=powerscale,s3ForcePathStyle="true",s3Url=https://192.168.1.21:9021

For snapshot support with Dell CSI drivers:

velero install \
    --features=EnableCSI \
    --plugins=velero/velero-plugin-for-aws:v1.5.1,velero/velero-plugin-for-csi:v0.3.0 \
    --use-volume-snapshots=true
    ...

After installation, verify with kubectl logs -n velero deployment/velero.

You can check the actual content directly from PowerScale File Explorer:

Bucket File Explorer

Demo

Conclusion

For small and easy protection of Kubernetes clusters, Velero & PowerScale S3 are a perfect duo. For broader features, consider PowerProtect Data Manager.

References