Backup and Restore

Table of Contents

Introduction
Review Operator
Create a backup
Restore a backup
Summary

Introduction

There are multiple options for backup and restore of virtual machines with OpenShift Virtualization.

OADP (OpenShift APIs for Data Protection): A Red Hat Operator which provides a storage agnostic method to back up and restore OpenShift objects, including virtual machines.
Kasten K10 by Veeam
Trilio for Kubernetes
Storware Backup and Recovery

Additionally, many storage partners offer the ability to protect virtual machine disks using their native technology. Be sure to check with your storage and backup vendor(s) to determine compatibility with OpenShift Virtualization.

This lab will use OADP to perform a virtual machine backup and restore.

Goals

Review Operator
Perform a backup
Perform a restore

Review Operator

Navigate in the left menu to Operators → Installed Operators and ensure that All projects is selected. Select OADP Operator.
Review the Provided APIs available. In this module, the Backup and Restore functions will be used.
Navigate to the tab DataProtectionApplication. This object represents the configuration of the deployed OADP instance.
Select oadp-dpa and review the YAML definition

Notice that OADP has been configured by adding the kubevirt plugin and it has been configured to use the internal object storage bucket provided by Red Hat Storage.

In a production environment you would want to backup to an external storage system, however, in this lab, we are using internal object storage for the sake of convenience.

Create a backup

You will perform a backup of the VM fedora02. The selection of the objects to be backed up is defined by the labels app and vm.kubevirt.io/name. This includes the VM definition, disks, and additional objects being used by the virtual machine such as config maps and secrets.

Go back one screen to the main Operator page by clicking on the Operator name
Navigate to the Backup tab and press Create Backup
Switch to the YAML view and replace the content with the following one:
```
apiVersion: velero.io/v1
kind: Backup
metadata:
  name: backup-fedora02
  labels:
    velero.io/storage-location: default
  namespace: openshift-adp
spec:
  hooks: {}
  orLabelSelectors:
  - matchLabels:
      app: fedora02
  - matchLabels:
      vm.kubevirt.io/name: fedora02
  includedNamespaces:
  - vmexamples
  storageLocation: oadp-dpa-1
  ttl: 720h0m0s
```
Notice that the content of this YAML indicates that any object with the labels app: fedora02 in the namespace vmexamples will be backed up to the location specified in the DataProtectionApplication configuration.

If you do not have the fedora02 VM, change the label selectors in the YAML above to match a virtual machine in your environment.
Wait till the Status column changes to Completed. This indicates that the virtual machine has been successfully backed up.

Restore a backup

Navigate to Virtualization → VirtualMachines and delete the VM fedora02.
Go back to Operators → Installed Operators and select OADP Operator.
Switch to the Restore tab and press Create Restore

Switch to the YAML view and replace the content with the following one:

apiVersion: velero.io/v1
kind: Restore
metadata:
  name: restore-fedora02
  namespace: openshift-adp
spec:
  backupName: backup-fedora02
  includedResources: []
  excludedResources:
  - nodes
  - events
  - events.events.k8s.io
  - backups.velero.io
  - restores.velero.io
  restorePVs: true

Wait till the Status column changes to Completed.
Navigate back to Virtualization → Virtual Machines and ensure the fedora02 was restored.

Summary

Protecting virtual machines is a critical aspect of a virtualization platform. OpenShift Virtualization provides multiple methods that enable native protection, for example using OADP, or allowing storage and backup partners to integrate their offerings. If you have questions about how to protect virtual machines, please don’t hesitate to ask the proctors for the workshop or reach out to your vendor to determine their compatibility with OpenShift Virtualization.