One of the architectures that are used in multiple clients with hybrid infrastructure is Google Anthos, a beautiful technology that allows to deploy clusters of Kubernetes in different environments using Google settings Kubernetes Engine, GKE, as well as adding other distributions to Google Anthos from different providers or public clouds. In this post, we will review the Anthos architecture and where to install Kasten K10 to protect applications.
Google Anthos Documentation#
As always, we will review the official documentation of the platforms or solutions that we will be reviewing in this post, in this case, Google Anthos, Google Kubernetes engine, and of course, Kasten K10 to protect applications.
- Google Anthos: https://cloud.google.com/anthos/docs/concepts/overview
- Kasten K10: https://docs.kasten.io/latest/index.html
Therefore, when reading the documentation we can see that Google Anthos allows us to manage multiple clusters of Kubernetes, either, EKS, AKS, Bare Metal, VMware, among others. In addition, other features that allow security validation, application of configuration policies for multiple clusters, service mesh, among others.
For this post, we will review where to install Kasten K10 and how to manage the protection of multiple applications in clusters of kubernetes Managed by Google Anthos.
Google Cloud Anthos Backup#
Before installing Kasten K10 to protect our applications in different distributions of Kubernetes managed by Google Anthos, we must pay attention to the documentation on node protection offered by Google Anthos, particularly in the following links:
- https://cloud.google.com/anthos/clusters/docs/on-prem/latest/how-to/back-up-admin-cluster
- https://cloud.google.com/anthos/clusters/docs/on-prem/latest/how-to/back-up-user-cluster
As the official documentation indicates, there is no protection for the applications, persistent volumes, among others, that are executed in the clusters of kubernetes Managed by Google Anthos. Therefore, the only thing you can protect from Anthos, are the settings of ETCD via snapshots for management clusters and user clusters, including new features that are in BETA and mentioned in the documentation to support management clusters via gkectl, has additional limitations, for example, it is not possible to generate more than 6 ETCD backups.
So by looking at these limitations and not focusing on the applications running on the different clusters, Kubernetes managed by Anthos, is that it is necessary to use Kasten K10, to protect applications running on different distributions Kubernetes, enabling the protection, recovery, migration and disaster recovery of applications in Kubernetes.
Architecture Kasten K10 with Google Anthos.#
One of the great virtues of Kasten K10 is that it can protect the applications of any cluster Kubernetes supported, either from the backup, recovery, migration, and disaster recovery of the applications between different distributions of Kubernetes. Allowing to offer centralized management of the protection and contributing this data management to the architecture of Google Anthos.
As can be seen in the image above, the architecture is very simple with Kasten K10, since, you just have to install K10 in each of the clusters Kubernetes managed by Google Anthos to then designate or use a management cluster for centralized management through Kasten K10 Multi-Cluster Manager.
Resources used by Google Anthos on VMware#
For this post, the configuration of Google Anthos and the deployment of clusters in VMware were carried out to validate the configurations and versions of Kubernetes. In this case, they were deployed:
- 1 VM: Admin Workstation (gloud cli and resource management)
- 3 VM: 1 Control Plane and 2 Worker Node for the Administration Cluster
- 6 VM: 3 Control Plane and 3 Worker Nodes for the User Cluster (k10anthos)
Remember that when a cluster of Kubernetes from Google Anthos, the configuration applied, for example, in VMware, is in accordance with good practices, that is, it will use the vSphere CSI driver. Of course it is always possible to configure the cluster to use the necessary drivers.
Resources from Google Cloud Console#
This Anthos configuration can be done from the command line as well as from the Google Cloud graphical console; as seen in the previous image, Google Cloud Authentikates itself in the clusters of Kubernetes deployed in the VMware cluster to monitor and apply configurations of security, administration policies, service mesh or whatever the administrator wishes to activate for the correct execution of their applications.
In fact, it is possible to review all the resources used and make changes directly from the Google Cloud console, either in the reviews of the workloads as well as editing the amount of CPU or RAM usage of the nodes managed by Google Anthos.
Clusters of Kubernetes#
If we review the clusters created using kubectl, we can see the creation of the two clusters, Admin and User, with their respective nodes.
How to install Kasten K10 in these clusters? It is very simple, it is installed as if it were a cluster of Kubernetes more, in fact, these clusters are based on GKE, for the installation, you can check the following links of this blog:
/veeam-kasten/embed/#?secret=bYEKXJ7zfI#?secret=J0bRfSY8he
/instalar-kasten-multi-cluster-manager/embed/#?secret=P4T70iJHKw#?secret=tvTbfkx6Sc
Kasten K10 Multi-Cluster Dashboard#
Of course, Google Anthos, by managing multiple distributions of Kubernetes centrally, you need application protection also managed centrally, which is why it is necessary to enable K10 Multi-Cluster Manager for the management of resources, policies, and disaster recovery flows between different distributions of Kubernetes
Finally, it is always necessary to use Kasten K10 in all implementations of Kubernetes regardless of the distribution of Kubernetes since, in multiple cases, limitations are observed in relation to the protection of the applications of the business, including disaster recovery.
