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How to install and configure Kasten to protect container workloads on Red Hat OpenShift and VMware vSphere

Kubernetes, Veeam, , , , , , ,

In this blog post I’m going to cover deploying and configuring Kasten, the container based enterprise backup software now owned by Veeam Software.

This deployment will be inside my Red Hat OpenShift Environment which is running on top of VMware vSphere.

I’ll be protecting a cool gaming application that has data persistence using MongoDB.

Installing Kasten on Red Hat OpenShift

In this guide, I am going to use Helm, you can learn how to install it here.

Create a OpenShift project (Kubernetes namespace) called “kasten-io”

oc new-project kasten-io

oc new project kasten-io

Next we are going to use Helm to install the Kasten software into our OpenShift cluster.

helm install k10 kasten/k10 --namespace=kasten-io --set scc.create=true --set route.enabled=true --set route.path="/k10" --set auth.tokenAuth.enabled=true

Breaking down the command arguments;

  • –set scc.create=true
    • This creates the correct Security Contexts against the users created by the install. This is needed in OpenShift as the security context stance is higher OOTB than that of a vanilla Kubernetes install.
  • –set route.enabled=true
    • This creates a route in OpenShift using the default ingress, so that the Kasten dashboard is accessible externally. This will use the default cluster ID domain name.
  • –set route.path=”/k10″
    • This sets the route path for the redirection of the dashboard. Without this, your users will need to go to http://{FQDN}/ and append the path to the end (k10).
  • –set auth.tokenAuth.enabled=true

helm install k10 kasten kasten-io Continue reading How to install and configure Kasten to protect container workloads on Red Hat OpenShift and VMware vSphere →

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Check how long a VM is turned off in vSphere using vROPs

VMware,

Just a quick answer from a query on Reddit /r/VMware Sub.

You can do this in vROPs from the 8.x code and above.

  1. Click home on the vROPs interface

  2. Click on “Reclaim” from the navigation left hand pane

  3. Click the datacenter your interested in

  4. Click Powered off VM’s tab

  5. Look for your VM and it will show how many days the VM is powered off for.

Check how long a VM is turned off in vSphere using vROPs

Regards

Dean Lewis

 

kasten by veeam header

How to update Kasten to the latest version

Kubernetes, , ,

This is probably one of the simplest blog posts I’ll publish.

To see if there is an available update for your Kasten install.

  • In the dashboard click > Settings
  • Click on Support

See if there is a notification under the Cluster Information heading.

kasten dashboard support cluster information

Clicking the “upgrade to version x.x.x” button will take you to this Kasten Docs page.

Or you can follow the same instructions with real life screenshots below.

To upgrade run the following using helm:

helm repo update && \
    helm get values k10 --output yaml --namespace=kasten-io > k10_val.yaml && \
    helm upgrade k10 kasten/k10 --namespace=kasten-io -f k10_val.yaml

helm upgrade k10 kasten k10

You will see messages similar to the below.

helm upgrade k10 kasten k10 - upgrade in progress - upgrade complete

If I now look at my pods in my namespace “Kasten-IO” I can see they are being recreated as the deployment artifacts will have been updated with the new configuration including container images.

helm upgrade k10 kasten - oc get pods -n kasten-io

And finally looking back at my Kasten Dashboard for the cluster information, I can see I am now at the latest version.

helm upgrade k10 kasten dashboard upgrade complete

Regards

Dean Lewis

 

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How to build a vROPs dashboard for tracking Total VMs deployed and Growth Trend

VMware, , , , ,

In this Blog post I am going to detail how I created a vROPs dashboard based on a customer’s request.

Can we track how many VMs have been created in the past week and track if the number increases or decreases in each cluster?

If you want to just get the dashboard, see directly below, if you want to learn how it was created, keep reading further.

Installing Dashboard
  1. Download the files from code.vmware.com sample page.
  2. Import the files appended with “view” under the view’s in vROPs
  3. Import the file appended with “Dashboard” under the dashboard section in vROPs.
Dashboard Breakdown
  • First Item – This is a list which I’ve created to show each cluster, the total VM metric with some expressions attached, the timescale here is fixed by the list view and not affected by the dashboard timeframe. The change is an expression of the count of VMs at the start and end of the timeframe. I’ve added in some basic colouring to alert at thresholds.
    • Why does it say vCPUs? When using expressions, it requires a Unit to be affixed. This doesn’t work if you’re counting something, so in our next release, this issue should be addressed. It’s purely a vanity thing.
  • Second Item – This shows the VMs attached to the cluster you select on the left-hand side, showing you how old that VM is, its uptime and current power state.
  • Third is a Sparkline – Showing an easy view of the changes in total VMs per cluster over a 7-day period (as defined by the dashboards time scale)
  • Forth item is a trend graph, where we are showing date of the changes in the Total VM metric based on the data we have, and the trend/forecast. This trend into the future is set within the item itself. Currently we can set this to show the forecast for the next 366 days in the future.

vROPS - Total VMs Deployed and Growth Trend

vROPs versions

To show the VM creation date, this metric is available in vROPs 8.2 and later. This dashboard/view should work with older versions of vROPs but omit the data for the missing metric.

How was the dashboard created?

First, we need to create three views. Continue reading How to build a vROPs dashboard for tracking Total VMs deployed and Growth Trend →

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VMware Tanzu Mission Control – Using the Data Protection feature for backups and restores

Kubernetes, VMware, , , , ,

In this blog post we will cover the following topics

- Data Protection Overview
- Create a AWS Data Protection Credential
- Enable Data Protection on a Cluster
- Running a backup manually or via an automatic schedule
- Restoring your data

The follow up blog posts are;

Tanzu Mission Control 
- Getting Started Tanzu Mission Control 
- Cluster Inspections 
- Workspaces and Policies  
- Data Protection 
- Deploying TKG clusters to AWS 
- Upgrading a provisioned cluster 
- Delete a provisioned cluster 
- TKG Management support and provisioning new clusters
- TMC REST API - Postman Collection
- Using custom policies to ensure Kasten protects a deployed application
TMC Data Protection Overview

Tanzu Mission Control implements data protection through the inclusion of the Project Velero,  this tool is not enabled by default. This blog post will take you through the setup.

Data is stored externally to a AWS location, with volume backups remaining as part of the cluster where you’ve connected TMC.

Currently there is no ability to backup and restore data between Kubernetes clusters managed by TMC.

Create a AWS Data Protection Credential

First we need to create a AWS data protection credential, so that TMC can configure Velero within your cluster to save the data externally to AWS.

If you are looking for supported options for protecting data to other locations, I recommend you either look at deploying Project Velero manually outside of TMC (losing access to the data protection features in the UI) or look at another enterprise service such as Kasten.io.

  • On the Administration screen, click Accounts, and Create Account Credential.
  • Select > AWS data protection credential

TMC Data Protection Create Account Credential AWS data protection credential

  • Set your account name for easy identification and click to generate template and save this file to your machine.

TMC Data Protection Create AWS Data protection credential Credential Name Generate template

The next steps will require configuration in the AWS console to create resources using CloudFormation so that Project Velero can export data to AWS. Here is the official VMware documentation on this configuration.

TMC Data Protection Create AWS Data protection credential log into the AWS console

  • In the AWS Console, go to the CloudFormation service

TMC Data Protection AWS Console Cloud Formation

  • Click to create a new stack
  1. Click “Template is ready” as we will provide our template file from earlier.
  2. Click to upload a template file
  3. Select the file from your machine
  4. Click next

TMC Data Protection AWS Console CloudFormation Create a Stack Specify template

  • Provide a stack name and click next

TMC Data Protection AWS Console CloudFormation Create a Stack Specify stack details

  • Ignore all the items on this page and click next
  • Review your configuration and click finish.

TMC Data Protection AWS Console CloudFormation Create a Stack Configure Stack Options

  • Once you’ve reviewed and clicked create/finish. You will be taken into the Stack itself.
  • You can click the Events tab and the refresh button to see the progress.

Continue reading VMware Tanzu Mission Control – Using the Data Protection feature for backups and restores →