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Installing and configuring Kasten to protect container workloads on VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid

Kubernetes, VMware, , , ,

This blog post will take you through the full steps on installing and configuring Kasten, the container based enterprise backup software now owned by Veeam Software

This deployment will be for VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid which is running on top of VMware vSphere.

You can read how to create backup policies and restore your data in this blog post.

For the data protection demo, I’ll be using my trusty Pac-Man application that has data persistence using MongoDB.

Installing Kasten on Tanzu Kubernetes Grid

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

Add the Kasten Helm charts repo.

helm repo add kasten https://charts.kasten.io/

Create a Kubernetes namespace called “kasten-io”

kubectl create namespace kasten-io

kubectl create namespace kasten-io

Next we are going to use Helm to install the Kasten software into our Tanzu Kubernetes Grid cluster.

helm install k10 kasten/k10 --namespace=kasten-io \
--set externalGateway.create=true \
--set auth.tokenAuth.enabled=true \
--set global.persistence.storageClass=<storage-class-name>

Breaking down the command arguments;

  • –set externalGateway.crete=true
    • This creates an external service to use ServiceType=LoadBalancer to allow external access to the Kasten K10 Dashboard outside of your cluster.
  • –set auth.tokenAuth.enabled=true
  • –set global.persistence.storageClass=<storage-class-name>
    • This sets the storage class to be used for the PV/PVCs to be created for the Kasten install. (In a TKG guest cluster there may not be a default storage class.)

You will be presented an output similar to the below.

NAME: k10
LAST DEPLOYED: Fri Feb 26 01:17:55 2021
NAMESPACE: kasten-io
STATUS: deployed
REVISION: 1
TEST SUITE: None
NOTES:
Thank you for installing Kasten’s K10 Data Management Platform!

Documentation can be found at https://docs.kasten.io/.

How to access the K10 Dashboard:

The K10 dashboard is not exposed externally. To establish a connection to it use the following

`kubectl --namespace kasten-io port-forward service/gateway 8080:8000`

The Kasten dashboard will be available at: `http://127.0.0.1:8080/k10/#/`


The K10 Dashboard is accessible via a LoadBalancer. Find the service's EXTERNAL IP using:
`kubectl get svc gateway-ext --namespace kasten-io -o wide`
And use it in following URL
`http://SERVICE_EXTERNAL_IP/k10/#/`

It will take a few minutes for your pods to be running, you can review with the following command;

kubectl get pods -n kasten-io

kubectl get pods -n kasten-io

Next we need to get our LoadBalancer IP address for the External Web Front End, so that we can connect to the Kasten K10 Dashboard.

kubectl get svc -n kasten-io

Continue reading Installing and configuring Kasten to protect container workloads on VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid →

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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 →