Introducing support for DigitalOcean Kubernetes backups with SnapShooter

Authors: Bikram Gupta and Simon Bennett

We are thrilled to announce that, effective today, DigitalOcean Kubernetes (DOKS) customers can leverage SnapShooter to back up their Kubernetes applications. SnapShooter seamlessly discovers your DOKS clusters, allowing you to define your backup policy workflow. Users can then utilize the backup storage per your plan or bring storage. This service is now available in Early Availability (EA) to all customers, starting with the free tier.

Kubernetes has widespread adoption due to its scalability, high availability, and extensive ecosystem, and data protection is critical for any production Kubernetes application. However, until now users of DigitalOcean Managed Kubernetes have not had a simple way to get a comprehensive backup of all their cloud resources.

SnapShooter, powered by DigitalOcean, is an all-inclusive backup management tool for Droplets (virtual machines), Docker containers, Volumes, files, apps, and databases. Designed with the needs of small- to medium-sized businesses in mind, SnapShooter delivers a simple yet comprehensive and secure backup workflow.

When it came to incorporating a Kubernetes backup solution into SnapShooter, we were faced with a choice: to build our own or to embrace the existing ecosystem. Given Velero’s popularity, we integrated a new backup engine, leveraging Velero, into SnapShooter. This decision enabled us to maintain our existing UI and backup workflow for DOKS backup while simultaneously offering the quality and reliability of Velero.

How to back up your DOKS Clusters with SnapShooter

Watch the below video for a step-by-step walkthrough:

This section assumes that you already have an active SnapShooter account. If you don’t have one yet, you can easily add SnapShooter to your DigitalOcean account through the DigitalOcean cloud console. Once added, you’ll be able to use single sign-on to access the SnapShooter console.

Under your DigitalOcean account in SnapShooter, you will discover a new addition - Kubernetes. Select the cluster you wish to back up and follow the intuitive guide to activate your backup job.

A comprehensive view of all your previous backups for the selected cluster is available, alongside the option to scrutinize the logs in one consolidated space.

The backup policy for the DOKS cluster is purposefully designed. In the initial step, you are presented with the option to back up one or multiple namespaces. This includes the capability to back up the entire cluster (by leaving namespace selection to be blank) as well. Note that you can only have one backup job per cluster in this EA release.

Subsequently, you can customize your backup frequency and retention policy. As the final step, choose your preferred storage option, either bringing your own or utilizing the storage provided by SnapShooter.

SnapShooter is thorough in its backup process, including Kubernetes manifests and persistent volumes (PV). Manifests are stored in the object store (such as Spaces/S3), and volumes are backed up as snapshots within your DigitalOcean account.

Pricing Structure

SnapShooter charges a management fee based on the number of backup jobs you run. SnapShooter offers various plans, with Kubernetes backup supported across ALL tiers. For instance, if you’re on the Startup tier, you can run 20 backup jobs. Creating just one backup job for a DOKS cluster will be a single backup, leaving 19 backup jobs in your quota. In essence, SnapShooter’s pricing for backup remains consistent regardless of the job type.

However, it’s important to note that each tier has a limitation on the cluster’s maximum size (number of worker nodes) that can be backed up.

Please remember you will be billed separately for volume snapshots and backup storage (if you choose to bring your own).

Get a comprehensive backup solution with Snapshooter

Since joining DigitalOcean at the beginning of this year, Snapshooter has introduced a native backup workflow for DigitalOcean Managed Databases, facilitated backups of Cloudways applications, launched an agent for backup support in private networks, and incorporated Docker-based applications. Adding DOKS backup support now rounds out the resources SnapShooter can back up. Indeed, SnapShooter stands among a select few products in the industry that can back up VMs, containers, Kubernetes, files, and databases.

Our decision to support Kubernetes backups directly responds to numerous requests from our valued customers. We eagerly await your experience with this new feature and look forward to hearing your feedback and comments. Our team is always accessible via our support channels or on Discord.