Kubernetes has arrived. But this new wave can be hard to get into for traditional IT Infrastructure folks. Both Infrastructure and DevOps alike need to be aware holistically of all platforms (physical, virtual and container) that run both modern cloud native workloads and what are more commonly now referred to as traditional applications. Kubernetes hasn’t fully matured and we are still in the early days…which means that the ability to get our hands dirty is still problematic and can be daunting for some.
Making Things Easy
This is where labbing can make things easier. What is even easier is if the labs are pre-built for you and online. Kasten by Veeam has recently released an online, self paced lab that takes you through an introduction around some of the core functionality of K10. The lab also shows the absolute ease of installing K10 into an existing, established Kubernetes cluster. I have taken a walkthrough video (embedded below) as I took the online lab for the first time myself and added some commentary on the experience and on the K10 product its self.
Obviously I would encourage you all to take the lab yourselves, but the video walkthrough below might help you before or after the fact as I go through the lab course end to end. For laughs as well, you can see me fumble my way through commands i’ve clearly forgotten… and my thought process as I work my way through the lab environment. As a side note, one of the great things about this lab is that it is a fully functional Single Node Kubernetes instance… not just a click-on-screen walkthrough.
Kasten K10 runs on your Kubernetes cluster in its own namespace. The installation uses a single helm command. Kasten K10 also supports marketplace integrations with major Kubernetes distributions to make installation and billing a simple click of a button. For private networks and sites air-gapped installation is supported. Kasten K10’s application-centric approach and deep integrations with relational and NoSQL databases, Kubernetes distributions, and all clouds enables the freedom of infrastructure choice without sacrificing operational simplicity. Policy-driven and extensible, Kasten K10 provides a native Kubernetes API and includes features such full-spectrum consistency, database integrations, automatic application discovery, multi-cloud mobility, and a powerful web-based user interface.
Free Kasten K10 Edition
Once you have taken the lab, remember that there is a Kasten K10 free edition. The Free edition has the ability to work across any Kubernetes environment across all platforms. As mentioned in this blog post by Michael Cade, the Free Edition of K10 has the following features.
- Easy backup/restore for your entire application stack to make it easy to “reset” your application to a good known state
- Disaster recovery of your applications in another cluster, region, or cloud
- Application portability across unfederated clusters in a secure and scalable manner
Just like the Veeam Community Edition, the Kasten K10 Free Edition has a generous free node count (ten) and can be upgraded at any time. Taking things a couple steps ahead of the Veeam Community Edition, the K10 Free Edition is fully functional. The Free Edition can be found here and just like in the lab video above, is installed with a single helm command. After trying out the guided lab, online documentation, will walk you through all aspects of the platform.
GTwGT Bonus: Insights into the WHY around Kubernetes Backup with Kasten
Niraj gives fascinating insights into the very early days and how he saw an opportunity to build a company around the backing up of everything that goes into making an application run within a Kubernetes platform.
