DigitalOcean Managed Kubernetes Backups with SnapShooter

Introduction

SnapShooter, a member of DigitalOcean’s product family, offers regularly scheduled backups for your DigitalOcean Managed Kubernetes Cluster. Under the hood SnapShooter uses the open source project Velero to manage the backup process of your clusters.

In this tutorial, we’ll demonstrate the simplicity of setting up and initiating cluster backups with just a few clicks.

Prerequisites

• A DigitalOcean Account (Haven’t got one? Start your free trial now and grab $200 in credits.)
• A SnapShooter Account
• DigitalOcean Managed Kubernetes Cluster to backup

Connecting your DigitalOcean Account

To begin, you need to connect your DigitalOcean Account with SnapShooter. This can be done by selecting Connect Provider in the left menu and clicking on the DigitalOcean provider. This will take you to the setup page where you can specify the DigitalOcean account profile name you will be connecting to. In the example below, we have kept the profile name as the default option.

Clicking on the Connect with DigitalOcean button will take you to your DigitalOcean account. If you’re not logged in, you will be prompt to login to your account and authorize both read and write access to your account.

After clicking the Authorize application button, you’re ready to start backing up your Droplets and Volumes. SnapShooter will automatically scan your account for any active Droplets, Volumes, and Managed Databases.

Backing Up DigitalOcean Managed Kubernetes Cluster

To backup a DigitalOcean Managed Kubernetes Cluster, you navigate to the DigitalOcean tab in the left menu and select the Kubernetes option. This will provide you with a list of your active clusters. Choose the specific cluster you want to backup, and click on the Setup Backup button to initiate the backup process.

To connect storage for your backups, you have a couple of options. If you don’t have external storage connected to your SnapShooter account, you can either:

1. Utilize SnapShooter’s storage, which comes with a size based on your SnapShooter Plan
2. Configure your own external storage using DigitalOcean’s Spaces, an S3-compatible Object Storage solution. Simply select the desired storage option and confirm the installation to get started.

Once you’ve selected the storage for your backups, select the namespaces you want to backup. If you wish to backup all your namespaces, you can leave the selection blank, and all namespaces shown will be backed up.

You can then configure the backup frequency, server timezone, and backup timing for your Kubernetes Cluster. The available options may vary depending on your SnapShooter Plan level. Adjust these settings based on your preferences and requirements to customize the backup schedule for your cluster.

Next, you can set the Retention Policy for your daily, weekly and monthly backups.

After clicking on the Start Backups button, SnapShooter will initiate the installation of Velero on your cluster. This installation process typically takes a few minutes. Once completed, you’ll receive an overview of your backup frequency and details. Additionally, you’ll have the option to create an immediate backup by clicking the Backup Now button.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we have demonstrated how to create backup jobs in SnapShooter specifically for your DigitalOcean Managed Kubernetes Clusters. We highly recommend utilizing SnapShooter to consistently back up your servers, databases, and applications. To get started, register with SnapShooter and begin building your infrastructure with DigitalOcean today.