Orchestration tools like Kubernetes have significantly changed the way applications are developed and deployed. They provide developers with the opportunity to focus fully on creating software, which has enabled containers to revolutionize software development. Today, containers have become key elements for hosting and managing applications, and they continue to gain popularity in the world of technology. Their use has allowed companies to gain efficiency and flexibility in deploying their applications, thus improving their competitiveness in the market.

Kubernetes has become the go-to platform for container orchestration, with more and more organizations using it for their production environments. Kubernetes provides many benefits, but it also introduces new challenges and risks. Indeed, as with any technology, Kubernetes is not immune to disasters, data loss, downtime, or infrastructure failures. Therefore, it is crucial to consider the importance of backup and disaster recovery planning (DRP) for Kubernetes clusters too.

To start with, we’ll explain why backup and DRP are critical for Kubernetes clusters, like any other type of clusters, how to implement a backup and DRP strategy, and some best practices for maintaining a healthy Kubernetes environment. Then, we’ll explore how infrastructure as code (IAC) can facilitate DRP, and why Velero Backup is an ideal tool to protect Kubernetes cluster data.

Why Backup and DRP are Critical for Kubernetes Clusters

Kubernetes clusters are complex systems that consist of multiple components and layers, such as nodes, pods, services, and etc. These components are distributed across different hosts and can be subject to failures or errors, whether caused by hardware or software issues, human errors, or even cyber-attacks. When a component fails, it can result in data loss, downtime, or degraded performance.

To avoid these risks and maintain business continuity, it’s essential to have a backup and DRP plan for your Kubernetes clusters. Here are some reasons why:

1. Data protection: Kubernetes stores critical data, such as application configurations, persistent volumes, and stateful sets, in etcd. Backups ensure that your critical data is protected in case of a failure or outage.
2. Disaster recovery: In case of a disaster or outage, a DRP plan helps you recover your data and applications quickly and minimize downtime.
3. Compliance: Many industries and regulations ( GDPR ) require businesses to have a DRP plan to protect sensitive data and maintain business continuity.
4. Risk management: A backup and DRP plan can help you identify potential risks and vulnerabilities in your Kubernetes environment and proactively mitigate them.

How to Implement a Backup and DRP Strategy for Kubernetes Clusters

Implementing a backup and DRP strategy for Kubernetes clusters involves several steps, including:

1. Define your backup and DRP requirements: Identify your critical data and applications, recovery time objectives (RTOs), recovery point objectives (RPOs), and compliance requirements.
2. Choose a backup and DRP solution: There are many backup and DRP solutions available for Kubernetes, such as Velero, Kubernetes Disaster Recovery (KDR), Kasten and Stash. Choose a solution that meets your requirements and integrates with your OVHcloud environment (i.e. using OVHcloud S3 object storage services ensuring full interoperability and resilience), existing tools and workflows.
3. Configure and test your backup and DRP solution: Set up your backup and DRP solution and test it thoroughly to ensure it meets your RTOs and RPOs. Regularly validate and update your backup and DRP plan as your Kubernetes environment changes.
4. Document and train your team: Make sure your backup and DRP plan are clear and familiar to all, and keep your team trained on how to execute it in case of a disaster or outage. Regularly review and update your plan to reflect changes in your Kubernetes environment or compliance requirements.

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) to Facilitate DRP

Infrastructure as code (IAC) is a methodology that uses code to automate the provisioning, configuration, and management of infrastructure.

With IAC, you can define your Kubernetes environment as code, using tools such as Terraform, Ansible, or Helm. This code can be version controlled, tested, and audited, making it easier to maintain, replicate, and recover your Kubernetes environment in case of a disaster or outage.

IAC can facilitate DRP by providing a consistent, repeatable, and scalable way to deploy and configure your Kubernetes environment. With IAC, you can easily rebuild your Kubernetes environment from scratch, which is especially important in case of a catastrophic failure.

In the context of a Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP), GitOps can be a particularly useful method for managing Kubernetes infrastructure. Thanks to its consistent, reproducible, and auditable approach, GitOps allows for effective control over changes and deployments in the Kubernetes environment. Additionally, by using continuous deployment practices, GitOps makes it easier to monitor and update the Kubernetes environment, which can be crucial for maintaining service availability in the event of an incident.

In case of a disaster or outage, GitOps allows for the quick recovery of the previous state of the infrastructure by using Git’s version control features. Indeed, all changes made to the infrastructure are versioned and documented, making it easier to restore the previous state. Moreover, the consistency of the infrastructure ensured by GitOps reduces the risk of human error and facilitates collaboration between operational and development teams. Overall, GitOps can be a key element in ensuring business continuity within a DRP.

Advantages of Velero Backup to Protect Kubernetes Cluster Data

Velero is an open-source tool that provides backup and disaster recovery capabilities for Kubernetes clusters. Velero offers several advantages for protecting Kubernetes cluster data, including:

1. Automated backups: Velero allows you to schedule automated backups of your Kubernetes resources and their associated volumes. This means that you don’t have to manually create and manage backups, saving you time and reducing the risk of human error.
2. Customizable backup policies: Velero offers flexible backup policies that enable you to customize your backups to meet your specific needs. For example, you can choose to back up only certain namespaces, labels, or annotations.
3. Incremental backups: Velero performs incremental backups, which means that only the changes made since the last backup are saved. This reduces the backup window and saves storage space.
4. Disaster recovery: Velero provides an easy way to restore your Kubernetes resources and their associated volumes in case of a disaster or outage. You can restore your resources to the same cluster or to a different one, making it easier to switch between different environments.
5. Support for multiple cloud providers: Velero supports several cloud providers, allowing multi-cloud strategy and making it easier to use the same tool for backup and disaster recovery across different environments.
6. Integration with IAC tools: Velero integrates with infrastructure as code (IAC) tools, such as Kubernetes manifests and Helm charts. This means that you can include backup and disaster recovery configurations in your IAC templates, making it easier to manage your backups alongside your infrastructure.

To ensure optimal use of Velero, it is recommended to enable Velero metrics to monitor the status of backups. Using the open-source monitoring tools Prometheus and Grafana, you can create a dedicated Kubernetes backup dashboard to display key metrics such as backup size, backup duration, number of successful and failed backups. These metrics provide useful information about the progress and success of backups, allowing for early detection of any potential issues. In addition, to improve visibility and resolution of backup issues, it is recommended to implement Loki and Promtail to retrieve logs and trigger alerts in case of warnings or errors on backups. This proactive approach helps resolve problems faster and improve the quality of backups. By following these best practices, Velero users can ensure that their backups are reliable and available when needed.

In a nutshell, Velero offers a reliable and flexible way to protect your Kubernetes cluster data, automate backups, and streamline disaster recovery.

Conclusion

Backup and DRP are critical for Kubernetes environments to ensure data protection, disaster recovery, compliance, and risk management. IAC can facilitate DRP by providing a consistent, repeatable, and scalable way to deploy and configure your Kubernetes clusters.

As highlighted above, Velero Backup is for sure a reliable and flexible solution to automate backups and streamline disaster recovery.

But there are various solutions available on the market to protect Kubernetes cluster data, and OVHcloud Managed Kubernetes offer (CNCF software compliant) is compatible with all of them by design – you can find out more in the dedicated content library available here.

If you want to get expert advice and support on this topic, we invite you to reach out to our partner LecPac-Consulting using the following contact details or to our Professional Services team.

Email info@lecpac-consulting.com
Telephone 06 13 02 81 71
Website https://lecpac-consulting.com/contact/

Challenges customers are facing around SAP

Migrating and hosting workloads in the cloud comes with several challenges, in particular managing technical complexity, controlling risks and costs. For companies using SAP, there is also a need to anticipate the upcoming deadline of 2027, which marks the end of ERP ECC6, by organizing the conversion of their systems to the new version of ERP SAP S/4HANA.

This complete overhaul of the solution impacts both the functional structure of the ERP and the technological base on which it is based. Managing the obsolescence of infrastructures makes this task even more complex, adding to the already very demanding specifications. Choosing the right partner then becomes a crucial issue when it comes to converting an ECC6 system to S/4HANA and more broadly defining a new technological trajectory for the years to come for its information system.

Major Greenfield/Brownfield use cases

SAP ECC6 customers will need to migrate to SAP S/4HANA in the next few years and there are several possible approaches to perform this migration, addressing different objectives. The choice will essentially be made between the following two scenarios:

• Technical migration (Brownfield type project): using migration tools provided by SAP to migrate SAP ECC6 objects to S/4HANA. The objective is to carry out a technical migration with a functional iso-perimeter.
• New implementation (Greenfield-type project): installation of a new SAP S/4HANA instance, possibly with a recovery of existing elements in SAP ECC6 (configuration, specific programs, etc.).

It is then mandatory to master all the tasks necessary for the success of an SAP conversion project:

• Infrastructures: measure the impact on current infrastructures, size new infrastructures, propose new infrastructures in collaboration with the main manufacturers or hosts on the market, manage the relationship with the main SAP outsourcing companies, etc.
• Operating systems / database: master the roadmaps of the different publishers (Oracle, VMWare…), have expertise on the different versions in coherence with SAP, carry out OS/DB migrations…
• Configuration: master all the functional modules of SAP ERP to understand any regressions and highlight the functional benefits of new versions
• Developments: control the entire SAP Netweaver technological base to anticipate any risk concerning specific Abap or other programs in the context of migrations, manage interfaces with third-party solutions
• Management: rely on one or more project managers to anticipate risks and secure project schedules

Move2cloud migration strategy – methodology

To best meet all customer needs, the recommended approach is an adaptation of the 5Rs model to better embrace the technological specificities of SAP workloads, thus saving time on decision-making process, having better visibility of the methodology adopted and meeting technical, business or financial requirements.

Although it is difficult to generalize the application of a migration strategy, it is advisable to structure the approach according to four main distinct phases:

• Evaluate the workloads: this evaluation is key to estimate the costs, identify the axes of improvement and modernization of the infrastructure and to define the use of the deployment tools
• Plan the operations: the planning concerns the validation of all the technical prerequisites as well as that of the planning, the resources and the constitution of the teams
• Deploy: application environments are deployed or replicated in the cloud, according on the chosen method
• Put the workloads into production: the effort during this migration phase is critical for the governance, operations management and security teams in order to limit the workload as much as possible.

Very often in the context of an SAP migration project to the cloud, the lift-and-shift (or re-hosting) methodology proves to be the most appropriate because it is simpler, with a reduced migration time and above all less expensive.

Conclusion

Conducting SAP conversion projects, with database and infrastructure presents a real complexity that can only be delivered successfully by an expert team. Support from a consulting and integration company assures you of project management commitments and allows you to secure the timings and budgets of your projects.

Since the creation of its hosting division, Applium has supported many SAP customers in the cloud, whether for a partial or complete migration or landscape hybridization or simply for advice around the definition of their technological trajectories.

Applium offers a hosting and migration solution to the OVHcloud cloud that is suitable for the most critical and demanding workloads, such as SAP. This offer aims to meet the growing need of customers for the migration aspects of their applications in a sovereign cloud. Thus, Applium is involved in the entire chain of an SAP integration project, from the study phase to the operational application and operational conditioning of the solution.

Founded in 2002, Applium is a consulting and integration company dedicated to SAP solutions, capable of dealing with all the dimensions of an implementation project and covering the entire solution lifecycle, from initial design to maintenance. Applium’s 130 SAP consultants and experts cover several functional and technical areas. The strong expertise of Applium’s SAP consultants (15 years of experience on average on the SAP solution) allows to offer strong commitments on results and to provide advice with high added value.

Applium also offers SAP Publisher Maintenance, TMA and SAP outsourcing services through its shared Center of Expertise, certified by SAP (SAP PCoE Certification), the SAP Support and Maintenance Center (CSM). For several years, Applium has also offered SAP ECC6 or S/4HANA hosting solutions with OVHcloud.

Applium has been a partner and reseller of SAP solutions since 2008, and an Advanced Partner of OVHcloud since December 2022.

Applium teams are spread over 8 sites, in France (Clichy, Lyon, Bordeaux, Marseille, Montpellier, Strasbourg and Rennes) and in Portugal (Lisbon).

To know more about Applium SAP hosting on OVHcloud, please click here

Beyond 500ms of loading time of your site, you lose 10 to 15% of visitors per second, and this figure goes up to 25% on mobile phone.

In addition, an exponential resurgence of cyberattacks has been observed in recent months, which jeopardizes poorly maintained and poorly protected CMS ecosystems.

If you are an e-merchant and you do not benefit from the services of a professional and proven managed service provider, it is very likely that your site will have harmful short and long-term security flaws, and that you will lose money due to insufficient performance.

Here’s why:

• Insufficient TTFB (time to first byte) – Insufficient performance leads to SEO issues. Search engines will always favour sites that have a fast response time.
• Poor user experience (UX) – Page loading speed while browsing is critical to limit the number of users who leave the site because of slowness.
• A waste of time on the back office – Server performance considerably impacts the productivity of the teams working on the back office of your store.
• Your criminal liability engaged – Security breaches expose potentially sensitive customer data, such as bank details, automatically putting you at odds with the GDPR, the General Data Protection Regulation.
• Absence of BCP/PRA – Absence of business continuity and recovery plans (also known as BCP/PRA, aimed at restoring your services in the event of physical server failure, hacking or critical errors unsolvable within acceptable deadlines), puts you in a situation where your online sales can be suddenly stopped for sometimes quite long periods.

How can you get support?

Specialized in Prestashop, Woocommerce and Magento environments based on OVHcloud’s baremetal infrastructures, our partner TouchWeb, responds to these issues by offering you the peace of mind of a high-performance and completely secure e-commerce site.Surrounded by a network of qualified professionals, TouchWeb also supports complex overhaul projects of aging CMS, to give them a new lease of life.

Since 2017, TouchWeb artificial intelligence has been proactively monitoring more than 400 servers and 200 e-commerce sites, and their clients’ sites have an average TTFB of less than 300ms, sometimes as low as 19ms. Because your data needs to be preserved unconditionally in accordance with Article 32 of the GDPR, their disaster recovery plans are guaranteed. Lastly, in the model they propose, you are billed directly by OVHcloud for the physical server and TouchWeb only invoices services related to outsourcing.

What are the key selling points of this solution?

• Price/performance ratio – OVHcloud offers the best price/performance ratio on the market, with a wide range of products to meet all customers’ needs, and the most efficient physical servers in the world on the VSB/SMB market.
• Non-obsolescence – TouchWeb strives to offer the latest generation servers made available by OVHcloud in order to always guarantee the best technology at the best price.
• Local datacenters – 20 active datacenters in Europe, including 16 in France, allowing resilience without prohibitive cost.

Since 2008, TouchWeb has supported more than 170 customers in their infrastructure migration and redesign projects, relying on OVHcloud baremetal infrastructures. Thanks to its in-house automated tools that required several years of research and development, TouchWeb expertises allow optimal performance and minimize your cybersecurity risks.

One of the possible forms of IT outsourcing is working with a Managed Service Provider (MSP) who manages and operates the information system. This player is an essential link in the relationship between the end customer and the cloud infrastructure provider.

What is the role of an MSP?

The role of an MSP consists in ensuring an optimal level of availability, security, and performance of the client’s infrastructures.

To do so, he/she advises, implements, maintains and secures hosting infrastructures, whether they are based on a simple virtual server (VPS) or a complex configuration made of multiple hosting solutions.

From a liability standpoint, when developers endeavour to guarantee the proper functioning of the code of the application or site they have designed and when OVHcloud guarantees the availability of the hosting bricks (Bare Metal Cloud, Public Cloud, Hosted Private Cloud with VMware, Nutanix, Anthos, Object Storage, CDN), the MSP is in charge of making the connection between the “system” and interfacing the different bricks. The system corresponds to all the software layers (OS and services) that will run on the “hardware” layer and which allow the proper functioning of the application code.

The MSP provides the client with real support through 4 main missions:

• BUILD – This is the stage of designing the architecture according to the needs and constraints of the client, then installing the infrastructure. The consulting dimension is a key pilar here.
• RUN – This refers to the day-to-day management and maintenance of the infrastructures in operational conditions, including continuous monitoring and incident response.
• SUPPORT – The support provided by the MSP also includes the optimization and evolution of the platforms with adapted and specific advice in relation to the client’s requests.
  In addition to their technical expertise, MSPs can rely on the levels of support offered by OVHcloud, thus ensuring a better quality of service according to the criticality of the data, the applications or the platforms used by customers.
• BACK UP – Essential part of any secure infrastructure, the backups and the Disaster Recovery Plan or the Business Continuity Plan are guarantees that should not be overlooked.
  To avoid any loss of data, the MSP sets up a backup system. One of the good practices consists in storing backups on remote units, both distributed and redundant on 2 or 3 different and geographically distant sites. To do this, OVHcloud has datacenters in France in Roubaix, Gravelines and Strasbourg, but also all across Europe.
  The MSP can also build a Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) which aims to anticipate scenarios in order to anticipate against major accidents responsible for the destruction or extended shutdown of a production infrastructure by having a fast and reliable backup solution.

What are the advantages of outsourcing your IT management to an MSP?

In addition to sound advice to optimize the infrastructure, and developing a relationship with a single point of contact, using the services of an MSP also means:

Eliminate stress and focus on your core business

Beyond the technical aspect, the foundation of the MSP role consists mainly in eliminating stress and dissatisfaction by relying on two key capacities, namely problem solving and anticipation. Freed from the management of the IT infrastructure, customers are then able to fully concentrate on their core business.

A software publisher can use its time to innovate and implement new features, an online sales platform can focus on promoting its brand, its products and the development of its community…

On their side, financial institutions will be able to focus on processing their data by relying on a high-performance and secure environment that will enable them to protect themselves from both internal and external threats, while the media players will be able to concentrate on content creation, without worrying about the availability and accessibility of their production environment.

Master the management of the security aspect

The MSP’s mission is to provide an efficient, stable, but above all secure infrastructure. They will be in charge of strengthening the security of the system layer to guard against attacks (brute force, denial of service, etc.). The MSP is also taking care of the rigorous application of security updates in a transparent way for the customer.

Better control infrastructure and training costs

Working with an MSP means considering a new economic/financial model focusing less on major investment phases than on financial smoothing over time. Indeed, clients can benefit from continuously updated infrastructures without having to manage the technical evolution.

They get professional advice on how to optimize their IT to better match their expectations in line with the industry innovations.

Rely on a reliable ecosystem of experts

Trusting the MSP is essential, but this is not the only essential factor. The mutual trust between the MSP and the cloud provider(s)/host(s) with whom they work is also particularly important.

This trust is based on multiple elements:

• Technical and technological elements: quality of infrastructure, datacentres, hardware, network
• Human and relational elements: quality, availability and accessibility of OVHcloud teams
• Values: compatibility on the corporate culture through the values of transparency, accessibility, reversibility, interoperability and sovereignty.
  OVHcloud strives to offer a trusted cloud based on open standards on which its ecosystem of partners relies to create value and meet the evolving needs of customers.

If you would like to be supported in the management of your IT infrastructures, get in touch with one of our trusted French partners below to get the level of service that best suits your needs.

hello@alixans.com 01 84 24 05 44	commercial@cognix-systems.com 02 30 96 34 40	vchapuis@partitio.com 05 34 60 42 84