PowerProtect Data Manager 19.12 Kubernetes User Guide

PowerProtect Data Manager detects whether a persistent volume is backed by an FCD when the storageclass of the persistent volume has the provisioner as csi.vsphere.vmware.com. When this occurs, PowerProtect Data Manager switches to using the optimized data path. Optimized data path differs from CSI management in primarily two ways:

• FCD uses the VMware VADP API to take the snapshot instead of using the CSI driver.
• Supports both incremental and full backups, making use of changed block tracking (CBT).

The following configuration changes are required prior to running the Kubernetes protection policy in order to make use of optimized data path:

• FCD CSI support requires a minimum version of vCenter 6.7 U3.
• Enable Changed Block Tracking (CBT) on the Kubernetes worker node virtual machines before the pods (application) start using dynamically provisioned PVCs.

  To enable CBT on the nodes, run the command source /opt/emc/vproxy/unit/vproxy.env on the PowerProtect Data Manager host, and then run the following command for each node:

  /opt/emc/vproxy/bin/vmconfig -u vCenter user with administrator privileges -p user password -v vCenter host FQDN or IP -l ip -k Kubernetes node IP -c “enable-cbt"

  If your Kubernetes cluster nodes do not have VMWare Tools installed, you might not be able to use the IP address as one of the inputs to the tool. In this case, use the VM Moref as the identifier of the VMs:

  /opt/emc/vproxy/bin/vmconfig -u vCenter user with administrator privileges -p user password -v vCenter host FQDN or IP -l moref -k Kubernetes VM node moref -c “enable-cbt"

  PowerProtect Data Manager enables CBT on the PVCs by default. If you need to disable the autoenable setting for CBT, use the API to send a POST request using the configurations attribute before starting any backups for namespaces in this cluster. This process is described in the section "Disable the autoenableCBT setting" under Back up and restore Kubernetes in the PowerProtect Data Manager Public REST API documentation.

• The PowerProtect Data Manager proxy pods use NBD protocol to read the contents of the FCD-based persistent volumes in order to back up these volumes. Ensure that the NBD default port 902 is open on all of the Kubernetes nodes, and that the worker nodes are able to reach the vCenter Server.

You can verify that a Kubernetes protection policy backup or restore is using optimized data path by viewing the details for the operation in the Jobs window of the PowerProtect Data Manager UI. Additionally, the Recent Tasks pane of the vSphere Client displays the message Create a virtual disk object when a new PVC is added.