HYCU’s new Kubernetes protection service is an elastically scalable backup service, which doesn’t protect containers separately but as a fully integrated component of an integrated data protection process.
Today, Boston-based HYCU, which supports multiple native data protection solutions on its Protégé multi-cloud data management platform, is adding HYCU Protégé for Kubernetes to the platform. A native, as-a-service solution for Kubernetes workloads, it will protect applications, VMs databases and object stores as well as containers.
This is a new space for HYCU, responding to demand created during the last year as Kubernetes moves from concept and DevOps to production in more enterprises.
“People have been looking at Kubernetes for a while,” said Subbiah Sundaram, HYCU’s VP of Products. “Gartner says 85% of all global organizations will have it by 2025. They have been ‘lifting and shifting’ most workloads – about 80-90% of the total, but about 10-20% of applications are being modernized.” An even newer study, by Evaluator Group, shows even more momentum. Their upcoming “Spring 2021 Hybrid Cloud Study” says 29% of enterprises are using Kubernetes in a production environment now, while another 40% are testing Kubernetes with the goal of progressing Kubernetes into production.
HYCU Protégé for Kubernetes is designed to respond to this demand, as a elastically scalable backup service, while also treating containers as a fully integrated part of an integrated data protection process.
“Enterprises have mixed workloads, so you can’t address containers with a pure play container strategy,” Sundaram said. “It has to be done as part of a platform service, rather than as an add-on module.”
A key design principle of HYCU Protégé for Kubernetes is simplifying things for the end user through automated and instant discovery of applications.
“What this does is mask all the underlying complexity,” Sundaram said. “It does this with the automated and instant discovery of applications. That’s what customers care about.”
Set-and forget policy-based data protection is another key part of the solution. These policies can be applied globally, across container and non-container sources.
“At the scale of a large Kubernetes cluster, people spin up and down these on the fly, which is an advantage of containers,” Sundaram said. “This won’t work with traditional data protection. You need automation and a ‘set and forget’ policy for customers. If a customer has 4000 nodes, that likely means they have 2000 applications. They have to have this automated.”
HYCU Protégé for Kubernetes has the ability to set SLAs for different applications within the same cluster.
“The right SLA has to be applied for the right application, and that’s all built in to HYCU,” Sundaram indicated.
Granular recovery capabilities cover the entire application, individual persistent disks, and configuration file.
“One-click granular recovery is essential because people are always going to make mistakes, Sundaram noted.
Other capabilities of the solution include the ability to single-click DR recovery onto a different region in the public cloud, and cross-cluster cloning for TestDev. The cross-project and cross-regional cloning gives users gain an extra layer of protection from cyberattacks, erroneous or malicious deletion, and system outages.
“Our existing customers already have access to this,” Sundaram said. “For new customers, the General Availability is today. Out of the gate, we started with GKE [Google Kubernetes Engine] because Kubernetes is built on that core platform and architecture. Other Kubernetes services will be available soon after that, starting with Azure.”
