Portworx Backup 2.10: Secure, Efficient and Integrated

Backup administration and platform engineering teams protecting enterprise Kubernetes applications face many challenges: meeting expectations for limited data loss, managing storage costs, maintaining strict compliance standards, and preventing operational bottlenecks. Manual workarounds and fragmented security controls expose their organizations to risk and ultimately drain productivity.

We are excited to announce the release of Portworx Backup 2.10, a release designed to eliminate these friction points. New capabilities streamline backup workflows and strengthen security, while giving backup and platform teams the automation and control they need to protect data at scale.

Theme: Greater operational efficiency

Backup administrators not only need to manage reliable recovery, but they need to also be able to manage costs associated with backup storage. These new features are designed to save time, reduce operational risks with manual management, and reduce overall storage costs.

Streamlined incremental generic backup management

Incremental generic backups done, for storage providers which either don’t support CSI or support CSI but need Portworx Backup to offload to an external location (S3 or NFS). Can now see some improvements of speed, agility and robustness. In such scenarios, Portworx Backup can now capture changed data only instead of full scan, this can immediately reduce storage consumption. However, as these incremental chains grow longer, backups become interdependent, with newer backups relying on older ones for key data. Deleting any of the older backups breaks the incremental backup chain and compromises recoverability. Ultimately, these long chains result in climbing storage costs, lengthy restore times, and higher maintenance as backups become increasingly complex.

Portworx Backup 2.10 optimizes its generic backup management by introducing backup resets. These resets can be taken at a configurable cadence (e.g. every 10 days), after which a new full backup is taken, resetting the incremental backup chain and creating a clean starting point for the next set of incremental backups.

Backup administrators now regain control over their storage footprint and backup reliability. Shorter chains are more manageable and result in faster restores. Because admins can delete older backups without risk, storage costs reduce and become more manageable. Most importantly, backup maintenance is automated and policy-driven.

Granular namespace management for failed backups

In complex, multi-tenant Kubernetes environments with dozens or hundreds of namespaces, a single failed component within a scheduled backup, such as a namespace that was deleted or unavailable, can cause the entire backup job to fail. Backup admins then have to jump in to find the failure point, manually adjust the backup, and hope the backup continues as expected.

Portworx now provides a more resilient path. Now, even if a namespace fails during a regularly scheduled or ad-hoc backup, the backup continues. Any namespaces that failed to backup are flagged within the Portworx Backup UI, providing admin teams an easy way to remove or troubleshoot any individual namespace in as little as a single click.

Instead of emergency troubleshooting, backup admins can sleep easy knowing that their backups will continue as scheduled. Applications stay fully protected, SLAs remain intact, and backup admins are freed from remediation tasks, even if they are supporting numerous application teams with varying deployment processes and data protection needs.

Theme: Enterprise-grade security and ecosystem integration

Platform teams must be able to maintain compliance across the entire application stack while managing multiple management tools. Disconnected access controls can create administrative challenges while also exposing businesses to potential risk. Further, compliance demands that data remains protected throughout its entire lifecycle. These features provide the security controls and native integration required by platform teams to maintain compliance needs and manage a unified management plane.

Tighter integration with SUSE Rancher projects

Managing separate access controls between Portworx and associated Kubernetes management solutions like Rancher introduces additional toil for platform teams. Every new user needs to be added to both Portworx and rancher. Every permission change requires an update in two systems. This maintenance model is not only tedious, but it can expose businesses to unnecessary risk with security gaps if permissions are inconsistent.

Portworx Backup 2.10 simplifies access management by providing a single point control for backup access by automatically syncing Portworx permissions with existing Rancher projects. Portworx Backup users then will be able to see and restore namespaces within Rancher projects that they have access to without any manual intervention.

Platform teams no longer have to separately manage Portworx and Rancher permissions. A unified access model dramatically reduces administrative overhead while strengthening security with consistent user and group access to backup policies.

End-to-end encryption between services

Data security is table stakes for the enterprise. Protecting internal communication between services within the backup platform is a critical layer of defense, no matter what services are communicating with Portworx Backup. This helps platform teams maintain compliance for securing data throughout its lifecycle.

Portworx Backup now ensures full end-to-end encryption by securing internal service-to-service communications with Mutual TLS (mTLS) support so that internal communications are now secured at all times, from the UI to backend services. Every connection within the backup platform is encrypted, providing comprehensive security for data both in transit and at rest.

These features are just the highlights of the new capabilities available in Portworx Backup 2.10. By focusing on smarter data management and enhanced security, this release provides enterprises with greater control, efficiency, and confidence in their Kubernetes data protection strategy. Learn more by checking out the documentation.