VMware (Velero)
In 2018, VMware bought Heptio to boost its Kubernetes strategy. Velero was one of the open-source projects included in the deal, and it is now the data security layer for VMware’s Kubernetes portfolio, Tanzu.
Other data protection providers, such as Veritas, Dell, and Red Hat, employ the Velero open source project as a core component, which underpins many of the common features of those products. With APIs designed to simplify the interaction between different data protection solutions, orchestrators, management consoles, data movers, and abstraction layers offered by third-party vendors, VMware positions Velero more as a standard API-based framework to standardize backup operations in Kubernetes environments, both at the back end and at the front end.
Velero is strongly integrated within the VMware Tanzu stack, and data protection operations may be handled through Tanzu Mission Control while also utilizing VMware’s storage capabilities. Tanzu comes with Velero data security, which users can use at no extra charge.
Snapshot backups for major cloud providers and Kubernetes clusters based on vSphere are supported by Velero, however CSI support is restricted because to the lack of an internal data mover, which will be addressed soon. Multi-cluster support, environmental awareness, robust encryption, self-service, data migrations, multi-region DR, and analytics functionalities are among the additional enterprise features missing from the solution. The majority of them will be added in 2022, according to the roadmap.
Strengths: VMware-sponsored open source project with contributions from a number of additional commercial data protection companies. New initiatives and a compelling roadmap aimed at simplifying, standardizing, and automating data security activities. VMware Tanzu is included and properly integrated.
Challenges: As a stand-alone backup system, Velero lacks some essential features such as ransomware protection, multi-cluster support, environmental awareness, robust encryption, self-service, data migrations, multi-region DR, and analytics. To make the solution suitable for general-purpose use scenarios, these aspects will need to be improved.