Incremental cloud snapshots in GKE

Summary and Key concepts

Summary This article explains how to manage the frequency of full backups in Portworx's CloudSnaps (cloud snapshots). When Portworx uploads backups to the cloud, it starts with a full backup and then follows up with a series of incremental backups. By default, Portworx performs a full backup after every 7 incremental backups. Users can view and change the frequency of full backups using the pxctl command. The article warns that setting a high frequency for full backups can slow down restores, while setting a low frequency will result in more frequent full backups.

Kubernetes Concepts

• PersistentVolumeClaim (PVC): CloudSnaps are typically used to back up PVC data to the cloud.
• Cluster-wide Configuration: Changes to the CloudSnap full backup frequency apply across the entire Kubernetes cluster managed by Portworx.

Portworx Concepts

• pxctl Command: A CLI tool for managing Portworx cluster settings, including configuring cloud backup frequencies.

When Portworx takes and uploads backups for cloud snapshots (cloudsnaps), it first takes and uploads a full backup to your cloud provider. After the initial upload, Portworx uploads a series of incremental backups punctuated by an occasional full backup. By default, Portworx uploads a full backup every 7th cloud backup it performs. You can control the frequency with which Portworx uploads a full backup by configuring cluster options.

note

This is a cluster-wide setting.

View full backup frequency

You can view the currently set frequency by searching for it in the pxctl cluster options list output:

pxctl cluster options list | grep frequency

Cloudsnap full backup frequency                         : 7

Change full backup frequency

To modify the frequency with which Portworx uploads full backups for cloudsnaps, enter the following pxctl cluster options update command with the --cloudsnap-full-backup-frequency flag and a valid frequency range. The following example updates the frequency to every 4 cloudsnaps:

pxctl cluster options update --cloudsnap-full-backup-frequency 4

note

If you set the --cloudsnap-full-backup-frequency to a very high value, Portworx may take longer to restore your cloudsnaps, since there's a large number of incremental snapshot data to piece together before reaching a full backup. Additionally, these cloudsnaps may be larger, as they hold more incremental snapshots.

If you set the frequency to a very low value, Portworx will send full backups more often.