Stash - Introducing Stash Enterprise Edition

Update 2020/09/21: Since we published this post, we have received feedback from our existing users. Based on their feedback, we have decided to reconsider the earlier decision. Going forward the Community Edition will include the core backup/recovery functionalities and be available for anyone to use for any purposes including commercial purposes under a new AppsCode Community License . The Enterprise Edition comes with 4 different pricing plans, as described here: https://stash.run/pricing/ . We have released Stash v2020.09.16 with the updated license. The similar changes will be reflected in the upcoming release of KubeDB. Thanks for using Stash & KubeDB.

We are very excited to announce Stash v2020.08.27. Yes, we have changed the versioning scheme. We will explain it later in this post. This version introduces two different editions of Stash named Stash Community Edition and Stash Enterprise Edition. It also introduces RestoreBatch CRD for restoring data backed up using BackupBatch.

Stash by AppsCode is a cloud native data backup and recovery solution for Kubernetes workloads. If you are running production workloads in Kubernetes, you might want to take backup of your disks, databases etc. Traditional tools are too complex to setup and maintain in a dynamic compute environment like Kubernetes. Stash is a Kubernetes operator that uses restic or Kubernetes CSI Driver VolumeSnapshotter functionality to address these issues. Using Stash, you can backup Kubernetes volumes mounted in workloads, stand-alone volumes and databases. User may even extend Stash via addons for any custom workload.

Install Stash in your cluster by following the setup guide from here .

What’s New

The following major changes have been introduced in this version.

New Versioning Scheme

We initially started Stash as a single Github repository. Back then, Stash was simple. Over time, Stash has grown bigger and complex. Now, Stash has its own Github organization and many sub-projects. We have split the original repo into multiple repositories for better code management. We have also made the sub-projects versions independent of the operator version. This helps us to work with the sub-projects easily.

The old versioning scheme referred to the operator version only. Furthermore, it was hard to co-relate which sub-project version will work with which operator version. This has lead us to adopt the new versioning scheme. The new version will follow vYYYY.MM.DD format. It may have an optional pre-release tag. Now, the version will refer to the entire Stash project version instead of the operator version only. The individual components may have their own versioning independent of the project version. The component versions and their changelog for a release can be found here .

Introducing Stash Enterprise Edition

Building a production-grade tool for a cloud-native technology like Kubernetes is not free of cost. In the beginning, Stash was simple and required less maintenance. Over time, it has grown large and complex. Now, it demands a dedicated team behind it. A skilled Kubernetes team is not cheap. The test infrastructure required for it is not cheap either. So, in order to ensure a sustainable future for Stash, we are introducing an enterprise edition. From now, we will be offering Stash in two different flavors. The open-sourced Community Edition with basic features set will serve the non-commercial users under PolyForm-Noncommercial-1.0.0 license. The open core Enterprise Edition with full feature set will serve the commercial users.

If you are upgrading from 0.9.x to v2020.08.27, please note that following features are only available in Enterprise edition:

• Auto-Backup: Auto-backup is now an enterprise feature. You won’t be able to setup any new backup using auto-backup. However, your existing auto-backup resources should keep functioning.
• Batch Backup: Batch backup and restore is also now an enterprise feature. You won’t be able to create any new backup using batch-backup. However, your existing backup should continue to work and you would be able to restore the data that were backed up using BatchBackup.
• Local Backend: Local backend now is an enterprise feature. If you are using any Kubernetes volume (i.e. NFS, PVC, HostPath, etc.) as backend, you won’t be able to create any new backup using those backends. However, your existing backup that uses sidecar model should keep functioning. You have to use the Enterprise edition to restore from the backed up data.

You can find a full feature comparison between the two versions in here . If you are interested in purchasing Enterprise license, please contact us via sales@appscode.com for further discussion. You can also set up a meeting via our calendly link .

Introducing RestoreBatch

In Stash v0.9.x, we had introduced a BackupBatch CRD that supports taking backup of multiple co-related applications together. However, users had to restore the applications individually. So, it was the next logical step to introduce a similar CRD to restore. We are happy to introduce RestoreBatch CRD in this release. The RestoreBatch CRD will help the users to restore the applications together that were backed up using a BackupBatch.

Furthermore, we have introduced executionOrder filed in both BackupBatch and RestoreBatch. Now, the users will be able to control the backup or restore order of the applications.

• See detailed specification of the RestoreBatch from here .
• See how the restore process works for a RestoreBatch from here .
• See a RestoreBatch in action from here .

File Filtering During Backup and Restore

This release adds support for filtering files during backup and restore. Now, you can take backup of a subset of files that matches some particular patterns as well as you can restore only a subset of files from the backed up data.

• See how to use the exclude field to ignore files during backup that matches some patterns from here .
• See how to use include field to restore only the files that match some patterns or exclude field to ignore files that match some patterns during restore from here .

More Auto-Backup Annotations

We have introduced two new annotations for auto-backup in this release. Now, you can overwrite the schedule specified in the respective BackupBlueprint for an application by adding stash.appscode.com/schedule: <Cron Expression> annotation. If you don’t specify this annotation, Stash will use the schedule from the respective BackupBlueprint.

You can also pass parameters to the respective Task via params.stash.appscode.com/<key>: <value> annotation. You can pass multiple parameters to the Task by adding multiple annotations. For example, you can pass multiple parameters as below,

params.stash.appscode.com/key1: value1
params.stash.appscode.com/key2: value2,value3
params.stash.appscode.com/key3: ab=123,bc=234

We have also fixed some critical bugs regarding BatchBackup and database backup. A full changelog of this release can be found here .

Please try this release and give us your valuable feedback.

TAGS