VMware, Kasten, Portworx Tops Kubernetes Backup Poll

Fifty-six percent of participants in a new survey who report running at least 50 nodes of Kubernetes deployments couldn't name a leader in K8s backup and data protection, report a New Stack survey.

Dec 14th, 2022 8:36am by Lawrence E Hecht and Heather Joslyn

As the ecosystem of tools around Kubernetes and cloud native technologies continues to sprawl, even some of the IT professionals who use that tech the most can get lost in it.

Case in point: Fifty-six percent of participants in a new survey who report running at least 50 nodes of Kubernetes deployments at their organizations don’t know or aren’t sure which vendor is considered a leader in Kubernetes backup and data protection.

That’s significantly lower than the 38% of survey participants overall who said the same.

The three vendors of Kubernetes (K8s) backup and data protection most often named by the survey respondents overall were:

Kasten by Veeam, cited by 29%.
Portworx, 17%.
VWware, 15%.

Bar chart showing "No Clear Leader in Kubernetes Backup and Data Protection"

The survey, conducted online in October and November by The New Stack on behalf of its owner, Insight Partners, included responses from 106 TNS readers. Of the people who responded to the survey, 34% identified themselves as DevOps specialists and 30% said their role is not related to backup or data protection.

A Low Tolerance for Downtime

The widespread confusion about which vendors handle Kubernetes backup and data protection is especially significant considering that the study also showed a low tolerance for downtime.

According to the results:

Once a problem is found, 52% of respondents’ organizations require that decisions to “failover/recover” should take 15 minutes or less.
This segment of the survey pool was also more likely to use PostgreSQL for live production data (67%), as compared to 44% of the remaining survey participants. Their low tolerance for downtime is likely a contributing factor to that decision.
Sixty percent of respondents whose organizations run Kubernetes in a hybrid cloud said that it takes less than one hour to restore; another 28% said it takes at least one hour to do so.

Bar chart showing How Much Downtime Can Your Organization Tolerate After Deciding to Failover/Recover? No downtime ever 16% Less than 15 minutes 16% 15 minutes to under one hour 20% One hour to less than two hours 12% Two or more hours 11% Don't know or not sure 9%
Bar chart showing PostgreSQL Used More Often by Organizations with a Low Tolerance of Downtime

The survey results also offered a glimpse into how K8s are used. Overall, 82% of participants in the report use Kubernetes to manage and orchestrate containerized applications. Just over half (51%) said they run Kubernetes exclusively on public clouds, while 40% said they deploy K8s in hybrid environments — both public cloud and on-premises.

Other findings include:

The Kubernetes deployments are pretty big: a significant percentage, 43% of those surveyed, said they deploy more than 50 nodes.
Companies with large Kubernetes implementations are more likely to be running existing applications on Kubernetes. Ninety-four percent of those with more than 50 nodes reported running existing apps on K8s, compared to 67% among everyone else.

The raw data for the survey is available.

Lawrence has generated actionable insights and reports about enterprise IT B2B markets and technology policy issues for almost 25 years. He regularly works with clients to develop and analyze studies about open source ecosystems. In addition to his consulting work,...