Connecting and managing cluster connections

You can connect clusters, manage actions on cluster records, and remove cluster configurations. You have options to connect clusters either through the Fusion UI or automated deployment.

The Topology page displays the clusters' connections and you can perform the following activities:

Connect clusters

  1. In the Backup & Restore menu, click Topology.
  2. In the Topology page, click Connect clusters.
  3. In the Connection method window, select Use the Fusion UI or Automate deployment.
    Table 1. Cluster connection options
    Option Procedure
    Use the Fusion UI
    1. On your hub cluster, go to the > Topology.
    2. Click Connect clusters.
    3. Select Use the Fusion UI. The connect your cluster > Use the Fusion UI window appears. The YAML starts to generate.
    4. After the YAML is generated successfully, click Copy snippet.
    5. Go to the Spoke cluster and install IBM Fusion.
    6. Go to the Services page and install Backup & Restore Agent.
    7. Paste the copied snippet to proceed with the agent install.
    Note: If you use a custom namespace, then do not use the Copy command because the encoded command is not editable and is of no value with a custom namespace.
    Automate deployment To connect multiple Spoke clusters:
    1. On your hub cluster, go to the > Topology.
    2. Click Connect clusters.
    3. Select Automate deployment. The connect your cluster > Automate deployment window appears.
    4. Select the storage class to use on the spoke where you want to run the YAML.
    5. Click Generate.

      The YAML starts to generate. Here, you can either use the Deploy using YAML or Deploy using oc command option.

    6. In the Deploy using YAML option, copy or download the YAML.
    7. Apply the YAML on each of the Spoke clusters.

Actions on a cluster record

The Topology page lists the hub cluster and all spoke connections. Using the Actions, you can View details, View backed up apps, and remove connections.

In View details, a pane opens with the details of the cluster, namely Connection status, Service status, Job queue, any critical issues, and Backup success rate. You can also click View backed up apps in this pane to view applications that are local to a specific cluster.

In View backed up apps, view applications that are local to a specific cluster. The assumption here is that you assigned policies for these applications on the spoke.

You can also remove connections. See Remove connections.

Remove connections

You can search and remove connections.

From the Hub cluster, you can remove a Spoke or Agent cluster connection.
Note: The Backup & Restore service operations stops after the removal, however, all backups that are associated with this cluster remain available until they expire.
If the selected cluster is involved in a Regional DR, remove the Regional DR configuration before you remove the connection to the selected cluster.

If you remove the connection from the user interface, it removes the connection on both hub and spoke for that spoke. On the hub, there exists a connection for every spoke, so you must only remove the connection for the spoke to be uninstalled. There exists only one connection on the spoke or agent and hence you can remove it from the agent side safely. When you remove the connection on one cluster, the action removes it from both clusters.

Remove the connection first and then uninstall the agent.
  1. Search for a connection.
  2. From the ellipsis overflow menu of a connection record, click Remove connection.

    A Remove connection confirmation window is displayed.

  3. Click Remove
    A notification appears to confirm the successful removal of the connection. The cluster is not available in the table after the successful removal. From the removed Agent user interface, the following banner notification is displayed: 
    Unmanaged service The Backup & Restore Agent's connection to the Hub cluster has been removed.
Important: When a spoke cluster is removed, its application backups are deleted from storage when they expire. If the connection to the cluster is down but still configured, backups are retained until the connection is restored, and then deleted.

Alternatively, if you want to remove the connection from the hub side by using the oc delete connection command and more than one connection exists, then view the YAML and confirm the connected host that you want to remove.

If you want to remove the connection using oc commands, run the following commands: 
oc get connection

NAME                    AGE
connection-7d9a76ce09   25h

oc delete connection connection-7d9a76ce09

connection.application.isf.ibm.com "connection-7d9a76ce09" deleted