User roles

Depending on their role, enterprise application developers and backup administrators interact with different user interfaces to protect persistent data in containers.

Application developer

The enterprise application developer uses the Kubernetes command-line tool (kubectl) or OpenShift® command-line tool (oc) to complete the following tasks independent of the backup administrator:

• Initiates self-service backup and restore requests
• Selects a service level agreement (SLA) policy to use in backup requests to protect their volumes or resources
• Restores volumes and resources
• Views the status of backup and restore requests
• Queries information about snapshot and copy backups
• Removes SLA policy assignments from PVCs and resources
• Removes obsolete scheduled backup requests and on-demand snapshot requests

Backup administrator

The IBM Spectrum® Protect Plus administrator with the Containers admin role completes the following tasks:

• Deploys and sets up Container Backup Support software in the Kubernetes or OpenShift environment
• Creates the storage class for persistent volumes and the snapshot class for storing snapshots
• Installs and configures IBM Spectrum Protect Plus
• Completes the following tasks in the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus user interface:
  • Manually registers a Kubernetes or OpenShift cluster or updates the cluster properties
  • Manually runs an inventory to detect cluster resources
  • Creates SLA policies
  • Defines SLA backup jobs to protect volumes and resources
  • Removes SLA policy assignments from PVCs and resources
  • Restores volumes and resources
  • Monitors inventory, backup, and restore jobs by using the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus user interface
  • Generates reports that show the history of container backup jobs by using the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus user interface
• Completes troubleshooting tasks, such as collecting log files for debugging the Kubernetes or OpenShift environment and viewing trace log files for Container Backup Support.