Kasten K10 vs. Hyperscalers

The Cloud-Native Backup Showdown

Navigating data protection for Kubernetes applications requires a specialized approach. Compare Kasten K10, the cloud-native expert, against the native backup offerings from AWS, Azure, and GCP.

Why Cloud-Native Backup is Different

Traditional VM backup tools fall short for Kubernetes. You're not just protecting volumes; you're protecting entire applications with their configuration, data, and dependencies.

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Application-Centric

Kubernetes applications are composed of multiple components (Pods, Deployments, Services, PVCs). Backup must capture all of it.

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Dynamic & Ephemeral

Containers are constantly created, scaled, and destroyed. Backup solutions need to adapt to this highly dynamic environment.

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Multi-Cloud Complexity

Deploying across hybrid and multi-cloud environments demands a unified data protection strategy that transcends single-cloud limitations.

Kasten K10: The Kubernetes Specialist

Kasten K10 is purpose-built for Kubernetes, offering comprehensive backup, disaster recovery, and application mobility with an application-centric approach.

Key Capabilities:

  • ✨ Application-Centric: Discovers, maps, and protects entire applications.
  • ☁️ Multi-Cloud & Hybrid: Seamlessly move and restore applications across any Kubernetes cluster.
  • ⚙️ Policy-Driven Automation: Automate backup policies, scheduling, and retention.
  • 🔒 Security & Compliance: Integrated encryption, RBAC, and data immutability.
  • 🔎 Granular Recovery: Restore at the application, namespace, or individual resource level.

K10

"The K8s Data Protection Platform"

Hyperscaler Native Options: The Generalists

Each hyperscaler provides native backup capabilities, which are strong for their respective infrastructure services. Achieving true application-centric Kubernetes protection often requires significant manual effort or integration of multiple disparate services.

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AWS

Primary Tools: AWS Backup, EBS/EFS snapshots.

  • Strong for underlying EC2, EBS, RDS data.
  • Volume-level snapshots for persistent storage.
  • Application-level consistency and full K8s resource backup requires custom scripting or external tools.
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Azure

Primary Tools: Azure Backup, Azure Disk Snapshots.

  • Integrated for Azure VMs, Managed Disks, SQL DBs.
  • Disk snapshots provide point-in-time recovery for volumes.
  • Application-level consistency and full K8s resource backup requires custom scripting or external tools.
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Google Cloud

Primary Tools: Google Cloud Backup and DR, GKE Persistent Disk Snapshots.

  • Robust for Compute Engine, Persistent Disks.
  • GKE Persistent Disk snapshots provide volume-level protection.
  • Application-level consistency and full K8s resource backup requires custom scripting or external tools.

Feature Showdown: Specialist vs. Generalists

A comparative look at how Kasten K10 and the collective native hyperscaler offerings stack up across critical cloud-native backup dimensions. (Score out of 10)

When to Choose What

The best choice depends on your specific cloud strategy and operational needs.

Choose Kasten K10 if you:

  • Require **true application-centric** backup for Kubernetes workloads.
  • Operate in **multi-cloud or hybrid-cloud** environments.
  • Need **seamless application mobility** and disaster recovery across clusters.
  • Prioritize **ease of use** and unified management for K8s data.
  • Demand advanced **security and compliance** for containerized apps.

Consider Native Hyperscaler Backups if you:

  • Are **primarily protecting VMs and foundational infrastructure** services.
  • Are **fully invested in a single cloud** provider's ecosystem.
  • Are comfortable with **custom scripting or manual integration** for K8s application protection.
  • Have **specific compliance needs** tied to native cloud services.
  • Are managing a **smaller scale** Kubernetes footprint with less complex application needs.