creating-on-demand-volume-snapshots-889bce3.md

Creating On-Demand Volume Snapshots

Prerequisites

A PersistentVolumeClaim (PVC) resource exists in the cluster.

Context

You can manually back up your volumes using the VolumeSnapshot Kubernetes resource. When you create a volume snapshot, you copy your volume's contents at that particular point in time. A VolumeSnapshot resource requires an existing source PVC and a VolumeSnapshotClass resource specified. Taking volume snapshots is possible thanks to Container Storage Interface (CSI) drivers, which allow third-party storage providers to expose storage systems in Kubernetes. The driver must be specified in the VolumeSnapshotClass resource.

Procedure

1. Create a VolumeSnapshot resource using the default VolumeSnapshotClass and your PVC name:

   kubectl apply -n {NAMESPACE} -f <<EOF
   apiVersion: snapshot.storage.k8s.io/v1
   kind: VolumeSnapshot
   metadata:
     name: snapshot
   spec:
     volumeSnapshotClassName: default
     source:
       persistentVolumeClaimName: {YOUR_PVC_NAME}
   EOF
   

   The VolumeSnapshot resource is created.

2. To verify that the snapshot was taken successfully, run kubectl get -n {NAMESPACE} volumesnapshot -w and check that the field READYTOUSE has status true.