Authors: Andrew D’amario, Arie Pratama Sutiono, Mat Seto, Yip-Hing Ng 

In our previous blog on Backup & Restore in IBM Software Hub, we introduced the service orchestration framework designed to streamline the recovery process. In Software Hub 5.2.0, we have expanded the usage of backup and restore orchestration by integrating it into: Fusion, Trident protect, and Portworx DR. In addition, we enhanced backup-restore automation and introduced parallel hook execution. With these enhancements, Software Hub’s Backup & Restore 5.2.0 takes another step towards broader extensibility, higher reliability, faster backup-restore processing, for a more resilient data protection strategy. 

Emerging Challenges in Backup and Restore 

As customer environments grow more diverse, the platform must also accommodate a wide range of backup and restore (BR) criteria. To ensure the delivery of a robust and adaptable solution, these several key challenges must be addressed: 

• Support for Diverse Backup and Restore Vendors 
  • Lack of standardized service orchestration across third-party vendors complicates effective management of modern backup and restore workflows for the growing number and complexity of data and AI services. 
• Ensuring Backup Reliability
  • Backup processes often lack visibility and validation, making it hard to ensure reliability—especially in environments with custom configurations. 
• Optimizing RTO and RPO in Scaled Environments 
  • As organizations grow, maintaining efficient backup and restore processes becomes increasingly difficult, making it harder to meet critical RTO and RPO requirements. 

How is IBM Software Hub Responding to these Emerging Challenges in 5.2.0? 

Expanded Service Orchestration Across All Supported Backup & Restore Vendors 

In Software Hub 5.1.2, service orchestration was introduced to enhance maintainability, consistency, and interoperability across the platform. With the release of Software Hub 5.2.0, this orchestration has now been extended to support additional backup and restore (BR) vendors, such as Trident protect, Portworx DR, and IBM Fusion, further strengthening its value and improving consistency across them. So now the key advantages of service orchestration for improving interoperability among services and enabling a more dynamic and cohesive experience are integrated across all our supported backup and restore vendors. 

Notably, IBM Fusion Backup and Restore now supports this orchestration framework. This integration has been streamlined, providing users with both granular control and a comprehensive view of the backup and restore process. Figure 1 depicts the view from IBM Fusion after orchestration change, which lists more granular stages on what the restore process is doing. 

Figure 1: IBM Fusion Backup and Restore view displays more granular stages for services that will be restored. 

Enhanced Automation for Backup Reliability 

Ensuring backup integrity and reliability is fundamental to achieving reliable and complete restore. In response to customer needs, Software Hub 5.2.0 introduces three key enhancements designed to strengthen confidence in the backup and restore process: 

1. Prechecks for Environment Readiness 

To prevent backups from being taken in unstable or incomplete environments, automated prechecks have been implemented. These checks verify the readiness of all installed components and proactively alert users to any conditions that could compromise a successful backup and restore. 

2. Self-Healing Hooks 

Self-healing mechanisms are embedded within the backup and restore framework to automatically recover services during backup or rollback operations. These hooks help maintain process continuity without user intervention and reduce the risk of failure during critical operations. 

3. Prechecks for Environment Readiness 

A new introspection tool analyzes the completeness of each backup by inspecting all relevant Kubernetes resources. This ensures that backups are not only successfully created but are also fully validated and ready for restore. 

Enable Parallel Execution of backup-restore Hooks 

To enhance the efficiency of backup and restore operations, IBM Software Hub now supports parallel execution of backup and restore hooks. This non-linear approach allows multiple operations to run concurrently, significantly reducing overall runtime. The level of parallelism can be customized using the --max-parallel-ops parameter, enabling users to tailor performance based on their system capabilities. 

Conclusion 

IBM Software Hub 5.2.0 marks a significant step forward in delivering a resilient, flexible, and streamlined backup and restore experience.  Addressing key challenges such as diverse BR requirements, backup reliability, and scalability—this release introduces robust mechanisms including automated prechecks, self-healing hooks, and introspective validation tools.