Kubernetes Backup Legitimized: CSI Changed Block Tracking Has Arrived- M. Lavi, C. Braganza, X. Yang
KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2025 · Session
The KubeCon EU talk "Kubernetes Backup Legitimized: CSI Changed Block Tracking Has Arrived" delivered by Shing Yang, Mark Lavi, and Carl Braganza, introduced a pivotal advancement in Kubernetes data protection: **Changed Block Tracking (CBT)**. This feature, long considered a fundamental capability in traditional virtual machine (VM) and bare-metal backup solutions, has been a notable omission in the cloud-native Kubernetes ecosystem. Its absence forced backup vendors to either implement full backups, leading to excessive storage, network, and compute consumption, or rely on proprietary vendor-specific solutions that undermined the portability promise of Kubernetes.
AI review
This talk delivered a critical update on a foundational capability long overdue in Kubernetes: standardized Changed Block Tracking (CBT). After two years of intensive community effort across multiple SIGs, KEP 3314 has finally brought a vendor-agnostic, efficient, and secure mechanism for incremental backups to cloud-native environments. This is not just an incremental feature; it's a pivotal advancement that legitimizes Kubernetes for enterprise-grade stateful applications, drastically improving RPO/RTO metrics and eliminating reliance on proprietary, inefficient solutions.