feat: restore a PVC from the latest backup when empty

[Morriz]

Hi, your solution seems like a dream because it takes care of a lot of headaches. One thing that could be very useful is a routine that checks if the source PVC is empty, and let the controller start a restore procedure from the latest restore point.
This would result in transparent PVC restore upon cluster restoration (by re-applying only manifests).

Does this feature already exist or would that be easy to implement?

[rbren]

Thanks for the kind words!

I'm not sure I fully understand the use-case here. Maybe some example manifests or workflows would help?

[Morriz]

IF:

• after all manifests have been backed up by a backup solution (excluding PVCs)
• and after then destroying a cluster and bringing it back up
• redeploying all the manifests (including gemini CRs)

THEN:
The controller receives the CRs and upon processing them can check the PVC if it is empty, and could start a routine to restore onto that empty PVC from the latest snapshot

Hope that is clear enough ;)

[Morriz]

point I am making is to allow devs to specify snapshotting strategy, but allow platform admins to schedule cluster backups...in the scenario I just gave this would work together just fine :)