Freezer
Freezer is an OpenStack project that provides backup, restore, and Disaster Recovery (DR) (data protection) services for OpenStack environments and related infrastructure workloads.
- Backup and restore orchestration for OpenStack workloads and filesystems (data protection).
- Support for full and incremental backups, including block-level and file-level strategies (backup management).
- Integration with OpenStack Identity and other core services for multi-tenant backup policies (cloud infrastructure integration).
- Command-line client, Application Programming Interface (API) service, and scheduler/agent components for backup job execution and automation (operations tooling).
- Pluggable storage backends for storing backup data, such as object storage compatible with OpenStack Swift (storage integration).
More About Freezer
Freezer is an OpenStack data protection project that addresses backup, restore, and DR requirements for cloud workloads deployed on OpenStack. It targets use cases where operators and tenants need to protect instances, volumes, and filesystems, and coordinate backup jobs in a multi-tenant cloud environment. Freezer is designed to operate in large-scale infrastructures where automation, policy control, and integration with OpenStack services are required.
The project provides a backup and restore service (data protection) that can handle filesystem-level and block-level backups. It supports full and incremental backup strategies to reduce storage consumption and backup windows. Freezer can back up data to storage backends such as OpenStack Swift-compatible object storage (object storage) and other configured targets, depending on deployment choices. By leveraging incremental and compression options described in its documentation, it enables operators to tune backup behavior based on performance and storage constraints.
Freezer architecture typically includes an API service, one or more agents, and a scheduler (operations automation). The API exposes endpoints for managing backup jobs, sessions, and configurations. Agents run on nodes where data needs to be protected, executing backup and restore operations according to defined jobs. The scheduler coordinates execution, enabling recurring or time-based backup policies. A command-line client (CLI tooling) allows operators and tenants to create, list, and manage jobs and sessions through scripts and operational workflows.
The project integrates with OpenStack Identity (Keystone) for authentication and authorization (identity and access). This allows Freezer to operate in a multi-tenant context, aligning backup policies with OpenStack projects and user roles. It can also interact with other OpenStack components, such as using Swift for object storage or being deployed alongside compute and block storage services. This integration positions Freezer as part of the OpenStack ecosystem for infrastructure operations and lifecycle management.
In enterprise and institutional settings, Freezer is used to implement backup strategies for virtual machines, attached volumes, application data directories, and configuration files running on OpenStack-based clouds. Operators can define job configurations that specify source paths, backup level, storage backend, bandwidth limits, and scheduling. These capabilities support regulatory compliance, operational continuity, and recovery planning within OpenStack environments.
From a taxonomy perspective, Freezer fits into the data protection and DR (IT operations and resilience) category, focused on backup orchestration for cloud infrastructure. It provides an open-source mechanism for coordinating backup workflows that are aware of OpenStack authentication, tenants, and storage services, making it a component often grouped with infrastructure management and operations tools within OpenStack deployments.