Handle PVCs without StorageClass as warning instead of blocking the backup

IBM Storage Fusion Backup & Restore should handle PVCs without an OpenShift StorageClass more gracefully during backup validation.

In some environments, especially with IBM Cloud Pak for Data, there can be many PVCs that refer to external NFS shares or externally managed storage. These PVCs may not contain an OpenShift StorageClass because the underlying storage is not provisioned through the OpenShift storage layer in the usual way.

Today, when Fusion detects such PVCs during the initial backup validation, the backup fails immediately with an error such as “No Storage Class found”. This prevents the backup from running, even if those PVCs are not intended to be protected by Fusion.

For Cloud Pak for Data, the recipe already provides a mechanism to exclude such PVCs from backup by applying a specific label. However, in practice, new PVCs of this type may appear frequently. Administrators then have to identify and label them manually before the backup can run successfully again. This creates recurring operational effort and can interrupt scheduled backups.

This issue is likely to become more relevant in the future, because external NFS shares and other externally managed storage integrations may also be used by other projects and applications.

Fusion should not stop the complete backup process when PVCs without a StorageClass are found. Instead, Fusion should automatically exclude these PVCs from the backup, continue the backup for all supported resources, and finish the job with a clear warning.

The warning should list the affected PVCs and explain that they were skipped because no StorageClass was found and therefore they could not be protected by Fusion Backup & Restore. Ideally, the warning should include namespace, PVC name, application or workload reference, and the reason for exclusion.

Business value:
This would make Backup & Restore more resilient in mixed storage environments, reduce manual labeling effort, prevent avoidable backup interruptions, and improve operational reliability for Cloud Pak for Data and other applications that use external NFS shares or PVCs without an OpenShift StorageClass.