||Back up a vCenter Server Appliance by the vCenter Server Appliance Management Interface |&| Restore using vCenter Server Appliance installer ISO ||

Taking Backup Of vCenter Server Appliance

You can use the vCenter Server Management Interface to back up the vCenter Server instance. You can select whether to include historical data, such as stats, events, and tasks, in the backup file.

To Access vCenter Server Appliance Management Interface (VAMI) :- In a Web browser, go to the vCenter Server Appliance Management Interface, https://appliance-IP-address-or-FQDN:5480. & Log in as root.

Prerequisites for Backup : -

• You must have an FTP, FTPS, HTTP, HTTPS, SFTP, NFS, or SMB server up and running with sufficient disk space to store the backup.

Procedure for Backup: -        

• In a Web browser, go to the vCenter Server Management Interface.
• Log in as root.
• In the vCenter Server Management Interface, click Backup. The table under Activity displays the most current backup version taken of the vCenter Server.
• Click Backup Now. The Backup Appliance wizard opens.
• (Optional) Select Use backup location and user name from backup schedule to use the information from a scheduled backup.
• Enter the backup location details.

• (Optional) Enter an Encryption Password if you want to encrypt your backup file. If you select to encrypt the backup data, you must use the encryption password for the restore procedure.
• (Optional) Select Stats, Events, and Tasks to back up additional historical data from the database.
• (Optional) In the Description text box, enter a description of the backup.
• Click Start to begin the backup process.

Results :-

The complete and in progress backups are listed under Activity.

Restoring vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA)

Prerequisites for Restore: -

• You must be having VCSA backed up files in place.
• Download and mount the vCenter Server Appliance installer. See Download and Mount the vCenter Server Appliance Installer.
• If you plan to restore the vCenter Server Appliance on an ESXi host, verify that the target ESXi host is not in lockdown or maintenance mode.
• If you plan to restore the vCenter Server Appliance on a DRS cluster of a vCenter Server inventory, verify that the cluster contains at least one ESXi host that is not in lockdown or maintenance mode.
• If you plan to assign a static IP address to the appliance, verify that you have configured the forward and reverse DNS records for the IP address.
• If you are attempting to restore a vCenter Server instance that is still running, power off the backed up vCenter Server before you start the restore operation.

Procedure for Restore:-        

1. In the vCenter Server Appliance installer, navigate to the vcsa-ui-installer directory, go to the subdirectory for your operating system, and run the installer executable file.

• For Windows OS, go to the win32 subdirectory, and run the installer.exe file.
• For Linux OS, go to the lin64 subdirectory, and run the installer file.
• For Mac OS, go to the mac subdirectory, and run the Installer. App file.

2. On the Home page, click Restore.

3. Review the Introduction page to understand the restore process and click Next.

4. Read and accept the license agreement, and click Next.

5. On the Enter backup details page, enter the details of the backup file that you want to restore, and click Next.

6. Review the backup information, and click Next.

7. Connect to the ESXi host or vCenter Server on which you want to deploy the vCenter Server Appliance to use for the restore operation.

8. Accept the certificate warning.

9. Enter a name for the vCenter Server Appliance, set up the password for the root user, and click Next.

10. Select the deployment size for the new vCenter Server Appliance depending on the size of your vSphere inventory.

11. Select the storage size for the new vCenter Server Appliance, and click Next.

Important: You must consider the storage size of the appliance that you are restoring.

12. From the list of available datastores, select the location where all the virtual machine configuration files and virtual disks will be stored and, optionally, enable thin provisioning by selecting Enable Thin Disk Mode.

13. On the Configure network settings page review the settings populated from the backup file of the vCenter Server Appliance.

14. (Optional) Edit the network configuration to match the current network environment where the vCenter Server Appliance is restored.

15. On the Ready to complete stage 1 page, review the deployment settings for the restored vCenter Server Appliance and click Finish to start the OVA deployment process.

16. Wait for the OVA deployment to finish, and click Continue to proceed with stage 2 of the restore process to transfer the data to the newly deployed appliance.

Note: If you exit the wizard by clicking Close, you must log in to the vCenter Server Appliance Management Interface to transfer the data.

Results:- The newly deployed vCenter Server Appliance is running on the target server but the data is not copied from the backup location.

Stage 2 - Transfer Data to the Newly Deployed Appliance         

After the OVA deployment finishes, you are redirected to stage 2 of the restore process in which the data from the backup location is copied to the newly deployed vCenter Server appliance.

Procedure:-

1. Review the introduction to stage 2 of the restore process and click Next.
2. Review the backup details and click Next.
3. If you are restoring a node with enhanced linked mode support for vCenter Server appliance, you are asked to provide the Single Sign-On credentials. Enter the Single Sign-On user name and password, then click Validate and Recover.
4. On the Ready to complete page, review the details, click Finish, and click OK to complete stage 2 of the restore process. The restore process restarts the vCenter Server Management Service. You cannot access the vCenter Server Management API during the restart.

Important: If a restore operation of a vCenter Server appliance VM results with a failure, you must power off and delete the partially restored VM. After that you can try to restore the VM again.

5. (Optional) After the restore process finishes, click the https://vcenter_server_appliance_fqdn/ui to go to the vSphere Client and log in to the vCenter Server instance , or click the https://vcenter_server_appliance_fqdn:443 to go to the vCenter Server Getting Started page.

6. Click Close to exit the wizard. You are redirected to the vCenter Server Getting Started page.

7. If the backed up vCenter node is part of a vCenter High Availability cluster, the last needs to be reconfigured after the restore operation completes successfully.

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