Backup Procedure for VMware Components !

One of my customers , wanted to know the backup procedure for all VMware products used in our environment.

I digged a bit to start collecting the procedure for all components and spent good amount of time. Then, wanted to organize them all in one place and the result is this blog post !

Backup Procedure for NSX Load Balancers / Firewall Rules / NAT Rules:

NOTE:  Load balancer configuration and NAT rules are backed up / restored as part of NSX manager backup and restore operation (includes every NSX edge). A separate guideline is not required for the same.

To export the Firewall Rules in NSX environment:

1. Login into the vSphere Web client with administrator@vsphere.local
2. Navigate to Home — > Networking & Security — > Firewall.
3. On the Firewall page, from the NSX Manager drop-down menu, select the IP address of the NSX Manager instance.
4. On the Firewall page, from the More drop-down menu, select “Export Current Configuration”
5. Click on Download and save the XML file to the local disk.

Backup Procedure for vCenter Server / PSC appliance:

 Note: This section contains the procedure for File-based backup of vCenter [VCSA] / PSC. For Image level back-up, refer to the Administration guide provided by respective third party vendor.

1. In a Web browser, go to the vCenter Server Appliance Management Interface,  https://appliance-IP-address-or-FQDN:5480.
2. Login with root credentials.
3. In the vCenter Server Appliance Management Interface, click Summary.
4. Click The Backup Appliance Wizard opens.
5. Select all the Tasks, Events, and stats in the next window
6. Click Finish.
7. After the backup process finishes, click OK to close the Backup Progress window

Backup procedure for VMware vCloud Director Database (MS SQL Server)

Note:  This procedure includes only database backup. So far , i don’t have the procedure for backing up vCD appliance through FTP – Follow [https://communities.vmware.com/thread/623584] for more information.

1. Login to the database servers with administrative privileges. (Local administrator preferably).
2. Start — > Microsoft SQL Server Management studio.
3. In the left pane, open Databases
4. Right click on vCloud database — > Tasks — > Backup as shown In image below.

5. In the Backup wizard, click on “Add”. Browse the location to store the backup file accordingly.

Backup Guidelines for vROPS Manager appliance: [vRealize Operations Manager ]

NOTE: Back up the entire virtual machine. You must back up all VMDK files that are part of the virtual appliance. vROPS manager appliance can be backed up and restored using Avamar , vSphere data protection etc., . So far FTP based backup procedure is not available.

1. Do not stop the cluster while performing the backup.
2. Do not perform backup while dynamic threshold (DT) calculations are running because this might lead to performance issues or loss of nodes. DT calculations run at 2 a.m. by default.
3. Verify that all nodes are powered on and are accessible while the backup is taking place.
4. Disable quiescing.

Backup Procedure for vRLI – Server Configuration: [vRealize Log Insight ]

Note:  This procedure includes only configuration backup. vRLI appliance – image level backup can be taken by using vSphere Data Protection or other backup tools.

I copied the vRLI related content from below link.

http://www.vmignite.com/2017/01/log-insight-4-0-how-to-manually-backup-and-restore-settings/

1. Login to the vRLI admin page using the following Link. [username: admin] https://<vRLI_VirtualIP>/internal/config
2. Click on “Show all settings check box” as shown in image below.
3. Open Notepad and paste everything into Notepad. Save the settings.

Backup Procedure for vRLI – Custom dashboards, alerts, queries, agent groups:

1. Login to the vRLI admin page [username: admin]
2. Navigate to Content packs — > Installed content packs.
   1. Click on each content pack and select the setting [Gear] icon.
3. Select “Export”
4. Follow the same procedure for all content packs.
   1. General
   2. Linux
   3. Microsoft- Active directory
   4. Microsoft SQL server
   5. VMware – NSX vSphere
   6. VMware – vCloud Director
   7. VMware – vRops 6.x
   8. VMware – vSphere

 

Backup Guidelines for vRNI Appliance: [ vRealize Network insight]

NOTE: Back up the entire virtual machine. You must back up all VMDK files that are part of the virtual appliance. vRNI appliance can be backed up and restored using Avamar , vSphere data protection etc., . So far FTP based backup procedure is not available.

Backup flow: Shutdown vRNI Platform VMs in reverse order (N, N-1, N-2…1) → Backup → Power on in forward order (1, 2… N)

1. Any VM based & VMware ready backup solution can be used. Example are EMC Avamar, VMware VDP, etc.
2. Gracefully Shutdown (select “Shut Down Guest OS”, do not “Power Off”) all platform nodes sequentially in reverse order
3. Initiate the backup
4. After backup process completion, power on the vRNI cluster nodes sequentially in forward order.
5. No data will be lost during the backup process as proxy will continue to collect the data from Data sources
6. After powering on vRNI platform nodes, all data will be processed
7. Proxy can store up to 3 days of data after disconnecting from platform
8. Snapshots cannot be considered as backup
9. Snapshots are not recommended in production environments
10. VMware doesn’t recommend running VMs with snapshots for more than 3 days.

Backup Procedure for SRM vPostgres database:

In our environment we are using SRM server installed in Windows server [Windows Server 2012 R2] with embedded SRM postgres database.

NOTE:  VAMI is available only from SRM 8.1 for appliance management.

[ https://blogs.vmware.com/virtualblocks/2019/05/14/srm-8-2-appliance-upgrading/ ]

1. Log into the system on which you installed Site Recovery Manager Server.
2. Stop the Site Recovery Manager service.
3. Navigate to the folder that contains the vPostgres commands.
4. If you installed Site Recovery Manager Server in the default location, you find the vPostgres commands in  “C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager Embedded Database\bin”

6. Create a backup of the embedded vPostgres database by using the pg_dump command.

pg_dump -Fc –host 127.0.0.1 –port port_number –username=db_username srm_db > srm_backup_name

You set the port number, username, and password for the embedded vPostgres database when you installed Site Recovery Manager. The default port number is 5678. The database name is srm_db and cannot be changed.

 

I am trying to add more of VMware components and their backup procedures to this blog post as i work ! Please give your suggestions if you feel anything can be added here !