In this chapter, we will cover the following recipes:
Backing up ESXi host configurations
Configuring ESXi host logging
Backing up virtual distributed switch configurations
Deploying VMware Data Protection
Using VMware Data Protection to back up virtual machines
Replicating virtual machines with vSphere Replication
Protecting the virtual datacenter with Site Recovery Manager
The factors that influence the design of the backup and recovery of the virtual datacenter are Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO). RPO defines the amount of data loss that is acceptable. RTO is the amount of time it should take to restore an application or service a workload after an outage.
The acceptable RPO and RTO should be defined for each workload. It is important to consider the application's dependencies when determining the RPO and RTO. Specifically, the RTO of an application will depend on the RTO of all of the application's dependencies. For example, if an application depends on a database server and the RTO of the database server is determined to be 2 hours, then the RTO of the application itself cannot be less than 2 hours if the outage affects both the server running the application and the database server that supports the application.
vSphere provides many options that provide the continued operation of the virtual machines and the...
A complete backup of an ESXi host is not necessary because the installation of ESXi is a quick and simple process. Host configurations should be backed up in order to quickly restore the configuration of a host in case ESXi needs to be reinstalled.
If hosts are deployed using auto deploy or the host configurations are stored in a host profile, the individual backups of host configurations may not be required but are a good way to ensure that a backup of the host configuration is available in case there is an issue with vCenter or a configured host profile.
The simplest way to back up ESXi host configurations is to use the vicfg-cfgbackup vCLI command, as shown in the following steps:
Use the vicfg-cfgbackup vCLI command to create a backup of an ESXi host configuration:
vicfg-cfgbackup –server <esxihostname> -s <pathtobackupfile>
Use the vicfg-cfgbackup vCLI command to restore an ESXi host configuration from a backup:
vicfg-cfgbackup...Having access to the ESXi host logs is required in order to troubleshoot or determine the root cause of an ESXi host failure. Redirecting host logs to persistent storage or to a Syslog server is especially important when a host has not been installed to persistent storage, for example, a stateless host deployed using vSphere Auto Deploy or a host that has been installed to a USB stick.
Logging may not seem to be a key component in disaster recovery. Having a proper backup of the host configuration allows a host to be quickly returned to a service. However, if the root cause of the failure cannot be determined, preventing the failure from happening again cannot be guaranteed. Logs are the best source to perform analyses in order to determine the root cause of a failure and determine the best course of action required to prevent future failures.
Virtual distributed switch configurations can be exported to a file. The file contains the switch configuration settings and can also contain information about the dvPortGroup configurations. This file can then be used to restore the virtual distributed switch configuration or import the configuration to a different deployment.
Virtual distributed switch import, export, and restore operations are available in the vSphere Web Client.
Virtual distributed switch configurations should be exported before making changes to the distributed virtual switches in a production environment in order to ensure that the switch can be restored to an operational state in the event of a configuration error.
vSphere Data Protection (VDP) is an easy-to-deploy, Linux-based virtual appliance that leverages EMC Avamar to provide the backup and recovery of virtual machines. Before the release of vSphere 6, VDP was available in two versions: VDP and VDP Advance. VDP Advance required a separate license to enable advanced features. In VDP 6, these have been combined and VDP 6 includes all the capabilities, with no requirement for additional licensing. VDP 6 provides the following capabilities:
8TB of deduplicated capacity per VDP appliance
An application-aware agent for Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL, and Microsoft Sharepoint
Backup replication to another VDP appliance
Automated backup verification
Backup to an EMC Data Domain appliance
In order to deploy VDP, perform the following steps:
Download the VMware Data Protection appliance from http://www.vmware.com/go/download-vsphere.
Deploy the vSphere Data Protection Appliance from the OVA. Enter the appliance...
Virtual machine backups using the VDP appliance are created and managed using the vSphere Web Client connected to vCenter, where the VDP appliance has been registered.
Perform the following steps to create a backup job in order to protect virtual machines using VDP:
In the vSphere Web Client, select vSphere Data Protection and connect to the VDP appliance.
Select the Backup tab, and from the Backup job actions menu, select New, as shown in the following screenshot:
Select the type of backup to be performed—either Full Image, which is a complete backup of the virtual machine, including all the disks and configurations—or Individual Disks, which are individual virtual machine disks (VMDKs), as shown in the following screenshot:
Select the backup targets. Targets can be vCenter inventory objects, including datacenters, clusters, resource pools, or individual virtual machines. The following screenshot illustrates the selection...
vSphere Replication is included for free with vSphere Essentials Plus or higher. vSphere Replication allows virtual machines to be replicated between sites or between datastores on the same site. It leverages Change Block Tracking (CBT) to replicate changes only between the source virtual machines and the replication target.
vSphere Replication appliances are deployed at each site participating in the replication. Multiple vSphere Replication appliances can be deployed in order to improve the replication performance.
To deploy vSphere Replication and configure a virtual machine for replication, perform the following steps:
Download the vSphere Replication appliance from http://www.vmware.com/go/download-vsphere.
The vSphere Replication appliance is deployed from an OVA. During OVA deployment, the initial configuration of the administrator password, the database, and the management network IP address are configured, as shown in...
Site Recovery Manager (SRM) is a VMware product that provides a framework to automate the protection and failover between VMware-virtualized datacenters. SRM is licensed as a separate product. Licensing is per-VM protected, and there are two license editions: Standard and Enterprise. The Standard edition provides protection for up to 75 virtual machines, and the Enterprise edition can protect an unlimited number of virtual machines.
A complete book can be dedicated to the implementation and use of SRM. This book is just meant to be a quick overview of the configuration and capabilities of SRM. More information on the implementation and use of SRM can be found in the SRM documentation at http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/srm_pubs.html.
© 2016 Packt Publishing Limited All Rights Reserved
