vCenter Server Appliance - Backup/Restore Recommendations

Image-Based Backup of the VCSA may be performed for an added level of protection to compliment an existing native VCSA file-based backup. Preference should always be given to backing up and restoring using the native vCenter File-Based Backups.

Review: VMware vSphere User Guide: Considerations and Limitations for Image-Based Backup and Restore

Backup

• (Suggested) Create a dedicated backup job for the VCSA VM.
• (Suggested) Schedule the backup job protecting the VCSA VM to run when no other backup jobs occur.
  Scheduling this way will prevent conflicts when other backup jobs attempt to send requests to the VCSA VM when it may be briefly unavailable during snapshot creation and removal events, which occur at the start and end of the backup job.
• (Required) Disable VMware Tools Quiescence within the job protecting the VCSA VM
• (Required) Disable Application-Aware Processing and Guest File System Indexing within the job for the VCSA VM
   

Restore

• Before initiating an Image-Based restore of the VCSA VM, review the following documents:
  • VMware vSphere User Guide: Considerations and Limitations for Image-Based Backup and Restore
  • Restore a vCenter Server Image-based Environment
  • How to restore your vCenter when there is no vCenter
• Perform an Entire VM Restore or Instant VM Restore.