vsphere data protection Archives

I had this question this week, what if I am using vSphere Data Protection (VDP) and my vCenter Server appliance (VCVA) crashes… well lets just test it.

I just killed my vCenter Server appliance and deleted if from disk. Next step is to get a brand new vCenter Server appliance up and running. So I deploy a brand new VCVA first. As I have pointed my vSphere Client directly to a host I will need to login to the commandline to configure my networking, you can use vami_config_net but also Yast.

/opt/vmware/share/vami/vami_config_net

Next I go through the regular setup and configuration steps. Create a Datacenter and a Cluster and add some hosts. Now I see my VDP appliance again in my inventory… but I don’t see those nice shiny VDP icons. So how do I get those back? Well that is simple, just register the appliance to the new vCenter Server:

Point your browser to the VDP configuration web page
https://<ip address or name of vdp appliance>:8543/vdp-configure/
Click on the “configuration” tab
Click on the lock to unlock the config
Now enter your appliance password
Provide the new vCenter Server details (in my case they are the same as the old so I just provide the password of the vCenter Server appliance)
Reboot the VDP appliance
Reboot the vCenter Server appliance

Now open up the Web Client and …

Click the “vSphere Data Protection” option in the left pane of your Web Client
If you see the “Not Connected” status, click “Connect”
That is it… now you can restore VMs again

Installing vSphere Data Protection is just a couple of steps. I downloaded the vSphere Replication virtual appliance. Note there are three different versions available and depending on how large your environment is you will need to select a version. I selected the 0.5TB version as I have a limited amount of virtual machines. This is how you import it and configure it, but before you begin I recommend ensuring DNS records are created before deploying the appliance!

Open the Web Client
Go to your cluster under “vCenter” —> “Hosts and Clusters”.
Right click the cluster object and click “All vCenter Actions” —> “Deploy OVF Template”
As a source I select the ova file I downloaded, now click “Next”
Validate the details and click “Next”
If you agree “Accept” the EULA and click “Next”
Enter the “Name” of the virtual machine and select the “Folder” this virtual machine will needs to be placed in and click “Next”
Select the “Datastore” it needs to be provisioned to and click “Next”
Select the “Network” it needs to be connected to and click “Next”
[Read more…] about Back to Basics: Install, configure and use vSphere Data Protection