In the appliance management interface, you generate new a appliance backup archive. Download the backup archive as a file and then preserve it on an external storage device for future restore of the stack to that moment in time.

Since VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.4, backing up the On-Premises to Cloud Director Replication Appliance can be allowed from the cloud site. Backing up the On-Premises to Cloud vCenter Replication Appliance or the vCenter Replication Management Appliance can only be performed locally from the appliance.

This backup archive contains the following information from the appliance:

  • Configuration files
  • Public certificate
  • Keystore
  • Database dump
This information is stored as an .enc appliance backup file. When generating the backup, you provide a password that encrypts the appliance backup file to preserve any sensitive information.

The backup does not contain:

  • The appliance root user password.
  • Any previous backup archives.
  • Any support bundles.
  • The time server configuration.
Locally, the appliances can store up to 24 backup archives on their internal storage. Past that number, you must delete some of them, or attempting to create another backup, shows Backup quota exceeded. Number of allowed backups: 24, current backup count: 24. Such limit does not apply for the Scheduled backup archives that are stored on an external SFTP storage. For more information, see Schedule backup archives.

Prerequisites

  • Verify that before taking a backup, the appliance is operational.
  • Verify that the free disk space value in the bottom of the System health page shows at least 35%.

Procedure

  1. Log in to the management interface of the VMware Cloud Director Availability appliance.
    1. In a Web browser, go to https://Appliance-IP-Address/ui/admin.
    2. Select Appliance login or SSO login and enter the root or the single sign-on user credentials.
    3. Click Login.
  2. In the left pane, click Backup Archives.
  3. In the Backup archives page, click Generate new.
  4. In the Create backup archive window, create a backup archive of the appliance.
    1. In the Password text box, enter the password to protect and encrypt the backup archive.
      The password that you enter must be a secured password with a minimum of eight characters and it must consist of:
      • At least one lowercase letter.
      • At least one uppercase letter.
      • At least one number.
      • At least one special character, such as & # % .
    2. In the Confirm Password text box, reenter the password to confirm the password that encrypts the backup.
    3. Store this password in a safe place since it cannot be restored later.
    4. Click Create.
    In the Backup archives page, you see the progress of generating the new backup archive.
  5. To download one of the generated backup archives, in the Backup Id column, click the backup id link.
    1. In the Download Backup Archive window, to save the backup file locally click Download.
      In your Web browser, the on-premises-backup-product_version-instance_id-date-timestampUTC.tar.bz2.enc file starts downloading.
    2. Store the locally downloaded backup file and its password for future restore of the appliance to that moment in time.

Results

The appliance backup on-premises-backup-product_version-instance_id-date-timestampUTC.tar.bz2.enc file downloaded locally.

What to do next

You can later use one of the locally downloaded backup files to restore the appliance to that moment in time. For more information, see Restore the appliance.