The backup datastore stores all the data that is required to recover services according to a Recovery Point Objective (RPO). Determine the target location. It must meet performance requirements.

VADP-compatible backup solutions can use deduplication technology to back up virtual environments at the data-block level for efficient disk utilization. To optimize backups and use the VMware vSphere Storage APIs, all ESXi hosts must have access to the production storage.

To back up the management components of the SDDC, size your secondary storage appropriately. You must provide at least 12 TB of capacity without considering deduplication capabilities.

Table 1. Design Decisions on the Backup Datastore

Decision ID

Design Decision

Design Justification

Design Implication

CSDDC-OPS-BKP-003

Allocate a dedicated datastore for the VADP-compatible backup solution and the backup data according to the NFS Physical Design.

  • Emergency restore operations are possible even when the primary VMware vSAN datastore is not available because the VADP-compatible backup solution storage volume is separate from the primary vSAN datastore.

  • The amount of storage required for backups is greater than the amount of storage available in the vSAN datastore.

You must provide additional capacity using a storage array.
CSDDC-OPS-BKP-004

Provide secondary storage with a capacity of 2 TB on-disk.

Secondary storage handles the backup of the management stack of a single region. The management stack consumes approximately 2 TB of disk space, uncompressed and without deduplication.

You must provide more secondary storage capacity to accommodate increased disk requirements.