File-Based Backup and Restore of vCenter Server Appliance

The vCenter Server Appliance supports a file-based backup and restore mechanism that helps you to recover your environment after failures.

In vSphere 6.5, you can use the vCenter Server Appliance Management Interface to create a file-based backup of the vCenter Server Appliance and Platform Services Controller appliance. After you create the backup, you can restore it by using the GUI installer of the appliance.

You use the vCenter Server Appliance Management Interface to perform a file-based backup of the vCenter Server core configuration, inventory, and historical data of your choice. The backed-up data is streamed over FTP, FTPS, HTTP, HTTPS, or SCP to a remote system. The backup is not stored on the vCenter Server Appliance.

You can perform a file-based restore only for a vCenter Server Appliance that you have previously backed up by using the vCenter Server Appliance Management Interface. You can perform such restore operation by using the GUI installer of the vCenter Server Appliance. The process consists of deploying a new vCenter Server Appliance and copying the data from the file-based backup to the new appliance.

Important: If you back up a vCenter Server Appliance High Availability cluster, the backup operation only backs up the primary vCenter Server instance. Before restoring a vCenter Server Appliance High Availability cluster, you must power off the active, passive, and witness nodes. The restore operation restores the vCenter Server in non- vCenter Server High Availability mode. You must reconstruct the cluster after the restore operation completes successfully.