Restore a vCenter Server Appliance from a File-Based Backup

You can use the vCenter Server Appliance GUI installer to restore a vCenter Server Appliance to an ESXi host or a vCenter Server instance. The restore procedure has two stages. The first stage deploys a new vCenter Server Appliance. The second stage populates the newly deployed vCenter Server Appliance with the data stored in the file-based backup.

Note: The vCenter Server Appliance GUI installer does not support restore from a backup with NFS or SMB protocol. To perform a restore from an NFS or SMB protocol, use the vCenter Server Appliance Management API.

Figure 1. vCenter Server Appliance Restore Workflow

Perform a file-based restore of a Platform Services Controller only when the last Platform Services Controller in the domain fails. If there are other Platform Services Controller instances in the same vCenter Single Sign-On domain, deploy a new Platform Services Controller instance and join it to the existing Single Sign-On domain.

Figure 2. Platform Services Controller Appliance Restore Workflow

Prerequisites

• Verify that your system meets the minimum software and hardware requirements. See System Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance and Platform Services Controller Appliance.
• If the vCenter Server instance is part of a vCenter High Availability cluster, you must power off the active, passive, and witness nodes of the cluster before restoring the vCenter Server.