Cloud

VMware Cloud Foundation Instance Recovery

Gabi NunesLeave a comment

The VMware Cloud Foundation Instance Recovery Guide provides guidance on recovering a VMware Cloud Foundation system by performing a complete reconstruction from a backup.

Scenarios
  • Complete site failure
  • Recovery from a malware or ransomware attack
  • Catastrophic logical corruption
VMware Cloud Foundation supported Versions
  • VMware Cloud Foundation 4.4.1
  • VMware Cloud Foundation 4.5.x
  • VMware Cloud Foundation 5.0.x
  • VMware Cloud Foundation 5.1.x
VMware Cloud Foundation Components to Back Up

All important data in a VMware Cloud Foundation system should be backed up to a remote backup site. This includes all VMs in the management domain and VMs in workload domains that require data protection.

After initial bring-up, the management domain contains a core set of VMs to manage the VMware Cloud Foundation system. When you deploy add-on components from the SDDC Manager Dashboard, for example, VMware Aria Automation, VMware Cloud Foundation deploys additional management VMs for those components. Finally, when you deploy a workload domain, VMware Cloud Foundation deploys additional VMs to manage the workload domain.

Backup Guidance

To enable a successful recovery of a VMware Cloud Foundation system, you must have a defined backup strategy.

The processes in this document use the following backup types. For configuring backups, see the guidance in the VMware Cloud Foundation Administration Guide.

VMware Cloud Foundation ComponentBackup Type
vCenter Server instancesFile
SDDC ManagerFile
NSX Manager nodesFile
Documenting the System Configuration of VMware Cloud Foundation

Keeping detailed as-built documentation on the system configuration eases the recovery process if a failure in your VMware Cloud Foundation system occurs.

Keep a record of the following items. Save this information on a secure secondary storage.

  • Topology diagrams of the VMware Cloud Foundation system
    • Physical networking
    • vSphere distributed switch networking
    • NSX networking
    • Workload domain configuration
    • Cluster configuration for each cluster in a workload domain
    • ESXi hosts assigned to each cluster
  • Networking information
    • ESXi host vmnic-to-switch port mappings
    • VM virtual NIC to distirbuted port group mappings
    • IP address information of the VMkernel interfaces on the ESXi hosts
    • IP address information of VMs
    • DNS, NTP, AD, and other well-known servers used by the VMware Cloud Foundation system

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