I’ve been using VDP (currently v6.1.4) in my vSphere v6.5 environment for a few weeks now and love it. But I’ve been getting very mixed signals from some VMware folks saying it should never be used for backing up the PSC and vCenter appliances. I currently have an external PSC and two VCSA’s registered with it. There’s an option to do a manual backup from within the configuration screen, but no options to do a scheduled backup.
Yet despite their warnings, VMware officially seems very clear that it can be used for backing up those items. See link below, for example...
http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-65/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.vmware.vsphere.install.doc%2FGUID-1C73996F-...
“You can use vSphere Data Protection or a third-party product that is integrated with VMware vSphere Storage APIs - Data Protection to back up and restore a virtual machine that contains vCenter Server, a vCenter Server Appliance, or a Platform Services Controller.”
I’m guessing that those who say no are concerned that the vPostgres DB doesn’t handle snapshots very well. But as long as the DB is quiesced before the snapshot is done, that shouldn’t be a problem, I would think. Doesn’t VMware Tools, which is installed in the VCSA, do that?
Anyway, I’d be interested in some more opinions. Is VMware telling this to all their customers privately, despite what is written in the official docs?
