Backing up VCSA 6.5 - external PSC recommended for succesfull restore, yes or no?

[srodenburg]

Bonjour,

I read something the other day that confuses me. In the vBlock 740 Series AMP with 6.5 U1 "Design guide", Dell/EMC writes:

"Deployment of the PSC and VMware vCenter server using a non-recommended topology may prevent backing up and restoring a VMware vCenter server environment with a PSC(s)."

The diagram below includes the following topology:

• One SSO domain
• One SSO site
• One or more VMware vCenter Servers with two external PSC in two or more Converged System

I'll spare you the diagram. It shows a vCenter Appliance and two external PSC appliances. Load-balancing PSC's is not allowed in a vBlock AMP (must re-point vCenter to secondary PSC when the first PSC dies).

Anyway, what they are saying is that this constellation allows backup and restore. If one would build a vCenter Appliance with embedded PSC, it "may prevent backing up and restoring a VMware vCenter server environment with a PSC(s)."

Is this true? Is backing-up and restoring a vCenter environment troublesome with an embedded PSC ??

[daphnissov]

No, it's bunk, at least in my experience. There's nothing wrong with the backup/restore process for an embedded PSC model that I've ever found.

[Finikiez]

There is no troube to backup VCSA with embeded PSC. However there are some limitations you should be aware of Considerations and Limitations for File-Based Backup and Restore

If you have external PSC you need to backup them as well.

Also some notes about file level restore when you have several external PSCs in the same SSO domain

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.

Restore a vCenter Server Appliance from a File-Based Backup