Export vDS from ESXi

[Dr_Virt]

Have a cluster where the VCSA became corrupt and there was no backup. A new VCSA was deployed an all ESXi hosts imported.

All is well except networking. As the only networking on the cluster was VDS, the new vCenter errors with "The host proxy switch no longer exists in vCenter Server....".

I found the Export-VDS function, but it requires a functioning vCenter.

Does anyone know of a way to export a VDS from ESXi?

Does anyone know of a way to migrate the networking of a cluster, with VSAN and numerous VMS, without or with minimal service impact?

The recommendation from vCenter is to remove the VDS configuration, but we are concerned this will break/corrupt VSAN.

[daphnissov]

You can't export it from ESXi directly. Those settings are only stored in VCDB, so you are out of luck at this point. A tough lesson to learn about having proper backups.

[NicolasAlauzet]

You are in a complex scenario having vSAN and this networking issue.  Strongly recommend you to open a ticket with GSS and follow their advice to recover.

As daph said, leason learned and remember that you can also backup vcenter in a file level (using FTP, FTPS, HTTP, HTTPS or SCP) and image level with any backup tool for your virtual env.

VMware Knowledge Base

[Dr_Virt]

It is a none-critical environment, so backups were not considered priority.

Thank you, we will see what can be done.

[Dr_Virt]

Found that we can build a new VDS and migrate the interfaces and systems to the new VDS. Once the migration is complete, delete the old VDS.