Backing up vCenter Server
vCenter Server
The
vCenter Server
supports backing up key parts of the vCenter Server
instance. This allows you to protect vCenter Server
data and to minimize the time required to restore data center
operations. The backup process collects key files into a tar bundle
and compresses the bundle to reduce network load. To minimize storage impact, the
transmission is streamed without caching in the
vCenter Server
instance. To reduce total time required to complete the backup
operation, the backup process handles the different components in parallel. You have the option to encrypt
the compressed file before transmission to the backup storage location. When
you choose encryption, you must supply a password which can be used to decrypt
the file during restoration.
The backup operation always includes the
vCenter Server
database and system configuration files, so that a restore
operation has all the data needed to re-create an operational vCenter Server
instance. Current Alarms are included
as well. You also have the option to specify additional data sets, called parts. In this
release, you can specify a data set that includes Statistics, Events, and Tasks.