ESXI Host Backups

[Bankesy]

Good morning,

 

Very new to my current role and this VMWare environment and was just wondering if anybody had any advice or guidance when it comes to backing up the ESXI hosts configuration please?

 

As far as I can tell this has never been done here and I have no experience in doing so, I've reached out to VMWare support but hoping somebody can explain best practice to me in a different way that I might understand.

 

Thanks

[MS2011]

Good morning,

 

Very new to my current role and this VMWare environment and was just wondering if anybody had any advice or guidance when it comes to backing up the ESXI hosts configuration please?

 

As far as I can tell this has never been done here and I have no experience in doing so, I've reached out to VMWare support but hoping somebody can explain best practice to me in a different way that I might understand.

 

Thanks

 

Veeam is the best to backup VMware and hyperv

[howartp]

It's a fair question that i've never considered; Veeam only backs up the VMs on the vSphere hosts to my knowledge - the OP is asking about backing up the Host configuration which is certainly a valid thought.

 

Anyone any thoughts on that?

[3s-gtech]

Never done it myself. I’ve had to rebuild the host quite a few times - where a UPS has failed or a memory stick died running the hypervisor. I just keep a few notes and rebuild it from them - but my config is very simple. I can then reattach the VMs back on, and their configs are resumed as they were.

 

I’m sure you can export the config in some way.

[Koldov]

Is this any help?

 

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2042141

[Davit2005]

Never done it myself. I’ve had to rebuild the host quite a few times - where a UPS has failed or a memory stick died running the hypervisor. I just keep a few notes and rebuild it from them - but my config is very simple. I can then reattach the VMs back on, and their configs are resumed as they were.

 

I’m sure you can export the config in some way.

 

Same here, jus documented the settings of the hosts including the management, virtual standard switches, etc.

 

If you use VMware Distributed switches (VDS) I would back up those as well as obviously backing up vCenter too, the Appliance (VM) and the configuration.

[Bankesy]

Thanks, that's the article VMWare support sent over but I was just curious to see what other people are doing.

 

I'm going to give it a go and see what happens.

[FN-GM]

It's a fair question that i've never considered; Veeam only backs up the VMs on the vSphere hosts to my knowledge - the OP is asking about backing up the Host configuration which is certainly a valid thought.

 

Anyone any thoughts on that?

 

If you’re using vsphere configuration should be on the vcentre server?