This blog describes how to create a share on your Synology Diskstation NAS, and backup your vCenter Server Appliance configuration using the VAMI to your Network Attached Storage appliance.
If you’re looking for a way to backup your Virtual Machines… This is also possible through your Synology Diskstation, using the Active Backup for Business application, free for use and can be installed easily in Diskstation.
But why would you backup your vCenter Server Appliance?
It is good practice to backup your vCenter Server configuration, so you can always restore the backup using the VMware vCenter Server Appliance ISO and the Restore from Backup option.
There can be many reasons to create backups, but I recently ran into the case of KB96830, in which the vCenter Server Appliance is updated through the VAMI, the update to VCSA 8.0U2c is halted due to error “Internal error occurs during execution of update process. Pre-Install failed for vpxd:Expand”, as mentioned in the VMware Cloud Foundation 5.1.1 Release Notes. Since the workaround just does not work, you need to restore from backup. Note that a snapshot is not a backup.
Steps involved:
- For your Synology NAS:
- Create a share
- Allow for a user with correct permissions
- Allow the FTPS service or SMB service on your Synology NAS Diskstation Manager
- On your vCenter Appliance Management Interface (VAMI):
- Enable backup
- Provide the necessary information, such as:
- The correct protocol, e.g.
- ftps://[nasIP]/backup/VMware/ or
- smb://[nasIP]/backup/VMware/ or …
- Schedule, e.g. once per week at 1:59AM
- Credentials for your backup user
- Retention: number of backups to retain
- The correct protocol, e.g.
I truly hope you never need it