Restoring to Cloud Servers Using VMware Backups

Context

• Backups synchronized to the cloud cannot be used to create cloud servers.
• Synchronized backups can only be used to restore to other cloud servers and can be restored to system disks or data disks.
• Before the restoration, configure security groups according to the procedure. Otherwise, the restoration may fail.
• When LVM is used to manage the system disks of VMware VMs, VMware backups cannot be restored to cloud servers.
• VMware backup data only can be restored to cloud servers running the same OS as the source VMware VMs, for example, Linux to Linux, Windows to Windows.
• CBR backups inherit the boot mode of source data. When you use a backup of a VMware VM in the IDC to restore data to an ECS, the boot mode of the ECS image must be the same as that of the VMware VM OS, otherwise the ECS may fail to start. For example, if the OS boot mode of the VMware VM is UEFI (or BIOS), the boot mode of the ECS image must also be UEFI (or BIOS), otherwise the ECS may fail to start.

Changing a Security Group

A security group is a collection of access control rules for ECSs that have the same security protection requirements and are mutually trusted in a VPC. After a security group is created, you can create different access rules for the security group to protect the ECSs that are added to this security group. The default security group rule allows all outgoing data packets. ECSs in a security group can access each other without the need to add rules. The system creates a security group for each cloud account by default. You can also create custom security groups by yourself.

Before using the VMware backup restoration function, you need to change the security group. To ensure network security, CBR has not set the inbound direction of a security group, so you need to manually configure it.

In the outbound direction of the security group, ports 1 to 65535 on the 100.125.0.0/16 network segment must be configured. In the inbound direction, ports 59526 to 59528 on the 100.125.0.0/16 network segment must be configured. The default outbound rule is 0.0.0.0/0, that is, all data packets are permitted. If the default rule in the outbound direction is not modified, you do not need to configure the outbound direction.

1. Access the cloud server console.
2. In the navigation pane on the left, choose Elastic Cloud Server. On the page displayed, select the target server. Go to the target server details page.
3. Click the Security Groups tab and select the target security group. On the right of the ECS page, click Modify Security Group Rule for an ECS.
4. On the Security Groups page, click the Inbound Rules tab, and then click Add Rule. The Add Inbound Rule dialog box is displayed, as shown in Figure 1. Select TCP for Protocol/Application, enter 59526-59528 in Port & Source, select IP address for Source and enter 100.125.0.0/16. After supplementing the description, click OK to complete the setting of the inbound rule.
   Figure 1 Adding an inbound rule

   

5. Click the Outbound Rules tab, and then click Add Rule. The Add Outbound Rule dialog box is displayed, as shown in Figure 2. Select TCP for Protocol/Application, enter 1-65535 in Port & Source, select IP address for Destination and enter 100.125.0.0/16. After supplementing the description, click OK to complete the setting of the outbound rule.
   Figure 2 Adding an outbound rule

   

Restoring Data Using a VMware Backup

1. Log in to the CBR console.
   1. Log in to the management console.
   2. Click in the upper left corner and select a region.
   3. Click and choose Storage > Cloud Backup and Recovery. Select a backup type from the left navigation pane.

2. Click the Backups tab. Locate the desired backup. For details, see Viewing a Backup.
3. In the row of the backup, click Restore. See Figure 3. If no ECS is available, purchase ECSs by referring to Purchasing a Custom ECS.
   Figure 3 Restoring VMware backup data to another server
   

4. (Optional) If you do not want the server to automatically start after the restoration, deselect Start the server immediately after restoration.
   If you deselect Start the server immediately after restoration, manually start the server after the restoration is complete.

   

   Servers are shut down during restoration. It is therefore recommended that you perform restoration operations during off-peak hours.

5. In the Specified Disk drop-down list, select the target disk to which the backup will be restored.
   

   • If the server has only one data disk, the backup is restored to the disk by default.
   • If the server has only one system disk, you need to create a disk for restoration.
   • You can also restore the backup to another disk on the backup server by selecting the disk from the drop-down list. However, the specified destination disk must be at least as large as the backup source disk. You can view the size of the specified destination disk in the Specified Disk column and the size of the source disk in the Source Disk Capacity column. If the capacity of a disk is insufficient, expand disk capacity by referring to Disk Capacity Expansion.

6. Click Yes and confirm the restoration is successful.

   In the backup list, view the restoration status. When the backup enters the Available state or the status of the corresponding restoration task in Tasks is Successful, the restoration is successful.

   To view failed restoration tasks, refer to Managing Tasks.

Follow-up Procedure

If the VMware VM you backed up has multiple data disks and the data disks belong to the logical volume manager (LVM) group, an error might occur during the restoration. If an error occurs, do the instructions in Failed to Restore a VMware Backup to a Cloud Server.