Instant Restore to VMware

Instant Restore to VMware is a feature that can quickly restart a virtual machine directly from a compressed and deduplicated backup file to minimize the downtime of virtual machines. This section guides you through the prerequisites for Instant Restore to VMware and how to perform it step by step.

Contents

Before You Start
Launch Instant Restore to VMware
Restore Wizard

To select virtual machines and restore points
To select the restore mode
To configure restore settings
To apply settings and restore virtual machines

Before You Start

Instant Restore to VMware can quickly restart a virtual machine directly from a compressed and deduplicated backup file to minimize downtime of virtual machines. Compared with the full virtual machine restore that requires longer time and has a full I/O performance, Instant Restore to VMware can restart a virtual machine within seconds but has a limited I/O performance.

Note:

To finalize the whole Instant Restore to VMware process, you will need to migrate the virtual machine restored instantly back to the production site. You can migrate the virtual machine or clone it to the hypervisor where you want to run the virtual machine. We recommend you to shut down the virtual machine in case data inconsistency occurs during the cloning. Migration of virtual machines requires eligible vCenter / Storage vMotion license, please refer to the Migrate VM section in here for further information.
Since all the changes made during Instant Restore to VMware will be automatically stored on Synology NAS, please make sure that there is enough space on your Synology NAS.
When installed on Docker DSM, Active Backup for Business does not support Instant Restore to VMware because NFS is not supported on Docker DSM.

Launch Instant Restore to VMware

With Instant Restore to VMware, you can launch the restore wizard to restore a virtual machine to its most recent state or to any available restore point by doing either of the following:

Go to Active Backup for Business > Virtual Machine > VMware vSphere and single select the virtual machine you want to restore. Click Restore to launch the restore wizard and select Instant Restore to VMware.
Go to Active Backup for Business > Virtual Machine > Task List, select the backup task you want to restore and click Restore to launch the restore wizard and select Instant Restore to VMware.

Note:

To perform Instant Restore to VMware, please make sure the hypervisor is authorized to access and mount the backup destination (shared folder).

Restore Wizard

Follow the restore wizard to do the following:

To select virtual machines and restore points:

Select the virtual machines you want to restore and choose a restore point for each of them.

To select the restore mode:

You can select either of the following modes according to your needs:

Restore to the original location: This option restores the selected virtual machine to its original location while keeping the original name and settings, minimizing the chance of input errors by users. This option will instantly unregister and replace the original virtual machine in the production site.
Restore to a new location, or with different settings: This option allows you to customize the destination and settings for the restored virtual machine.

To configure restore settings:

If you select Restore to the original location, you will be directed to the summary page of the restore wizard.
If you select Restore to a new location, or with different settings, you will need to specify the name and select a folder, hypervisor, resource pool, and network to restore a virtual machine. The changes made during Instant Restore to VMware will be stored on Synology NAS, and you can select the datastore when executing virtual machine migration.

To apply settings and restore virtual machines:

In the summary step, please check the information of the virtual machine intended to be restored and click Apply to restore it. You will then be automatically directed to Restore Status to monitor the restoration progress. To finalize the whole process of Instant Restore to VMware, please click the Migrate VM button.

Enable Power on VM automatically after restoration if you want to run the restored virtual machine immediately. For testing purposes, we suggest you not to select this option. Instead, we recommend you to manually disconnect the initial virtual machine from the production network to avoid possible conflicts.

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