Note:

Perform a backup of vCenter Appliance to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage

Introduction

A step-by-step guide to back up a newly deployed Oracle Cloud VMware Solution vCenter 6.7 or newer to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Object Storage.

Objectives

Back up vCenter Appliance to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Object Storage.

Prerequisites

Deploy Storage Gateway

Deploy an Oracle compute instance and use the instructions from Installing Storage Gateway.

Configure Storage Gateway

  1. Log in to the management console.

  2. Enter one of the following URLs in a supported web browser:

    • If you installed the software on an on-premises host, enter the URL provided at the end of the Storage Gateway installation script:

      Copy <https://storagegateway_hostname>:<port_number>

      For example: <https://myStorageGatewayHost:3775>

      Note: If you cannot access Storage Gateway using the hostname, contact your network administrator. Depending on your network configuration, your Storage Gateway hostname might need to be added to DNS or you might need to use an IP address rather than the hostname.

    • If you installed the software in an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure compute instance, enter the URL as follows:

      Copy <https://instance_public_IP_address>:<port_number>

      For example: <https://192.168.14.5:3775>

      Note: For more information, see Getting the Instance Public IP Address.

  3. The console log in page appears. The page prompts you to set and confirm a password for the Storage Gateway admin user.

  4. Enter a password that meets the following requirements:

    • From 8 to 32 characters.

    • At least one special character, one numerical character, one uppercase character, and one lowercase character.

Create File System

  1. Log in to the management console.

  2. Click File Systems on the upper-right area of the management console.

  3. Click Create File System.

  4. Enter the required information for a unique, friendly file system name in Create a File System:

    • Avoid entering confidential information.

    • Use from 1 to 256 characters.

    • Valid characters are letters (upper or lower case), numbers, hyphens, underscores, and periods.

      Note: The name cannot contain the following:

    • A slash (/) because this character delimits bucket and object names in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Object Storage.

    • The strings “pub” or “priv”.

      If an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Object Storage bucket by this file system name doesn’t exist in your tenancy, the bucket is created.

      If a corresponding OCI Object Storage bucket by this file system name exists in your tenancy and there is data in the bucket, Storage Gateway works asynchronously to sync the bucket and file system contents.

    • Select the OCI Object Storage tier in which you want to store your data.

      Note: Once set, you cannot change the storage tier in which a bucket resides.

      You can use the OCI Object Storage object lifecycle policies feature to manage the archiving and deletion of objects in a bucket according to a predefined schedule. See Using Object Lifecycle Management for details.

    • Standard: The Standard tier is the primary default OCI Object Storage tier for storing data that requires frequent and fast access. See Overview of Object Storage for more information.

    • Archive: The Archive tier is a special tier for storing data that is accessed infrequently and requires long retention periods. See Overview of Archive Storage for more information. Access to data in the Archive tier is not immediate since you must restore archived data before it’s accessible (see Restoring Files and Objects from Archive Storage).

    • Object Storage endpoint: Required. The OCI Object Storage API endpoint for your service instance. To find the OCI Object Storage API endpoint for your OCI Object Storage tenancy, see the API documentation for OCI Object Storage.

      Note: The following information is required to connect your Storage Gateway file systems to OCI. See Required Keys and OCIDs for detailed information on how to generate the required keys and where to obtain these OCIDs.

    • Compartment OCID: Required. Unique identifier of your OCI Object Storage compartment.

    • Tenant OCID: Required. Unique identifier of your OCI Object Storage tenancy.

    • User OCID: Required. Unique identifier of your OCI Object Storage user.

    • Public ky’s finger print: Required. Your OCI Object Storage public key fingerprint.

    • Private Key: Required. Your OCI Object Storage private key.

    • Private Key Passphrase: Required if a passphrase was specified during key creation. Your OCI Object Storage private key passphrase.

      Note: Your private key and passphrase are securely stored in the Storage Gateway docker. The Storage Gateway installation generates a pair of public and private keys. The system uses the public key to encrypt sensitive data.

  5. Click Save.

    The values you entered must match your Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) credentials. If you get an error message, verify your entries, update any incorrect values, and click Save again.

  6. Click Show Advanced File System Configuration.

  7. Enter the required configuration information or click Use Default to accept the default values:

    • NFS Allowed Hosts: A comma-separated list of hosts allowed to connect to the NFS export. You can also specify * to allow all hosts to connect.

      For example: 2001:db8:9:e54::/64, 192.0.2.0/24

    • NFS Export Options: The NFS export options.

      For example: rw, sync, insecure, no_subtree_check, no_root_squash

      Note: Do not specify the fsid option.

    • Concurrent Uploads: The number of concurrent uploads to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

      This field indicates the maximum number of files that can be concurrently uploaded in Storage Gateway. If the value is 15, the concurrent file uploads can be between 1 and 15.

      The allowed range is from 1 to 30.

    • Sync Policy: The metadata operations are flushed to the disk based on the sync policy, but do not affect on-disk consistency. Currently, only Posix Standard is supported. Only the synchronous transactions (like fsync, ODSYNC, and OSYNC) are committed to the disk. All other transactions are handled asynchronously.

    • Cloud Read-ahead: The number of blocks to be downloaded and used to read ahead when reading files for improved performance.

      Default value: 50

    • Maximum Read Cache Size in GiB: The maximum read cache.

      When the read cache is full or reaches the configured limit, Storage Gateway removes files from the cache based on a least recently used (LRU) algorithm. Files pending upload to your tenancy are not removed from cache. You can also preserve files that you do not want removed from cache.

      Note: The number of files in cache is limited to 20,000, regardless of the specified cache size in bytes.

      See Configuring the Cache for File Systems for details.

      The default value depends on how you provisioned local storage before installing Storage Gateway. The recommended local storage disk size is 600 GB (500 GB for file system cache, 80 GB for metadata, 20 GB for log). If you followed the documented recommendations, the default value for the read cache is approximately 300 GB.

  8. Click Save.

The file system is created and appears in the File Systems list.

Connect File System

  1. Log in to the Storage Gateway management console.

  2. On the Dashboard tab, identify the file system that you want to connect to your Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Object Storage bucket.

  3. Click Connect.

    If a bucket with the same name as the file system exists in OCI Object Storage, the file system is connected to that bucket. Any existing data cached in the Storage Gateway file system is deleted to ensure consistency with the data stored in the bucket. If a bucket by that name doesn’t exist, the bucket is created and the file system is connected to the bucket. If the compartment OCID was specified during file system creation, then the bucket is created in that compartment. Otherwise, the bucket is created in the root compartment by default.

    Note: You can mount a read/write file system on only one Storage Gateway at a time.

    If the file system that you’re importing is connected to another Storage Gateway, the File System: Claim Ownership window appears. You can claim ownership and confirm that the other Storage Gateway can be disconnected. Enter the following information, and then click Claim Ownership:

    • Public key finger print

    • Private key

    • Private key passphrase

    Claiming ownership ensures that you don’t inadvertently connect a new file system to a bucket that’s already connected to another Storage Gateway file system.

Configure vCenter Appliance Backup

  1. In a web browser, go to the vCenter Server Appliance Management Interface.

  2. Log in as root.

  3. Click Backup.

  4. Click Configure.

    The IP address shown (10.0.0.37) is the IP of the Storage Gateway deployed for this example. If you do not know your NFS port information, you will need to ssh into the Storage Gateway and run sudo ocisg info.

    You will replace BucketAmsterdam with the name of the file system previously created.

  5. The user name and password are not needed to connect, but you cannot click Save without entering something.

  6. Select the back-up schedule.

  7. If you choose to encrypt the backup, enter a password.

  8. Select the number of backups to retain.

  9. Click Save to create the back-up schedule.

  10. Click Backup Now and within a few minutes it should be completed.

  11. We can now go to the OCI Object Storage and verify the backup has been replicated.

Acknowledgements

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