Note: Full support for 'Disaster Recovery as a Service' (DRaaS) is also planned, whereby the process of moving the VM to the main site will be handled by VM Backup automatically.
Currently a manual process is required, so you will need to find some time where you can shut down the restored replica VM, export it via vSphere and then import once it's on the main site.
There are 2 different ways to exporting your data. A step-by-step instructions can be found below:
[Using vSphere]
- Login to vSphere and locate the restored replica VM you want to take back to the main site
- Shut it down and wait for it to get to an 'Powered off' state
- Then simply right-click on it and choose [Export]
- Next click, a new window will show up notifying you that you will start downloading 1 of XX files for this Virtual Machine. This will download all VM files and essentially export it as an OVF template
-
Wait for the files to fully download and then transfer them over to a disk that you can transport back to the main site
-
Once the export has completed and the disk has been transported to the main site, open up vSphere and select [Create / Register VM]
Then simply select [Deploy a virtual machine from an OVF or OVA file]
-
Next, simply follow the wizard in order to import the virtual machine, you'll need to drag/drop all of the files downloaded from the replica site onto the window
-
Next, simply go through the rest of the steps in order to choose the datastore as well as other VM configuration options.
-
Then you'll simply get a Summary of your preferred configuration and to start the Import process, simply select [Finish]
-
Finally, remember to set up replication again for this newly restored VM
[Using OVFtool]
On the other hand, you can make use of the OVFtool in order to export the VM directly without making use of the vSphere console. You can take a look at "Exporting Virtual Machines to OVF Packages" and "Importing an OVF Package". The OVFtool user guide can be found here.