3 best practices for backing up an appliance, 4 determining your backup policy, Best practices for backing up an – HP OneView User Manual
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tasks. Only the Infrastructure administrator or the Backup administrator can create a backup file,
either through the UI or REST APIs.
What the backup process does not back up
What the backup process backs up
•
Non-data files: Static files that are installed as part of the execution
environment, and are not specific to the appliance or managed
environment configuration
•
Log files (except the Audit log file)
•
Appliance network configuration
•
First-time setup configuration files
•
Firmware bundles
•
HP OneView database
•
System files:
◦
Non-database data
◦
Audit log
◦
License files
Use a backup file to do the following:
•
Restore the appliance from which the backup file was created.
•
Restore the settings to a different appliance. For example, if an appliance fails and cannot
be repaired, you can use a backup file to restore the management configuration settings and
management data to a replacement appliance created from the same version of the virtual
machine image.
REST APIs let you:
•
Schedule a backup process from outside the appliance.
•
Collect backup files according to your site policies.
•
Integrate with enterprise backup and restore products.
26.3 Best practices for backing up an appliance
Description
Method
Always use the HP OneView backup feature to back up your appliance.
CAUTION:
Do not use any hypervisor-provided capabilities or snapshots to back up HP OneView
appliances because doing so can cause synchronization errors and result in unpredictable and
unwanted behavior.
Creating
HP recommends performing regular backups, preferably daily, and especially after adding hardware,
changing the appliance configuration, and before and after updating the appliance firmware.
If you added server hardware to the appliance after the backup file was created, that hardware is
not in the appliance database when the restore process completes. You must add that hardware
to the appliance and then repeat any other configuration changes (such as assigning server profiles)
that were made between the time the backup file was created and the restore process completed.
You can back up the appliance while it is in use and while normal activity is taking place. You do
not need to wait for tasks to stop before creating a backup file.
Frequency
The backup file format is proprietary, however, HP recommends that after you create and download
the backup file you encrypt, and then safely store the backup file to protect your sensitive data.
HP recommends using an enterprise backup product such as HP Data Protector to archive backup
files. For information on HP Data Protector, see the following website:
HP provides REST APIs for integration with enterprise backup products.
Archiving
26.4 Determining your backup policy
A backup file is an encrypted snapshot of the appliance configuration and management data at
the time the backup file was created. HP recommends that you create regular backups, preferably
184 Backing up an appliance