NSX manager Backup & Restore

NSX manager Backup & Restore. NSX is becoming very (maybe already is) important in you vSphere environment.So Backing up your configuration is essential to your environment. In case of a corrupt or bad configuration you can always restore to a previous point in time.

Here is how you do it.

Backup NSX

First Setup a FTP server in your environment. I have chosen to set up an IIS FPT Server, but you can choose whatever FTP server your prefer. For example filezilla FTP Server, Serv-U, etc…

Login to you NSX Manager (don’t mind the error. I forgot my credentials for a while)

Chose backup and Restore

On this page you can fill in your FTP server settings/schedule and what to exclude in your backup

Click on the change button to edit the FTP Server Settings. Fill in your ‘IP/Host name’ of your FTP server, The ‘Transfer Protocol’ you want to use FTP or SFTP, the ‘Port’ standard 21 is filled in, ‘User name’ and ‘Password’ to logon to you FTP server, ‘Backup Directory’ if you need to back up to a subfolder into your FTP server, a ‘Filename Prefix’ so you know it’s from NSX and a ‘Pass Phrase’ needed for restoring

For the backup schedule you can choose weekly, daily or hourly. Depending on what you chose for your backup frequency, you will have to fill in ‘day of the week’,  ‘Hour of day’ and ‘Minute

Exclude settings allows you to exclude ‘audit logs’, ‘Systems event’, ‘Flow Records’ wich you may not need in case of a restore.

After everything is filled in correctly you should be able to run a manual backup or wait for the schedule to run. If successful you can see an entry under Backup History

Restore NSX

If you need to restore then keep in mind that the NSX appliance manager required to be rebooted.

to restore you just selecte a backup you want to restore from and click restore button

You will see the warning i mentioned before and Click yes. After reboot of the NSX manager appliance your NSX configuration is restored.