How-to Restore a Virtual Machine

Updated on 26 Jul 2023

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Introduction

VM restores should be utilized when an entire machine is needed for either a "hard down" scenario or when a VM is required for a development or test environment. This restoration method allows the VM to be powered on in seconds from the Cloud Data Protection platform and seamlessly migrated to your Expedient Enterprise Cloud portal.

Procedure

Log in to the Cloud Data Protection system.
From the navigation bar at the top of the page, select the Data Protection → Recoveries tab.
Select the Recover button and then VMs.
Utilize the search bar to locate the VM to be restored
1. You can search by either the name of the VM or by the name of the protection policy
2. Wildcards and partial names are supported
Click the appropriate VM to move directly to the Recovery Options page.
Alternatively, you may select the Context Menu Icon and select Add VM to Cart to add multiple VMs to your cart to restore together:

Limitations regarding VMX files
Enterprise Cloud uses an object-based vSAN as backend storage. As a result, downloading VMX files is not supported.
Configure the restore on the Recovery Options page:
1. Task Name: Select a meaningful name for the recovery task
2. Objects: Confirm the VM listed is the VM you have selected
3. Recover As: Utilize the Pencil Icon () to determine the recovery point
4. Rename: Toggle to add a Prefix or Suffix
  Renaming your restored VMs
  The Cloud Data Protection platform does not allow the restoration of a VM to overwrite an existing VM or to utilize the same name as an existing VM. If you select those options, the recovery job will fail.
5. Location:
  1. If restoring to EEC, leave the default of Recover back to original location.
    Recovering back to the original location - Network Considerations
    We strongly recommend using the "Detach Network" option in the recovery settings and adding the network in Enterprise Cloud after restoration.
    
    Cohesity is forced to restore the VM with its original MAC address when recovering back to the original location. A MAC conflict will prevent an internal workflow from importing the restored VM to Enterprise Cloud if the original VM still exists. This would also stop us from powering on the VM.
  2. If restoring to private infrastructure, select Recover to a new location, and specify it.
    Recovering to a new location - Network Considerations
    Please ensure that the option to "Detach Network" is selected as Cohesity is unable to browse EEC networks due to multitenancy limitations. Instead, please add the appropriate networks to the recovered VMs after the restore to compensate.
6. Network: Select how you would like the networking restored
7. Interface:
  1. If restoring to EEC, choose Select from Interface/VLANs and select bond0.1930 (alternatively, bond0.1940 on DUB-COHESITY).
  2. If restoring to private infrastructure, choose Select from Interface/VLANs and select the appropriate bond0.* interface.
8. Options: The option 'Leave recovered VMs powered off' depends on the following:
  1. Restored Powered On: Allows your selected VMs to recover instantly
  2. Restored Powered Off: Your VMs will be unable to power on until the vMotion is complete
    Warning regarding VM names
    The Enterprise Cloud platform is currently affected by a bug encountered on VMs with names longer than 15 characters. If the VM name you wish to restore is longer than 15 characters, please restore the VM as Powered Off to work around this issue.
Select Finish or Save and add more to restore additional VMs
You will be redirected to the Recovery Overview screen to monitor the status of your restore.
Upon success, the VM will be accessible via the network if configured to power on with a connected network interface.
The restored VM may take 15 minutes to appear within your EEC portal.