Restoring VVol-based virtual machines

You can restore virtual machines deployed on virtual volumes in case of Spectrum Control Base failure.

Before you begin

Verify that:

VVol metadata database is available on a storage system.
Spectrum Control Base installation package is ready for deployment.

About this task

This section details how to restore VMs deployed on virtual volumes, if all Spectrum Control Base instances have been permanently destroyed and no backups are available. This scenario may occur, when VMs, hosting Spectrum Control Base, were migrated to VVols.

To restore VVol-based VMs:

Obtain a name of the VVol metadata database located a storage system. This example illustrates procedure for storage systems that run IBM Spectrum Virtualize™.
Install and configure a new copy of Spectrum Control Base.

Procedure

Activate the storage system CLI utility and log in as VASAProvider. The code example below uses the vasa-admin ID in the VASAProvider role.

Display the name of the VVol metadata database, by running the svctask metadata_db_list command.

IBM_Storwize:vasa-admin> svctask metadata_db_list
DB_name
vvol-db

Note: If you have several matching databases on your storage system, use the svctask metadata_entry_list -db <db_name> command to display the database contents. A database with multiple entries is the most likely candidate to store the VVol metadata information.

Install Spectrum Control Base, as explained in the previous chapters.
In the General Settings dialog box, use the VVol metadata database name (vvol-db in example below), as the HA group designation.
Figure 1. Defining vvol-db, as HA group name
In the Storage Credentials dialog box, define the user name, according to the ID name, defined in step 1 of this procedure. This allows the new Spectrum Control instance to communicate with the storage system.
Spectrum Control Base begins populating relevant storage space with the information recovered from the database on the storage system. Depending on the amount of information, this can take some time to complete. You may need to refresh your browser to see the updated information in the Spectrum Control Base GUI.
Complete the Spectrum Control Base configuration as usual, registering it as a storage provider on vCenter server.
Launch the vSphere Web Client for registered vCenter servers and power on your VVol-based VMs as normal.