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Restoring the entire VMware virtual machine

Use the procedure described here to restore the entire virtual machine. During the restore process, you select a recovery point (a backup) and the Unitrends backup appliance uses the backed up data to create a new VM on the ESX host you select.

The following requirements must be met to restore a VMware virtual machine:

• The target ESX host must be added to the backup appliance.
• The VM must be recovered to an ESX host running the same version as the original host, or to a higher supported version listed in the Compatibility and Interoperability Matrix.
• The target ESX host must support the operating system (OS) of the VM you are recovering. (See the VMware documentation for details.) For example, you cannot recover a Windows 2016 VM to ESXi 5.1.
• A recovered VM is configured with the latest hardware version supported by the target ESX host.
• A recovered VMware VM is created with the following default name: <original_VM_name>_restore. You can edit this name when you create the recover job.
• Any Raw device mapping (RDM) disks recover as standard virtual disks.
ClosedTo restore a virtual machine
1 Select the vCenter, stand-alone ESX server, resource pool, vApp, navigation group, or virtual machine in the left Navigation pane and click Restore.

The list of available backups that display in the next step is filtered by the selection you make here.

Note:  If you do not see resource pools, vApps, virtual machines, or navigation groups in the Navigation pane, click the Gear icon at the bottom of the Navigation pane, check Show Virtual Machines in Navigation Tree, and click Confirm.

2 Select a recovery point by selecting the highlighted day in the calendar and then select the associated recovery point time. The recovery point time can be as associated with a full, differential, or incremental backup.
3 Click Next (Select Options) at the bottom on the screen. A list of ESX servers displays. The selected virtual machine can be restored to the original ESX server or to any other ESX server that is registered or is part of a vCenter server that is registered. Note that the target ESX server must be the same version or newer than the original ESX server that hosted the virtual machine. It is highly recommended to perform recovery of the virtual machines to an ESX server version that matches the original ESX server.
4 Optionally select a resource pool or vApp to restore to. If no resource pool or vApp is selected, the VM is restored to the root of the ESX host.
5 Select the Datastore on the target ESX server.
6 All disks’ metadata is restored by default, including metadata for excluded disks. Uncheck Restore Excluded Disks Meta Data? to prevent excluded disks’ metadata from being restored. If you choose to restore all metadata, it is important to note that the virtual machine and all the virtual hard drives will be recovered to the selected datastore. Ensure enough space is available on the datastore for all the virtual hard drives (including excluded drives) to be recovered.
7 Enter a name for the restored VM in the Virtual Machine Name field or accept the default name. Every restore creates a new virtual machine. If the original VM still resides on the ESX host you select for the restore, it is not overwritten.
8 Click Restore to initiate the restore. Every restore initiates two jobs: the first restores the configuration files or metadata for the virtual machine being restored, the second restores the data.
9 To view the status of the restore jobs click on Settings > System Monitoring > Jobs.
10 The recovered VM is created in a powered off state. Go to the hypervisor to power on the virtual machine.

Note:  A recovered VM may not have the same network settings as the original. Modify network settings as needed.