Replacing a Virtual Machine from an OVF File

Replace a virtual machine (VM) from an Open Virtualization Format (OVF) file if you want to restore a VM on your everRun system by overwriting the VM with a previous backup copy. (If you want to import a VM from a different system, see the overview in Creating and Migrating Virtual Machines.)

Typically, importing a VM creates a new instance of the VM with unique hardware IDs. Restoring a VM creates an identical VM with the same SMBIOS UUID, system serial number, and MAC addresses, if provided in the VM image, that your guest operating system and applications may require for software licensing. The hardware ID, though, of the restored VM is unique. If an identical VM already exists on the everRun system, restoring the VM allows you to replace the VM and overwrite it with your previous copy.

You can restore a VM that already exists on an everRun system only if you have previously created a VM snapshot (see Creating a Snapshot) and exported that snapshot (see Exporting a Snapshot) to OVF and Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) files on a supported network share. You must mount that network share on your management PC, and then open the everRun Availability Console on the target everRun system to restore the OVF and VHD files from your management PC.

Caution: Consider backing up your existing VM on the everRun system before overwriting and restoring it. If you create and export another snapshot, ensure that you do not overwrite the OVF and VHD files that you want to restore.

Notes:

The time required to restore a VM depends on the size and number of volumes in the source VM as well as network bandwidth. For example, transferring a VM with one 20 GB boot volume over a 1 Gb/s network may take about 30 minutes.
If you overwrite and restore an existing VM, the everRun system removes the existing VM and its volumes, but the system does not remove any of the VM's snapshots or the volume containers in which the snapshots are stored. The volume containers continue to use storage space on your everRun system until you remove the VM's snapshots (see Removing a Snapshot). If storage space is limited, you may want to remove the snapshots before starting the restore process to ensure that there will be enough storage space for the operation.
If you previously expanded the volume containers of your VM to allow enough space for snapshots, you may want to note the current size of each volume container before you overwrite and restore the VM. Because the everRun system creates all new volume containers for a restored VM and does not preserve the expanded container sizes, you need to manually expand the volume containers of the restored VM after the restore process is finished (see Expanding a Volume Container on the everRun System).
If the everRun system switches from the primary PM to the secondary PM while restoring a VM, the restore process fails. This does not affect the continuous uptime of your system, but you must delete the incomplete VM and associated volumes on the everRun system, and restore them again.

Prerequisite: Both PMs of the everRun system must be online for the restore process to function properly.

To overwrite and restore a VM on the everRun system

Create and export a VM snapshot on the source everRun system. For more information, see Managing Snapshots.

On the management PC that you use to run the everRun Availability Console, do the following:

Map the network share that contains the exported OVF and VHD files.
Log on to the everRun Availability Console on the target everRun system.

On the Physical Machines page (see The Physical Machines Page), verify that both PMs are in the running state and that neither PM is in maintenance mode or in the process of synchronizing.

On the Virtual Machines page (see The Virtual Machines Page), select the VM that you want to restore from your previous backup copy.

Click Restore to open the restore wizard.

If prompted, allow the required Java plugins to load in your web browser. For information about enabling Java for the everRun Availability Console, see Compatible Internet Browsers.

Click Browse. In the file browser, locate the network share with the exported files. Select the .ovf file that you want to restore, and click Restore.

Confirm that you will overwrite the existing VM and data and proceed by clicking Continue.

Caution: Restoring a VM overwrites all of its data and configuration details.

Review the information and make any desired edits, if necessary:

Name, CPU, and Memory

Change the name of the virtual machine, edit the number of vCPUs, or allocate the total memory it can use.
Storage

Shows all of the volumes. Select the Create box for a volume to allocate a storage container for the volume on the everRun system (the boot volume is required). Select the Restore Data box to import data for a volume from the VHD file.
Network

Displays all of the available networks. You can remove a network or add one that is not already allocated. A minimum of one network is required.

Optionally, clear the check box for Auto start Virtual Machine after restore if you need to reprovision the VM before starting it for the first time.

Click Restore to begin restoring the VM. When the transfer is complete, click Done to close the restore wizard.

Note: Restored volumes begin to appear on the Volumes page of the everRun Availability Console while the restore process is still in progress. Do not attach or remove any of these restored volumes until the restore window reports that the process is complete; otherwise, the restore process fails.

If applicable, use the Reprovision Virtual Machine wizard to allocate additional resources to the VM, as described in Reprovisioning Virtual Machine Resources. Also, if you want to allocate additional space in each volume container for snapshots, see Expanding a Volume Container on the everRun System.

When you are finished reprovisioning the VM, click Start to boot the VM.

After you verify that the restored VM is functioning properly, the restore process is complete; however, the everRun system may continue to synchronize data between PMs to enable High Availability (HA) or Fault Tolerant (FT) operation.

Note: Your restored VM and its associated volumes may be marked with warning symbols until the data has been synchronized and the VirtIO drivers are running.

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Product Documentation (PDF Format) everRun User's Guide everRun Quick Start Guide	About Help Help created at 1:29 PM on 4/22/2021.