vSphere unique identifier make it a single point of failure?

[aich365]

My understanding is when Veeam B&R creates a backup it uses a unique identifier based on the vcenter.
Creating a new vcenter creates a new unique identifier.
To be able to restore this backup the unique identifier is required.
We do not seem to be able to restore old chains when the vcenter server has been rebuilt.
If you lose the vcenter to corruption obviously it is not recoverable by Veeam because the vcenter is missing.
So is there any point in backing up the vcenter using Veeam or should we use the VMWare option in vcenter appliance?
Also for historic tape backups which have been stored off-site would we be able to restore these if the vcenter has been rebuilt?

Thanks

[Regnor]

Regardles of your vCenter you should be able to do any kind of restore.
What wouldn't work are incremental restores (quick rollback).
If vCenter itself is down you can redirect the restore of your vCenter VM directly to a host.

Besides it doesn't hurt to create periodic backups in the VAMI (or even scheduled with 6.7).

[Andreas Neufert]

Correct, the only thing that need to be compatible at restore is the VM hardware version. You can restore VMs to older or newer VMware releases, from vCenter to direct ESXi (and vice versa) and between vCenters.

The only things you are loosing is the abillity to use VMware change block tracking based backups and restore. So at backup we need to create another full as we detect the VM as a new one (ID has changed). As well for restore change block tracking based restore (quick rollback) is not possible anymore. You can use VM restore and Instant VM recovery.

And btw. there is a support tool to migrate to a new vcenter without to loosing the relationship. This can be used if you are sure that they are the same VMs. https://www.veeam.com/kb2136 I would use it only if there is no other way at all.

[aich365]

Thanks Andreas,
So if we create a new vcenter should we use the tool at https://www.veeam.com/kb2136 to migrate the existing config to the new vcenter or should we start new chains?

Thanks

[Andreas Neufert]

New chain would always be better and more reliable as VMware and Veeam do not officially support this.
But sometimes you do not have another way. For example if you do not have enough space on the storage. Then the mentioned KB entry is an option.

[Andreas Neufert]

Oh maybe there is as well a inline upgrade path within vCenter update process where you update hte existing environment without to loose the moref IDs for the VMs. Maybe this is the best path to go.

[aich365]

Andreas

Many Thanks