How to restore VMs using Synology Active Backup for Business

Restoring virtual machines (VMs) is a crucial task for any homelab enthusiast or IT professional using a VMware vSphere environment. Whether due to data corruption, accidental deletions, or hardware failures, having a reliable and efficient VM restore process can save you from significant downtime and data loss. Restore VMs using Synology Active Backup for Business is a quick and seamless process for users.

If you’re new to Synology Active Backup for Business or need to set it up in your VMware vSphere homelab environment, check out my detailed guide on that topic here. In this post, we’ll dive into the process of restoring VMs specifically, helping you understand every step to make your VM restore process as efficient as possible.

Understanding the Restore Process in Synology Active Backup for Business

Before going into the detailed steps, it’s essential to understand the different types of restores supported by Synology Active Backup for Business and when to use each. This section provides an overview of the Full VM Restore, Instant Restore, and File-Level Restore options, which will help you decide which method suits your needs best.

Types of Restores Supported by Synology Active Backup for Business

1. Full Virtual Machine Restore: This process involves restoring the entire virtual machine from a backup. It’s useful when a VM is completely lost or corrupted. The full VM restore method ensures that all VM data is returned to its state at the time of the backup.
2. Instant Restore: This feature allows for the rapid recovery of a VM by running it directly from the backup storage on your Synology NAS. It’s beneficial in situations where downtime needs to be minimized. The VM can be migrated back to the original or a new datastore once running.
3. File-Level Restore: Sometimes, only specific files or folders need to be recovered from a VM. The file-level restore method allows you to extract and restore individual files without needing to restore the entire VM, saving time and resources.

By understanding these restore types, you can choose the best approach depending on your situation.

Which application handles which type of restore?

• Active Backup for Business: Instant Restore, Full Virtual Machine Restore
• Active Backup for Business Portal: File-Level Restore

Full Virtual Machine Restore with Active Backup for Business

After you have completed your first backup it’s time to also try to restore a VM. Log into your Synology NAS and start Active Backup for Business.

Select Virtual Machine and the VM you want to restore. In my case I’m restoring GRAFANA01. Click Restore.

Select the Restore Point. In my case I have only one Restore point so I select this.

Choose to which Platform you want to restore your VM. My backup was from vSphere so I select this.

Now you have the choice if you want to Instant Restore the VM or do a Full Virtual Machine Restore. I choose Full Virtual Machine Restore.

Because my original VM still exists, I went with Restore to a new location, or with different settings. You can either select or deselect the regenerate a MAC address for the restored VM but this works only if you have configured a static MAC address. Because I had an dynamic MAC address the restored VM will get a new MAC address. So keep this in mind if you have software that depends on MAC address. Normally this is really uncommon these days.

Next select the new name of the restored VM and the folder.

Next choose the ESXi host you want to restore the VM to.

Select the appropriate datastore for the restore. In my case I have only one local datastore I could choose from.

Select the port group for the restored VM.

After that you should see an summary of all the restore settings. You can also decide if you want to power-on the VM after the restore. In my experience, you should normally do this manually.

Depending on the size of the VM this can now take several minutes or several hours.

If you can remember there was another option to restore the VM called Instant Restore. This is a feature that can quickly restart a virtual machine directly from a compressed and deduplicated backup file to minimize the downtime of virtual machines. It will mount an NFS share into your host and will register the appropriate VM with the host. You can then start the VM directly from the NFS share and vMotion it after that to any other datastore you like. For this you would need vCenter and a license that supports vMotion. You also need a VMkernel adapter with an IP address in the network where your NAS resides or is routed, allowing it to reach the NAS.

Single Item restore from a VM

In some situation you don’t want to restore an entire VM, because this is also really time consuming. Sometimes you just want to restore a single item.

This can be done through the Active Backup for Business portal. You can also give your users access to this portal so they can restore their items by themself.

Click on task and you will get all your VMs you have permission to.

Select the VM from which you want to restore an item.

Navigate through the volumes of the VM and search for the item you want to restore. Unfortunately the Filter option filters only in the selected folder and not through the entire VM. Would have been great if you could search through the entire VM.
Select your item and click Restore.

Define the login parameter for the existing system and choose whether to overwrite or skip the existing data.

Select the destination path where you want to restore the single item.

Click “Done” to restore the single item to the chosen destination. This can take several minutes depending on the file size.

Conclusion

Performing a Full VM Restore with Synology Active Backup for Business in a VMware vSphere homelab environment ensures minimal downtime and data loss. By understanding the different types of restores, following best practices, and using Synology’s powerful tools effectively, you can maintain a robust backup and recovery strategy.