Alias to backup and restore vApp

Products

• CA Identity Manager
• CA Identity Governance
• CA Identity Portal
• CA Identity Suite

Issue/Introduction

Is there a way to backup and restore vApp? 

Environment

Release : 14.3, 14.4

Component : CA IDENTITY SUITE (VIRTUAL APPLIANCE)

Resolution

The best way to take a full backup of your vApp deployment is to create a snapshot of each of the vApp nodes (ideally when VMs are shutdown) along with any external User Store and/or external Database(s). This would ensure everything is backed up from the same moment in time across the deployment avoiding possible data inconsistency issues.

The following expands on the documentation regarding the available alias

backupVapp and restoreVapp
Backup and restore the Virtual Appliance configurations and data to a replacement server.

In multi-node VAPP deployments, the backupVapp command should be run individually on each node, and only its output should be used with restoreVapp for that node.  This will avoid issues such as incorrect IP addresses.

What exactly does the backupVapp alias backup?

For example, are there any system files, configuration on the disk that needs to be backed up?
What about any other user stores that are not obvious?
The alias backupVapp will backup the following:

1. OS files under /etc
2. Vapp configuration files under /opt/CA/VirtualApplication/conf, /opt/CA/VirtualApplication/custom
3. wildfly im, ip, ig configuration files if you have the components deployed
4. CA Directory and Provisioning Server config files
5. And UserStore and Provisioning Directory dxdumpdb backup files. If you say Y to the following prompt

Do you want to take a backup of existing User Store and Provisioning Directory Data? (Choosing "N" will backup only configurations) (Y/N)?

then backupVapp will dxdumpdb the User Store and Provisioning Directory data (it will prompt you to shutdown if they are running).


When completed the backup alias will bundle all into an archive file and encrypt it.

Backup CA Directory DSA data in a multiwrite-DISP environment

The backupVapp and restoreVapp aliases do not restore CA Directory DSA data in a multiwrite-DISP recovery environment. One such example of a multiwrite-DISP environment is the deployment of User Store and Provisioning Store on multiple Virtual Appliance nodes.

To backup data in a multiwrite-DISP environment, do the following:
Shutdown the deployed services (Identity Manager, Provisioning Store, Identity Governance, Identity Portal) on all nodes.
Use the backupVapp alias to take a backup of all the Virtual Appliance nodes.

Backup the external database. To restore data in a multiwrite-DISP environment, use the restoreVapp alias to restore backup files on all the Virtual Appliance nodes including the external database to maintain data integrity.

 

 

Note: The best way to take a full backup set is to create a snapshot of the vApp nodes (ideally when VMs are shutdown) along with external database . This would ensure everything is backed up from the machine.