How to restore from 3rd party backup of VMware Identity Manager when it is deployed through Aria Suite Lifecycle

Products

• VCF Operations/Automation (formerly VMware Aria Suite)

Issue/Introduction

In some cases it is either necessary or more expedient to restore VMware Identity Manager from backup then to troubleshoot an issue when there is a production outage.  Some VMware Identity Manager instances are managed by Aria Suite Lifecycle. 

This article outlines the steps to restore, and resync Aria Suite Lifecycle if this is the scenario.

Environment

Aria Suite Lifecycle 8.x.x

Identity Manager 3.3.x

Resolution

1. Restore all virtual machine nodes from a backup that was taken after the services were gracefully stopped via Aria Suite Lifecycle manager.
2. Rename the original nodes to something else like appending -orig to the end of them.
3. Rename the restored Virtual Machines to the names that were originally given to the nodes in the inventory.
4. Power on the node that Aria Suite Lifecycle Manager shows as being the primary node 60 seconds before the other two nodes to give it a chance to be the postgres master.
5. Services should come up as expected, and Aria Suite Lifecycle may show the environment as being in a critical state at this time.
6. If there are any issues, walk through the necessary steps to get the services to start.  Examples are if the delegateIP is incorrect, or there is a postgres issue, or locks on the opensearch/elasticsearch tables.
7. Once VMware Identity Manager is up and running all the way and responds to login requests for local accounts and is manageable, Aria Suite Lifecycle may continue to show the "critical" status for the environment, or it may show as healthy.  In either case, click on the three dots next to the environment at click "Trigger Inventory Sync." 

This will ensure that the inventory syncs with the new morefs for the VMs and Aria Suite Lifecycle is able to manage the VMs in vCenter.