Creating Manual Vmware Backups

The Process to Back-up – Manual

1. Open your vSphere client
2. Turn off the VM you want to back-up
3. Delete and consolidate any snapshots you may have
4. Highlight the VM in the left pane
5. Click File — Export OVF Template
6. Give your export a name, location to export to and whether you want it in single file or multi file mode. Folder of files (OVF) mode should be used if you want to later deploy the VM over a web server. Single file (OVA) mode should be used if it doesn’t need to be published via a web server. Use if you want to transfer over USB, back-up to some other storage, et cetera.

The Process to Restore

1. Open the vSphere client
2. Click File — Deploy OVF Template
3. Locate the .ova file or input the URL where the .ovf is stored
4. Click Next and input name of the new VM and other fields as necessary