In Part 9, we were initially going to cover the new backup and restore capability that was introduced in vSphere 6.5 for the VCSA. However, it looks like Brian Graf has already created an awesome PowerCLI module (Backup-VCSA.psm1) that can be used to backup the VCSA, which you can find more details here.

While going through the VAMI APIs for the backup feature, I did notice there was one interesting backup VAMI API that Brian may not have looked at, at least I did not see a function consuming this API. Prior to initiating a backup for either a VCSA or PSC, you can query the expected size of the backup. This information can be pretty helpful beyond just for backups, but understanding the size of your system at any point in time.

VAMI UI Area of Focus

The backup and restore feature for the VCSA is located in the VAMI UI, but there is not a UI for retrieving the current expected backup size.

VAMI APIs Used

GET /appliance/recovery/backup/parts

PowerCLI Function

Sample Output

The output is pretty straight forward, it provides the total expected backup size (MB) as well as the breakdown of the total size into "configuration" data and the "Stats, Events, Alarms and Tasks" (SEAT) data.



With this new API, you can now easily see how large your vCenter Server Database is and take appropriate action such as truncating the data or reducing the retention period which can especially help with the performance of vCenter Server as well as the time it takes during upgrades.