This article is intended to illustrate the various methods of creating backups of Personal vDisk VMDK files, restoring those VMDK files to your VDI-in-a-Box grid, and, in the event of a failure, repairing a Personal Desktop so that the VMDK file is once again accessible to the intended user.

Background

VDI-in-a-Box does not retain redundant copies of personal vDisks by default. In order to protect the personal disks of the end user, Citrix strongly advises to back up the personal disks either to another server in the grid, or to an external storage repository. These backups can then be restored to a single or multi-server VDI-in-a-Box grid so that the end user might retain their vDisk in the event of corruption or failure.

Requirements

To back up a personal vDisk, you must first have a VDI-in-a-Box grid running on vSphere. There must be at least one personal desktop created and used by an end user. There must also be a place to store the backup copy of the vDisk, if it is another server in the grid, or external storage.

Instructions

Backup Procedure

1. From the VDI-in-a-Box admin console, select the User Sessions tab found in the Desktops section, as displayed in the following screen shot:

   

2. Locate the Personal Desktop that you want to back up in the list of User Sessions.

   Note which server in the VDI-in-a-Box grid is hosting this desktop. Click Actions link on the right and select Shutdown, as displayed in the following screen shot:

   

3. Click the Virtual Machine Name link on the list of User Sessions and scroll down the Desktop Details window until you see the Personal disk name. Make a note of the Personal disk name.

   

4. Connect vSphere to the VDI-in-a-Box grid server hosting the personal desktop to be backed up.

   

5. Open a second instance of vSphere and connect to the VDI-in-a-Box grid server where the backup will be retained.

   

6. Select the Configuration tab in both vSphere instances and select Storage, as displayed in the following screen shot:

   

7. Right-click on the data store used by VDI-in-a-Box to hold the personal disks and select Browse Datastore…

   

8. Open the PVD folder; select the personal disk with the name located in step 3, and select Download. Two files will be downloaded.

   One will be <PersonalDiskName>.VMDK and the second will be <PersonalDiskName>-flat.VMDK.

   

9. Browse the data store of the server that will store the backup of the personal disk. Open the PVD folder and select Upload.

   Note: Both files downloaded in the previous step must be uploaded to the PVD folder of this second server.

   

Restore Procedure

When the personal disk has been replicated to another server in the VDI-in-a-Box grid, the desktop can be restored to the second server in the event of an emergency. This section of the article explains how to restore the desktop to the server that the personal disk has been copied to:

1. From the VDI-in-a-Box admin console, select the User Sessions tab found in the Desktops section.

   

2. Select the Actions link for the non-functional desktop, and select Repair.

   

3. VDI-in-a-Box scans the data stores of each server in the grid and provides a screen that indicates the server on which the personal disk has been found and prompts the user for confirmation.

   When confirmation has been provided, VDI-in-a-Box destroys the existing desktop, create a new linked clone on the indicated server, and attach the backed up personal disk to this new desktop. 

   When the desktop has started, the user might log in.