Deleted a VM by accident? Don’t sweat it. Nutanix Recycle Bin to the rescue!

  • 23 September 2020
  • 4 replies
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Introduced in AOS 5.18 is a feature known as the Recycle Bin, which is enabled by default and allows a 24-hour hold on VM files that were deleted and need to be recovered, unless the cluster free storage space reaches critical thresholds.

This feature was introduced to simplify the recovery procedure for accidentally deleted storage entities (Virtual Machines, Volume Groups, or individual disks). You can disable and enable the recycle bin or clear its contents.


To restore an entity, you MUST contact Nutanix Support.


To learn more about the limitations and how to manage the recycle bin, click here.


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4 replies

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Hello @Ismael.pereira

Thank you for your question. We can still recover deleted VMs from versions prior to 5.18 BUT with some limitations:
1. When UVMs are deleted, all the data that was in Oplog at that moment is immediately removed. This means we can expect a degree of data loss regardless if Curator has run or not. 
2. The amount of data removed from Oplog vary from 0 to few GBs.
3. We’d have to ensure we have the redundant copy of the VM disks/data.
4. If any type of scan was run after VM deletion, Vblocks are nullified or cleaned thus recovery is not possible. In such cases, we depend on recent PD or 3rd party backup.

To avoid all these complications, the Recycle bin feature was introduced. From 5.18, if a VM is deleted - there is a 24 hour hold on the VM files. 

Feel free to reach out if you need more information on this. I hope I was able to answer your question!
 

Its possible to recovery a VM deleted from AOS 5.15.2?

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Hello @DavidN!
Thank you for your feedback and suggestion! Unfortunately, we don't have that feature for Nutanix Flies at the moment. It is restricted to guest VMs and volume group vDisks. Nevertheless, we are definitely working on big improvements for this feature in the future versions. Stay tuned!

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Do you know if this extends to Nutanix Files Shares of Nutanix Files clusters themselves? either of those two would be a superb feature!