Question 10: An architect is working on the data protection design for a VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) solu… | Advanced VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 vSphere Kubernetes Service Practice Question

An architect is working on the data protection design for a VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) solution. The solution consists of a single Workload Domain that has vSphere Supervisor activated. During a customer workshop, the customer requested that vSphere Pods must be used for a number of third-party applications that have to be protected via backup. Which backup method or tool should be proposed by the architect to satisfy this requirement?

Answer

A. Standalone Velero with Restic.
B. vCenter file-based backup.
C. Velero Plugin for vSphere. Correct
D. vSAN Snapshots.

Explanation

VCF 9.0 distinguishes between backing up the Supervisor control plane and backing up workloads that run on the Supervisor, including vSphere Pods. In the “Considerations for Backing Up and Restoring Workload Management” table, the scenario “Backup and restore vSphere Pods” explicitly lists the required tool as “Velero Plugin for vSphere”, with the guidance to “Install and configure the plug-in on the Supervisor.” The same document is explicit that standalone Velero with Restic is not valid for vSphere Pods, stating: “You cannot use Velero standalone with Restic to backup and restore vSphere Pods. You must use the Velero Plugin for vSphere installed on the Supervisor.” vCenter file-based backup is documented for restoring the Supervisor control plane state, not for backing up and restoring vSphere Pod workloads themselves. Therefore, to meet the requirement to protect third-party applications running as vSphere Pods, the architect should propose the Velero Plugin for vSphere.