When you prepare to do a backup of the vCenter Server Appliance, you can use the API to calculate the storage space needed for the backup file.

You can do this task when you are choosing a backup storage location or whenever your existing storage location may be approaching full capacity.

Prerequisites
■

Verify that you have a vCenter Server Appliance running.

■

Verify that you are familiar with authentication methods. See Authentication Mechanisms.

Procedure
1

Authenticate to the vSphere Automation API endpoint and establish a session.

2

Request a list of backup parts available.

3

For each available backup part, request the size of the backup file.

The backup process calculates the compressed size of each backup part.

4

Choose which parts to include in the backup, and sum their sizes.

The backup storage server must have sufficient space to contain the chosen parts.

What to do next

After you choose which backup parts you will store, and verify that the backup storage server has sufficient free space, you can launch a backup job. For information, see Back up a vCenter Server Appliance by Using the API.