Finalizing the machine

While a virtual machine is running from a backup, the virtual disks' content is taken directly from that backup. Therefore, the machine will become inaccessible or even corrupted if the connection is lost to the backup location or to the backup agent.

For an ESXi machine, you have the option to make this machine permanent, i.e. recover all of its virtual disks, along with the changes that occurred while the machine was running, to the datastore that stores these changes. This process is named finalization.

Finalization is performed without downtime. The virtual machine will not be powered off during finalization.

To finalize a machine that is running from a backup

  1. On the All devices tab, select a machine that is running from a backup.
  2. Click Finalize.
  3. [Optional] Specify a new name for the machine.
  4. [Optional] Change the disk provisioning mode. The default setting is Thin.
  5. Click Finalize.

The machine name changes immediately. The recovery progress is shown on the Activities tab. Once the recovery is completed, the machine icon changes to that of a regular virtual machine.

What you need to know about finalization

Finalization vs. regular recovery

The finalization process is slower than a regular recovery for the following reasons:

  • During a finalization, the agent performs random access to different parts of the backup. When an entire machine is being recovered, the agent reads data from the backup sequentially.
  • If the virtual machine is running during the finalization, the agent reads data from the backup more often, to maintain both processes simultaneously. During a regular recovery, the virtual machine is stopped.

Finalization of machines running from cloud backups

Because of intensive access to the backed-up data, the finalization speed highly depends on the connection bandwidth between the backup location and the agent. The finalization will be slower for backups located in the cloud as compared to local backups. If the Internet connection is very slow or unstable, the finalization of a machine running from a cloud backup may fail. We recommend to run virtual machines from local backups if you are planning to perform finalization and have the choice.