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Managed Bare Metal is a VMware-based private cloud service hosted and managed by OVHcloud. You get a dedicated vSphere infrastructure — including hosts, datastores, and a vCenter Server — without managing the underlying hardware or hypervisor licensing. OVHcloud handles hardware maintenance, spare host replacement, and infrastructure-level availability. You control the virtual machines, networking, snapshots, and resource allocation inside vSphere.

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Key concepts

ConceptDescription
vCenterThe central management platform for your infrastructure, accessible via the vSphere web client.
vSphereVMware’s virtualisation platform running on dedicated hosts.
DatastoreThe storage pool where VM disk files are kept. OVHcloud datastores use ZFS-based storage.
HostA physical server running the VMware ESXi hypervisor. You can add or remove hosts hourly.
Virtual Data Centre (vDC)A logical grouping of hosts and datastores within your Managed Bare Metal infrastructure.
VLANVirtual network segments within vRack, used to isolate private traffic between VMs.

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Getting started

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Access the Control Panel

In the OVHcloud Control Panel, navigate to Bare Metal Cloud > Managed Bare Metal, then select your infrastructure. The General information tab shows:
  • Your infrastructure name and vSphere version
  • The data centre and zone
  • The number of virtual data centres
  • Access policy (Open or Restricted) and links to management interfaces

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Log in to vSphere

  1. From the General information tab, click the link to the vSphere web client.
  2. Log in with a user account created in the Users tab of the Control Panel.
  3. You land in the vSphere client where you can manage hosts, datastores, and VMs.
To restrict vCenter access to specific IP addresses, go to the Security tab in the Control Panel and set the access policy to Restricted, then add your authorised IPs. If you set Restricted mode without adding any IPs, no one will be able to connect to the vSphere client — but running VMs are not affected.

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Manage users

Create and manage vSphere users from the Users tab in the Control Panel. For each user, you can configure:
  • vSphere access — None, Read-only, or Read/Write
  • VM Network access — access to the public network segment
  • Add resources — permission to add hourly hosts and datastores via the OVHcloud plugin

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OVHcloud features

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Hourly snapshots

OVHcloud takes automatic ZFS snapshots of your datastores every hour and retains up to 24 (H-1 through H-24). The most recent snapshot (H-1) is directly accessible via the vSphere datastore browser. To restore a file or VM from the H-1 snapshot:
  1. In vSphere, go to the Storage view and browse to your datastore.
  2. Open the .zfs folder and navigate to the VM you want to restore.
  3. Copy the VM files to a new folder in the datastore.
  4. Register the VM by clicking the .vmx file and selecting Register VM.
Hourly snapshots are an additional safety net, not a backup system. They are not guaranteed and should not replace a proper backup solution like Veeam Managed Backup.
Snapshots older than H-1 (up to H-24) are accessible only via a paid OVHcloud support intervention. Submit a support ticket with the VM name, snapshot time, and target datastore.

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vRack integration

Each Managed Bare Metal infrastructure is automatically placed in a vRack. The vRack enables private Layer 2 connectivity between your VMs and other vRack-compatible OVHcloud services, including dedicated servers and Public Cloud instances. By default, OVHcloud provides 11 VLANs (VLAN10 to VLAN20) for private communication. In vSphere, find them under Networking > vrack folder. To create an additional VLAN:
  1. In the vSphere networking view, right-click the dVS ending in -vrack and select New Distributed Port Group.
  2. Name the port group and configure it with:
    • Port binding: Static
    • Port allocation: Elastic
    • Number of ports: 24
    • VLAN type: VLAN
    • VLAN ID: your chosen ID (1–4096, outside the default VLAN10–20 range)
  3. Click Finish.
Assign the new port group to VM network adapters to isolate traffic.

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IP blocks

Add public IP blocks to your infrastructure from the Control Panel (General information > IP blocks > Order). IP blocks are assigned to your vDC and can be used to give VMs direct public internet access via the VM Network port group.

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Managing virtual machines

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Deploy a VM

  1. In vSphere, right-click your data centre and select New Virtual Machine.
  2. Choose a creation method:
    • Create a new virtual machine — start from scratch, attach an ISO from your datastore
    • Deploy from template — use an OVHcloud-provided or custom OVF template
    • Clone an existing VM — copy a running VM (be careful to avoid IP conflicts)
  3. Name the VM, choose a cluster or host, select a datastore, and configure vCPU, memory, and network.
  4. For the network adapter, choose VM Network for public internet access or a VLAN port group for private traffic.
  5. Click Finish.
Do not store VMs on storageLocal (the local host disk). If the host fails, locally stored VMs become inaccessible and cannot be restarted on another host.

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Snapshots

VM-level snapshots capture the disk state (and optionally RAM) at a point in time. Use them before major changes. Take a snapshot: Right-click the VM > Snapshots > Take Snapshot. Name the snapshot, optionally include RAM, and click OK. Restore a snapshot: Right-click the VM > Snapshots > Manage Snapshots > select the snapshot > Restore. Delete a snapshot: Right-click the VM > Snapshots > Manage Snapshots > select > Delete.
Snapshots are not backups. Large numbers of snapshots consume significant disk space and can degrade VM performance. Delete snapshots you no longer need, and consolidate if disk redundancy errors appear.
Consolidate snapshots if they fail to compress after deletion: Right-click the VM > Snapshots > Consolidate.

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Clone a VM

Cloning lets you create identical copies of a VM for rapid deployment. Right-click the VM and select Clone > Clone to Virtual Machine or Clone to Template. When cloning for deployment, choose Clone to Template to keep the source available for repeated deployments without performance penalties.

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Modify VM resources

To add or remove vCPUs or memory, right-click the VM > Edit Settings. Some resource changes require the VM to be powered off. To resize a disk, right-click the VM > Edit Settings > expand the disk size field.
You cannot resize a disk while a snapshot exists on the VM. Delete all snapshots before resizing.

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VMware vSphere features

vMotion

Live-migrate running VMs between hosts with no downtime. Useful for planned host maintenance or load redistribution.

Storage vMotion

Move VM disk files between datastores while the VM remains running, without interrupting service.

High Availability (HA)

Automatically restart VMs on another host if their host fails. HA requires a cluster with at least two hosts.

Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS)

Automatically balance VM workloads across hosts based on CPU and memory utilisation.

Fault Tolerance (FT)

Keep a live shadow copy of a VM on a second host. If the primary host fails, the shadow takes over instantly with no data loss.

VM Encryption

Encrypt VM disk and configuration files using a Key Management Server (KMS). Configured via the vSphere client with a KMS registered in the Control Panel.

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vMotion

vMotion migrates a running VM from one host to another without interrupting its network connections or applications. To use vMotion:
  1. Right-click the VM in vSphere > Migrate.
  2. Select Change compute resource only.
  3. Choose the destination host and click Finish.
The migration runs in the background. The VM remains available throughout.

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High Availability (HA)

HA monitors hosts in a cluster and restarts any VMs that were running on a failed host. Enable HA at the cluster level:
  1. Right-click the cluster > Settings > vSphere Availability.
  2. Toggle vSphere HA on and configure admission control and VM restart priority.
Veeam Managed Backup requires HA and DRS to be enabled on your cluster before activation.

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DRS

DRS automatically migrates VMs via vMotion to balance load across hosts. Enable it at the cluster level and set the automation level (Manual, Partially Automated, or Fully Automated).

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Backup with Veeam Managed Backup

Veeam Managed Backup is an OVHcloud-managed backup solution built on Veeam Backup & Replication. Backup data is stored on independent OVHcloud storage, separate from your infrastructure. Prerequisites:
  • vSphere HA enabled
  • DRS enabled
  • Windows SPLA licensing enabled
Enable the backup option:
  1. In the Control Panel, select your Managed Bare Metal and open the Backup tab for the target data centre.
  2. Choose a backup plan and click Enable backup.
  3. Wait for the confirmation email — a backup VM will appear in your vSphere inventory.
Enable backups for individual VMs:
  1. In vSphere, select your data centre > Configure tab > Backup Management (under OVHcloud).
  2. Select the VM > Enable backup on this VM > OK.
Backups run nightly from 22:00. You receive a daily status email. Restore a VM from backup:
  1. Go to Configure > Backup Management in vSphere.
  2. Select the VM (Backup state must show Enabled) > Restore Backup.
  3. Choose the backup date and target datastore, then click Restore Backup.
The restored VM appears next to the source VM with a BatchRestore suffix and is powered off by default.
Do not start a restored VM while the source VM is still running — this causes an IP address conflict.
Restore via the OVHcloud API: Generate a backup report first: 
POST /dedicatedCloud/{serviceName}/datacenter/{datacenterId}/backup/generateReport
Then restore using the backupRepositoryName from the report email: 
POST /dedicatedCloud/{serviceName}/datacenter/{datacenterId}/backup/batchRestore

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Notes on licensing and compatibility

Veeam Managed Backup is currently only compatible with Veeam version 9.5. OVHcloud will continue offering version 9.5 until a compatible upgrade path is available. Plan your Veeam integrations accordingly.
Proprietary VMware features such as Fault Tolerance require specific host configurations and may not be available on all Managed Bare Metal plans. Check the Technical capabilities section in the Control Panel under your infrastructure’s FAQ for plan-specific limits.

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