ESX/ESXi, AWS: Backup VMs in vCenter to AWS S3

In my home lab, I run vCenter 6.7 with several ESXi hosts and since I built the lab I never did any backups.
Now that my VMs are not test VMs and they became fairly important, I’ve decided to take care of the backups.
Initially, I was thinking of using the Veeam Free Backup, but this program can’t do any schedules in the free version. Then I decided to play with OVF Tool, but I was having multiple issues with this tool and logging with a domain account. So, finally, I used PowerCLI and AWS CLI.
The idea is to create a OVA export of each VM and then upload it to an S3 bucket. The source is well commented, so you shouldn’t have any issues in the script’s logic.

######################################################################################################
# vCenter2AWS v0.1
# K.Andreev - 06/30/2018
# Description:  Creates an OVA backup of all or selected vCenter VMs 
#				and uploads them to a bucket in AWS (optional)
# Prerequisites: PowerCLI, AWS CLI (configured)
# NOTE: The VM being backed up will be shut down and powered up when the OVA file is complete
# 		If using PowerCLI 10.x execute this line once
# 			Set-PowerCLIConfiguration -InvalidCertificateAction Ignore
######################################################################################################
# Function for logging
Function LogWrite {
   Param ([string]$logstring)
   Add-content $LogFile -value ((Get-Date -format "[dd/MMM/yyyy:HH:mm:ss] ").ToString() + $logstring)
}
######################################################################################################
########## IMPORTANT PARAMETERS. DO NOT IGNORE. MODIFY TO SUIT YOUR NEEDS. ###########################
######################################################################################################
# vCenter hostname
$VCenter = "vcenter.domain.local"
# vCenter username
$Username = "[email protected]"
# vCenter password
$Password = "SecretPassword"
# Destination for the OVA backup files, make sure you have trailing \ at the end of this string
$Destination = "D:\VMs\"
# Exclude the following VMs from backups
$Exclude = @("VMware vCenter Server Appliance")
# Name of the S3 bucket (make sure it exists, lower case only, starts with s3://)
$S3Bucket = "s3://vspherebackups"
# Do you want to upload to S3
$Upload = $true
# Specify if the OVA file contains a time stamp 
# e.g. vmname.YYYYMMDDHHmm.ova ($true) or vmname.ova ($fasle)
$TimeStamp = $true
# Do you want the OVA files to be deleted after upload to S3
$DeleteOVA = $true
# Log file path and name
$LogFile = "D:\VMs\vcenter2aws.log"
######################################################################################################
################### EXPORT VMs AS OVA FILES ##########################################################
######################################################################################################
# Connect to vCenter
$Server = Connect-VIServer $VCenter -User $Username -Password $Password
LogWrite ("Connected to " + $Server)
# Get all VMs
$VMs = Get-VM
# Loop through each of the VMs
Foreach ($VM in $VMs) {
# Get the name of each VMs	
$Name = $VM.Name
    # Skip the backup for the VMs that are in the array variable defined above
    if ($Exclude.Contains($Name)) {
        LogWrite ("Backup skipped for "+ $Name)
        Continue
    }
    # Stop the VM in order to take a backup
    Stop-VM -VM $Name -Confirm:$false
    LogWrite ("Stopping VM " + $Name)
    # Calculates the time stamp that will become part of the name
    if ($TimeStamp) {
        $TimeStampName = Get-Date -UFormat "%Y%m%d%H%M"
        $TimeStampName = "." + $TimeStampName
    } else
    # otherwise the time stamp will be blank
    {
        $TimeStampName = ""
    }
    LogWrite ("Backup starts for " + $Name)
    # Exports the VM as OVA file, overwrites if there is a same file at the destination
	Get-VM -Name $Name | Export-VApp -Destination ($Destination + $Name + $TimeStampName + ".ova") -Format Ova -Force:$true
    LogWrite ("Backup ends for " + $Name)
    # Once the export completes, power up the VM
	Start-VM -VM $Name -RunAsync
    LogWrite ("Starting VM " + $Name)
}
# Disconnect from vCenter
Disconnect-VIServer -Server $Server -Confirm:$false
LogWrite ("Disconnected from " + $Server)
######################################################################################################
################################ UPLOAD TO AWS #######################################################
######################################################################################################
# Exit if upload is not needed
if (!$Upload) {
    LogWrite "Upload to S3 skipped, exiting..."
    exit
}
LogWrite ("Upload to S3 bucket " + $S3Bucket + " starts")
# Use AWS CLI command to sync the destination folder and S3. 
aws s3 sync $Destination $S3Bucket
LogWrite ("Upload to S3 bucket " + $S3Bucket + " ends")
######################################################################################################
################################ DELETE THE OVA FILES ################################################
######################################################################################################
# Exit if delete is not needed
if (!$DeleteOVA) {
    LogWrite "Deleting OVA files skipped, exiting..."
    exit
}
Get-ChildItem $Destination -Include *.ova -Recurse | Foreach ($_) {Remove-Item $_.Fullname}
LogWrite ("Deleting OVA files from " + $Destination)
LogWrite "Script completed...Have a nice day!"