Backing up/restoring .vmdk files
VMware offers a backup and recovery solution called vSphere Data Protection (VDP). While fully integrated with vCenter, this solution provides agentless disk-based backup of virtual machines.
Starting from vSphere 5.1:
- VDP is included in vSphere Essentials Plus Kit with a 4 TB limit for backup storage.
- The VDP advanced version has to be purchased separately.
Some of the core VDP features are as follows:
- De-duplication
- Changed Block Tracking (CBT) backup and restore
- Application awareness (MS Exchange, SQL Server, SharePoint, and so on)
Getting ready
The VDP appliance is preconfigured with one of the following destination datastores: 0.5 TB, 1 TB, and 2 TB. This space is for backups only. The operating system, logs, and checkpoints of the appliance require additional space. According to VMware, a 0.5 TB appliance will need 850 GB of free space in total, a 1 TB appliance requires 1.57 TB of free space, while a 2 TB VDP will consume 3.02 TB of free space.
This should...
