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...
