Keeping It Simple: How To Protect Growing VMware Environments

By BakBone Software, Inc.

IT teams that make the move to VMware are often thrilled by how much easier it is to provision and manage their previously cumbersome and costly server environments. Yet, as virtual machines proliferate and more ESX Servers are added to these environments, administrators who are tasked with protecting their growing virtual data centers often face added layers of complexity. Depending on the third-party backup application in use, achieving adequate data protection for each virtual machine (or a whole VirtualCenter environment) can be either straight forward or a decidedly complex process. A few guidelines can help today's administrators focus on keeping it simple while still ensuring robust, automated backup and recovery for VMware.

As VMware evolved to meet the needs of its growing customer base, the company built an excellent foundation for data protection. Designed to work in conjunction with third-party backup software applications, VMware engineered its own point-in-time snapshot functionality to appropriately quiesce and reconvene operations of one or more virtual machines. This has allowed VMware to produce consistent disk-based backup images without undue disruption to end-user operations.

To help centralize and further streamline its backup/recovery operations, VMware developed its own VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) set of utilities to back up virtual machines (VMs) from each ESX Server to a centralized VCB Proxy Server.