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Backing up virtual machines in VMware ESX

What solution do you recommend for backing up VMware ESX virtual machines? I'm considering VMware VCB, EsXpress or ESX Ranger. Do you have any suggestions?

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Tough question without knowing your environment. The most important place to start would be, what would you have to restore/recover, in what time frame, and with what degree of granularity (file level or image)? The entire storage/backup/replication market for VMware is flooded right now; some products are not GA yet, but being highly hyped by vendors. VCB is a good option because it works with most backup software platforms, takes minimal integration and communicates directly with your ESX servers as well as your storage, so you could be decreasing your complexity.

This was first published in March 2008

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