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.

Such foundational moves have paved the way for faster protection of virtual environments. But, they represent only half of the story for automated backup of VMware environments. The other half of the equation relates to how smoothly your third-party backup software application picks up where VMware leaves off - ensuring automated, successful backups and easy restores with minimal impact on staff time.