Dell PowerVault DL2000 - Manual (Page 17)

VMware Virtual Machine Protection
17 October 2008
The following table provides a comparison of the VMware backup methods described in this
document.
VMWARE BACKUP METHOD COMPARISON CHART (CONT.)
Feature
Backup Exec Agent
for VMware Virtual
Infrastructure (AVVI)
Agent Level
Guest VM
Backup
Scripted VCB
Off-Host
Proxy Level
Backup
Service
Console
Backup via
RALUS***
Included Application
Support YES YES
AVVI included VSS support
to protect VSS-aware appli-
cations (such as Microsoft
Exchange, Microsoft SQL,
Microsoft SharePoint, etc)
when protecting the entire
Guest VM
YES
Backups of applications
are available via the
corresponding Backup
Exec Agent when in-
stalled inside of the
Guest virtual machine
running the application
YES
VCB 1.5 does
support the
backup or recov-
ery of online appli-
cation data be-
yond a crash-
consistent file
system backup of
the .vmdk file
NO
RALUS does not
currently support
the backup or re-
covery of online
application data
beyond a crash-
consistent file sys-
tem backup of
the .vmdk file
Leverages VMware
Converter for Cus-
tomized Guest VM
Restores YES YES
AVVI leverages VMware
Converter to restore Guest
VM‟s backup to their original
or alternate location with
different virtual machine
name and/or different net-
work
NO
VMware Converter
integration is not avail-
able
YES
A SAN is required
to perform VCB off
-host proxy back-
ups
NO
VMware Converter
integration is not
available
Leverages VMware
Converter for Cus-
tomized Guest VM
Restores YES YES
AVVI leverages VMware
Converter to restore Guest
VM‟s backup to their original
or alternate location with
different virtual machine
name and/or different net-
work
NO
VMware Converter
integration is not avail-
able
YES
A SAN is required
to perform VCB off
-host proxy back-
ups
NO
VMware Converter
integration is not
available
Online Backups of
Guest Virtual Ma-
chine YES YES
AVVI leverages VMware
VCB to communicate with
VirtualCenter or individual
ESX servers to perform
online off-host backups of
Guest VM‟s
YES
The Backup Exec
Agent for Windows
Servers (AWS) and the
Backup Exec System
Recovery 7.0 Option
(BESRO) can both be
installed into the Guest
virtual machine to take
online backups without
being shutdown
YES
VCB enables
online backups of
Guest virtual ma-
chines
YES
Backup Exec Re-
mote Agent for
Linux and Unix
(RALUS) can use
the vcbMounter and
vcbRestore
VMware tools to
perform online
backups of Guest
virtual machines
Supports all VMware
Storage Configura-
tions YES YES
AVVI can support all current
storage infrastructures of
VMware including SAN,
iSCSI, NBD/NFS, and local
storage
NO
A SAN is not required
to perform Agent Level
backups of each Guest
virtual machine
YES
VCB scripting can
support multiple
storage infrastruc-
tures including
SAN, iSCSI, NBD/
NFS, and local
storage
NO
Public folders can
be restored directly
by Backup Exec
GRT-enabled back-
ups to original or
redirected loca-
tions.
*** Backup Exec Remote Agent for Linux\Unix Servers (RALUS) does not support ESX 2.x.
It is only compatible with ESX 3.x servers.