Dell PowerVault DL2000 - Manual (Page 16)

VMware Virtual Machine Protection
16 October 2008
The following table provides a comparison of the VMware backup methods described in this
document.
VMWARE BACKUP METHOD COMPARISON CHART
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***
Integrated with
VMware VCB Backup
Framework YES YES
Support for VMware‟s VCB
framework has been inte-
grated into the Backup con-
sole without any scripting or
integration modules required
NO
There is no integrated
support for VMware‟s
VCB framework when
Agent‟s are installed
inside of the Guest
VM‟s
NO
Requires separate
scripts or integra-
tion modules for
VMware VCB
support as pre/
post job scripts
NO
No support for
VMware‟s VCB
framework
Individual file-level
and folder recovery
from a single-pass
image level backup
of a Guest VM
(.vmdk) YES YES
AVVI uses Backup Exec‟s
Granular Recovery Technol-
ogy (GRT), to recover indi-
vidual files, directories, or
entire volumes can be re-
stored without restoring the
entire Guest VM .vmdk
NO
Individual files, directo-
ries, or entire volumes
can only be selected
for restore for a Guest
virtual machine when a
Backup Exec Agent
was used for backup
NO
Individual files,
directories, or
entire volumes
can only be se-
lected for when a
separate 2nd pass
file-level VCB
backup has been
performed
NO
The entire .vmdk
file must be re-
stored. Individual
files from within
the .vmdk cannot
be restored sepa-
rately
Integrated with
VMware VirtualCen-
ter YES YES
AVVI can communicate di-
rectly with VMware‟s Virtual-
Center to automatically dis-
cover and display your
VMware environment
NO
Individual files, directo-
ries, or entire volumes
can only be selected
for restore for a Guest
virtual machine when a
Backup Exec Agent
was used for backup
NO
Individual files,
directories, or
entire volumes
can only be se-
lected for when a
separate 2nd pass
file-level VCB
backup has been
performed
NO
The entire .vmdk
file must be re-
stored. Individual
files from within
the .vmdk cannot
be restored sepa-
rately
Agentless Backup of
Guest Virtual Ma-
chines YES YES
AVVI allows Backup Exec to
communicate directly with
VirtualCenter or individual
ESX Servers to provide pro-
tection of Guest VM‟s without
installing an Agent on the
ESX or Guest VM
NO
Individual Guest VM
backup requires an
Agent to be installed
inside of each Guest
VM
YES
Provides basic
backup without
requiring an Agent
to be installed
inside of each
Guest VM
NO
Requires Agent to
be installed on ESX
Service console
(not possible with
ESXi) and does not
off-load backup i/o
Off-Host Backup
Processing YES YES
AVVI uses VMware‟s VCB to
offload backup tasks from
ESX Server systems to one
or more dedicated backup
VCB proxy servers, reducing
the load on the ESX Server
systems
NO
Off-host backups are
not currently supported
with Agent Level back-
ups of Guest virtual
machines
YES
Provides basic
script level VCB
backup support for
off-host backups
NO
Backups of
the .vmdk and .vmx
files with the
RALUS Agent must
be done on-host on
the VMware ESX 3
server to a remote
Backup Exec
Server
*** Backup Exec Remote Agent for Linux\Unix Servers (RALUS) does not support ESX 2.x.
It is only compatible with ESX 3.x servers.