Comparison of VI3 Backup Tools (VMworld Update 09/24/08)

By: Edward L. Haletky Texiwill on VMTN, author of VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers, published December 2007, Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.

File Level Backup

A file level backup is the traditional backup used most system administrators today. This backup allows for the easy restoration of single files. These backups include full file level backups as well as deltas or backups that just contain the changes since the last backup. During disaster recovery this type of backup requires the OS to first be installed, the backup agent installed, and then the file level backup to be restored.

Virtual Disk Backup

A Virtual Disk Backup is either a complete disk backup or delta backups of just those bits of the disk that changed since the previous backup. The full disk backup has the advantage during disaster recover as there is only one file or so to restore.

Intermediate Backup

An intermediate backup can be either of the two above but just uses either a File Level Backup or Virtual Disk Backup to get the data into another program.

Network Backup

Backup created 100% over the network without using either NFS, CIFS, or some other file sharing technology.

• Backup Types Supported
• Ease of Install
• Ease of Configuration
• Speed of Backup
• Size of Backup
• Impact on VI3 Servers
• Impact on Network
• Impact on Storage Network
• Restoration Method
• Integration w/VC

The following table depicts the results we have found and the tools we have compared. The review covers the big contenders and is the lesser known options are forthcoming. If you would like to see more options compared, please let me know about them. The order chosen is based loosely on release dates and not on desirability. Of course VMware Consolidated Backup was released after vRangerPro but since it is from VMware it is first on our table. There is a new feature that is interesting and that is File Level Restore (FLR), currently you need to create a VMDK backup for DR, and a File level backup for business continuity or the ability to just get one file easily. FLR combines the cababilities into one tool for fast single file restoration while maintaining DR backup integrity. Currently only Veaam Backup provides this functionality.

Details of the Tests

For our full virtual disk tests we used an 8GB Windows 2003 Enterprise Server VM with an 8GB virtual disk. When performing a full virtual disk test the operating system is relatively unimportant, however what is running in the OS is important. If for example, if the OS was running Exchange or a database, these would first have to be quiesced in some manner before proceeding. Each VM takes a total of 8.6GB of disk space prior to backups being run. Only one backup was run at a time and the SAN in use is an MSA1000. Granted the MSA1000 is no longer on HPs supported product list, however that is more due to end of life than anything else. The NFS server is a Windows 2003 Server system running the Windows Services for Unix NFS packages. The test environment is running VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3.5 Update 2 previous tests were run against VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3.0. No tool was tested using VCB as the raw VCB results can be used for this performance math. The backup tests were run using the following mechanisms:

VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB)

VMware Consolidated Backup provides all three types of backup capabilities depending on from where you issue the commands. Almost all tools use the VCB commands as part of their backup scripts as this is the main method to get data off an ESX server and to some other location whether that be a location local to an ESX server or, when using the VMware Consolidated Backup Proxy, local to a Windows 2003 Server machine. The Proxy mechanism is the most widely used as it will integrate into most existing third party backup tools like CA Brightstor ArcServer, CommVault Galaxy, EMC Avamar, EMC NetWorker, HP Data Protector, Symantec Backup Exec, Tivoli Storage Manager, Veritas NetBackup, and VizionCore vRangerPro. VCB will only work with VI3 and higher however. ESX version 2 has its own service console tools.

The two ways to use VCB are either to login to the hosts Service Console directly or to logon to the VMware Consolidated Backup Proxy server. If it is the former, there needs to be a location on which to place the backup local to the ESX server. This location could be a local storage array, a SAN, iSCSI, or NFS Datastore, or a remote share via NFS or CIFS. If it is using the Proxy the location can be a local volume, SAN or iSCSI LUN, or CIFS share. Of course NFS could be used as well from Windows 2003, but that is not available by default. Note however that the source of the backup for Proxy can only be iSCSI or SAN LUNS and not either NFS or local data stores. To access NFS or local data stores, VCB would need to be run from the service console.

From either location the main program vcbMounter can be called directly supplying the necessary arguments. All scripts that use VCB call this command eventually, including the third party packages mentioned previously.

The latest version of VCB contains methods to do backups over the network. The -m nbd option should be used to gain this functionality. Note, normally the -m san option would be used.

Ease of Installation

Since there are two methods to worry about here, we should inspect each option. First the Service Console; VCB is installed by default and there is no other installation tasks required. Secondly, for a Microsoft Windows Proxy Server, the installation package only need be installed following all the defaults once downloaded from the VMware site. All in all both are incredibly easy to install.

Ease of Configuration

For the Service Console there is only one configuration option and that is one that some people may not wish to do; place the username and password to use within the /etc/vmware/backuptools.conf file. This will allow the tools to work without requiring the username and password to be used with every command issued however this file needs to be protected properly and even so when the tool is used the password is available in the process list, which is a security violation which leads to a low score overall. It is possible to specify the user but not the password on the command line and then provide the password, but this causes issues with using VCB as an intermediate during scripting. For performance the proxy server has requirements that the iSCSI, NFS, or SAN LUNs also be presented to the proxy server. It is important that the server not modify these LUNs. This is a huge issue as Microsoft Windows 2003 Server will automatically try to add these LUNs to its concept of a disk and would destroy important data. To that end always select NO or Cancel when these dialogs pop-up. To this end the proxy server may need a FC-HBA or iSCSI-HBA in order to access the remote data stores (depends on the version of VCB in use). For the latest version of VCB, there is also support for an over the network version that can bypass the need for the proxy server to directly access the LUNs. For all items, the target location for the backup should be available as well. This target as previously mentioned could be another SAN or iSCSI LUN, NFS or CIFS share. The Service Console and Proxy Server both have their own means of accessing these target backup repositories and while I am a Linux person and find using samba simple others may not and therefore the score for the Service Console is also low.

Speed of Backup

When running from the Service Console the performance of a backup is horrendous as VI3 throttles all Disk I/O coming from the Service Console to minimize the impact to the VMs. This also affects remotely mounted storage including CIFS and NFS directly mounted to the console. All data stores are affected when using vcbMounter from the Service Console. When used through a proxy server the same limitations do not affect the speed of the backup. There are some SCSI reservations with the 64559 version of VCB. VCB has no mechanism by which to do differential backups which would speed things up considerably. The VCB Proxy requires Microsoft Services for Unix or some other form of NFS client to be available on the Proxy in order to access NFS shares. Since this is not a normal part of a Microsoft Windows 2003 Server the test was not made. In addition, the VCB Proxy can not access a VI3 host's local storage so this test was also not made.

Size of Backup

VCB exports a VMDK as a 2gbsparse set of files. For example if the VMDK is 30GBs it will create 15 files. These files will be sized from 200K to 2GBs depending on the utilization of the VMDK. The VMDK turns out to take up 7.1GBs of space or a 900MB savings over its original size.

Impact on VI3 Servers

When running via the service console for a SAN to SAN copy there is an initial increase in SCSI Reservation conflicts as files are created yet during the actual backup process there is no further impact on the performance of the disk subsystem or any perceivable impact on overall performance of the hosts.

Impact on Network

For Data Store to Data Store backups the network is not impacted as NFS and iSCSI data stores use there own network. For Data Store to Network backups however, this will impact the network for the service console but for no other virtual network within the system. If your service console vSwitch hosts other networks and share the same pNIC as the service console then yes these networks could be heavily impacted. Since this is not a best practice for virtual networking it was not considered as part of the score. If you support the rare case of this networking configuration then you will want to take this into consideration when performing backups.

Impact on Storage Network

VCB when used from the proxy server has a huge adverse affect on the storage network. When using lower end iSCSI and SAN storage the proxy server will cause a huge number of SCSI Reservation Conflicts as it reads the data from the server. The reservations adversely affect LUN performance. On higher end servers this tends not to be a problem. This gives VCB a lower rating on impact to the storage network. When using VCB from the command line however the number of SCSI Reservations is minimal to the creation of files and does not impact overall performance. Granted if more than one backup was done at a time performance would be impacted heavily.

Restoration Method

Since VCB products a 2gbsparse VMDK and a copy of all the files associated with the VM, it is possible to use VMware Converter Standalone edition to restore the VM to any ESX Server. VMware Converter will import many types of VMs directly into ESX. While VCB does not have direct restoration capabilities, VMware Converter does have the capability required. The other option is a by hand restoration using a file transfer program to get the VM onto an ESX server and the use of vmkfstools from the command line to import the VM into VI3. VMware Converter is a must have for moving VMs between different virtualization products and is as easy to install as VCB. The fact that a separate set of programs needs to be used is a mark against VCB.

Changes w/ESX v3.5 Update 2

Improvements I would like to see

To make VCB easier to use, I would like to see it integrated into VirtualCenter via the plug-in mechanism now available within v2.5. This plug-in should allow me to schedule a backup to occur.

Vizioncore vRangerPro -- As fast as VCB

Vizioncore vRangerPro is the oldest backup tool available. It came out before VCB however has been adapted to work with VCB. The latest version includes support for all versions of ESX except VI3i, support however is coming for this. vRangerPro has a fairly unique feature in backup technologies called vzboost which will boost the write speed when writing to host based data stores. Unlike VCB, vRangerPro does not require the mounting the SAN or iSCSI volumes to a separate proxy server, however it does require a Microsoft Windows Server from which to run the commands. Since vRangerPro is an agentless backup tool that aids in backing up VMs to other Datastores or even over the network it can run from a VM with ease. It is recommended that vRangerPro not run as a VM if the server upon which vRangerPro is running will be the final resting place or is itself a tape server. vRangerPro like VCB can also be run from the command line and vRangerPro can use VCB to perform SAN or iSCSI based backups. vRangerPro has a easy to use graphical interface as well as its command line version.

vRangerPro does most of its work from the service console in an agentless fashion described below. Due to this it has access to everything the Service Console can access, and it has access to anything the system upon which vRangerPro can access whether the target of the backup is a data store or a local filesystem native to either the service console or the system in use (VM or physical). To gain this capability out of VCB requires the use of VCB on both systems (note the above conversation of the Service Console vs Proxy in every review aspect).

Ease of Install

Vizioncore vRangerPro is very easy to install. The only difficulty is in getting the file, if you click on the wrong link all you get is the release notes. You also have to wait for an email in order to get the download location. There are also several plugins for vRangerPro that allow this software to work with VCB in order to create File level and VMDK based backups. vRangerPro with these plugins creates a graphical interface in order to use VCB directly. The plugins require extra installation and download tasks to install. Yet all installs are very straight forward using well known Microsoft installer tools.

Ease of Configuration

vRangerPro on startup launches you into the configuration dialog, however this is somewhat cryptic, even if you desire to use vRangerPro with VirtualCenter you need to add into the system the independent VMware ESX Servers. Part of adding an ESX Server is the entry of an administrative user and password as well as the root password, or you can bypass the administrative user and use the root user directly. The later only works if your ESX server has degraded its default security stance to allow root logins over SSH. Once the servers are entered then you need to configure the system to access VirtualCenter if you are using this, it is not necessary but does add in the ability to see all VMs without having to click through the different hosts. On top of this, vRangerPro can email you when a backup is completed or when errors occur so you need to configure the email address and server for this feature to work. Outside of the cryptic beginning where the ESX servers need to be entered, everything is very straightforward and easy to use.

The agentless approach to the Vizioncore products makes them ideal for those who do not want to directly access the service console, however, all the backups occur using commands readily available on the service console.

Speed of Backup

The latest vRangerPro includes their vzboost option which when used will improve the speeds of writes when the target of the backup is another Data Store. Since VI3 throttles all service console writes this is a great option to use and will increase the speed of the backup when doing backups from one data store to another that are local to the VI3 server, but this option has no affect on network based backups, which vRanger also supports. When using vRangerPro with VCB you can offset the speed of the backups just like VCB does. The use of VCB greatly speeds up backup from iSCSI or SAN LUNs.

The use of a differential backup or a backup of those disk blocks that have actually changed will also speed up the backup process.

Size of Backup

Using the default compression ratios, the size of our backup was 3.5GB. Use of higher compression rations can shrink that sometimes quite a bit. The use of differential backups will allow for smaller backups between the full backups.

Impact on VI3 Servers

The agentless aspect of vRangerPro implies that the commands have to be started from the external vRangerPro server via a service console link. Those commands are native to ESX and while they may impact the Service Console, generally it is minor unless you have quite a few simultaneous backups occurring. In general I have seen no impact on the normal operations of the server.

Impact on Network

If backing up Datastore to Datastore the network is unaffected except for the minor calls to ssh to initiate the backups. If a network backup is being done, then the Service Console network would be affected during the backup. The affect varies based on the number of simultaneous backups.

Impact on Storage Network

The use of vzboost technology will unthrottle the writes to a data store and that could affect performance if you were to do many backups at the same time to a Data Store. Regardless, more backups to the same data store will increase the chance of SCSI Reservation conflicts which will affect performance of iSCSI or SAN remote storage. Local storage would only be affected by the increased load or more than one backup per LUN. When backing up a smallish RDM I have seen the VM have issues writing to the disk, but this is more the nature of the application and not necessarily the backup software.

Restoration Method

vRangerPro has a built in restoration method that is easy to use. It is also possible to restore the resultant files from the command line by first creating the VM and then unpacking the backup file. There is no need with vRangerPro to use another tool to perform restorations and that is a big win over VCB.

Other Features

vRangerPro has included in it a two different clients, one for graphical use, and one for command line use and scripting, thereby integrating with other tools to get the backups to tape. In addition, vRangerPro includes plugins to make use of VCB, and File Level backups. The last feature of note is the encryption capability, allowing for secure transfers of backups over the wire.

Changes w/ESX v3.5 Update 2

Improvements I would like to see

I would like to see vRangerPro integrated into VirtualCenter via the plug-in mechanism now available within v2.5. This plugin should allow me to do everything vRangerPro does now. It would also be nice if vzboost could apply to reading data from the data stores as well as writing and be made available as a separate product. This would improve overall backup performance regardless of the tool used.

PhD esXpress -- Most Consistent

PhD esXpress requires an agent be installed on each VI3 server to be backed up. PhD is designed to automatically backup all VMs to the specified targets once they are configured. The agents can easily be installed as part of an automated install of VI3. There is now a graphical interface for finishing the configuration of the agents for VMware Virtual Infrastructure v3.5 (Install v3.1.9 of esXpress to get this functionality). The discussion below covers usage within v3.5.

Ease of Install

Installation of the two necessary agents installation files is very simple once you can gain access to the root account (use of SUDO is the preferred and auditable method) of your VI3 server. Then it is simply following the instructions within the Installation guide. While this is slightly more cryptic than an agentless install, it is very straight forward and no Linux experience is required to follow the well laid out instructions.

Ease of Configuration

esXpress for ESX v3.5 was missing a nice graphical interface so the configuration is done while logged into the Service Console. Use of the simple command 'phd' run directly as root or via sudo (recommended method) will gain you access to the user interface available to PhD. The installation guide walks you through the initial configuration, but once the document switches to discussing the graphical configuration helper, there is no longer any help for those who are using the latest version of VI3. You will have to piece together the next steps by equating the graphical approach to the approach within the text interface. This can be done with the help of the provided Users guide. After reading through this documentation, I was able to create my first backup, but it was not an easy plug and play approach to configuration.

As of v3.1.9 of esXpress the graphical interface is once more available to VI3.5, Use of this interface STILL requires some command line work to start it up. However, this is simplified by the very nice Setup Quick Menu. Perform the first 3 options and you can launch the helper GUI to finish the configuration. The last tab is one of the more important ones as it allows you to enter your License information and password information for use by the helper and the phd script. You then need to traverse to the Backup Targets tab and fill out the appropriate items there. Unfortunately there is no clear cut Setup Quick Menu for the GUI helper as here is for the CLI script and it is a bit confusing to get started. To run a backup add [xNOW] to the Display Name of the VM you wish to backup using the Virtual Infrastructure Client connected to either the Host or VirtualCenter. I did find the GUI tabs to be confusing as they are chock full of options. There are so many with respect to backups that it is very hard to wade through the ones you absolutely need. Be sure to run the VBAs from a VMFS that is NOT also a target of your backup, else you will run into SCSI Reservation Conflicts which will slow down the process. There is no warning about this when performing a configuration.

However, once the configuration is completed, it was simple to start one off backups using a change to the VM Display Name within VirtualCenter, this type of integration is very convenient and is what is lacking in the other packages. The default behavior is to backup the VMs daily using a full backup for the first time and then delta backups after that until the 2nd of the next month. Once the location of the backups is set, the system takes care of itself. The integration into VirtualCenter by using the display name is extremely handy as once the agent is installed and configured, there is no longer a need to go to the Service Console unless you need to further configure backup options. These options could include enabling backups of RDMs, and powered off VMs, as well as controlling whether backups will be made to another VMFS or to simultaneously transfer the backup over the network using FTP, SSH, or SMB protocols. To use these protocols the appropriate client must be allowed in the VMware ESX firewall (ftpClient, sshClient, or smbClient).

The fact that once configured there is no need to use an additional backup GUI to get the VMs off the VI3 server gives esXpress a better rating for configuration than the agent install would warrant. In addition, the default behavior implies there is less configuration necessary than other backup tools.

Speed of Backup

esXpress full backups are the most consistent and on par with other backup agents. Specifically for an NFS datastore backup it outperforms all other options. It is faster than the previous test by a long shot. The differential backups do speed up the process quite a bit.

Size of Backup

The size of the backup including the initial delta made is roughly the same as vRangerPro, but is slightly smaller.

Impact on VI3 Servers

The impact on the servers is very light, but hire than some of the other packages due to the agent running on each VI3 server. That impact however is light compared to other agents we have seen.

Impact on Network

There was no impact on the network when using esXpress, but the transfer rates for the backups for all network tests where so slow, that there could not be any impact.

Impact on Storage Network

The speed of the backups kept the impact on the storage network low. However, the storage network did have an issue when the agents hung in the middle of a backup. I am unsure why the backup hung, but it took a reboot of the server to clear things up. The other thing to consider is that the slower the backup the bigger the delta file used for snapshots, the committing of that data will impact the storage network.

Restoration Method

Restoration is as simple as the backup process and takes nearly as long. However, esXpress handles its differential backups as a part of the restoration process without any extra work.

Other Feature

esXpress is feature rich, containing encryption for the data transfer, completely automated after very little configuration, and will send the data to multiple targets at the same time. esXpress will automatically update the notes field within VirtualCenter and has ways of controlling backups from within VC. It is missing the GUIs for the Virtual Backup Assistant VMs for VI3.5, but other than is feature rich. This solution is difficult to configure when you have many ESX Servers to maintain as opposed to the other options that have centralized configuration and tools.

Changes w/ESX v3.5 Update 2

esXpress 3.1.18 has improved performance across the board. Where before it was one of the slowest options it now rivals direct VCB and vRangerPro in raw performance.

Improvements I would like to see

The main improvement I would like to see is better documentation for the command line interface, perhaps an appendix to the installation guide. I would also like to see a change to the tools to bring up the necessary steps to configure the agent without needing to go through several layers of menus. The previous improvement would be useful for the helpers as well. There is a minimum quantity required to do backups. Perhaps a first launch configure setup if there is not an existing valid configuration file. I would also like to see this fully integrated into VirtualCenter using the new VirtualCenter plugin interface thereby alleviating the need to place esXpress on EVERY host. Single Host View is still the single biggest drawback to the entire product as well of lack of VCB support for ESXi.

HP Virtual Machine Manager

The HP Virtual Machine Manager (VMM), which is for fee, is tied directly to the HPSIM server provided free of charge for managing HP Hardware. Granted it can be used for other hardware as well, but it prime objective is to provide a single pane of glass to aid in the monitoring of physical hardware. With VMM this is expanded to monitor virtual hardware as well. The Live Migration feature requires the availability of a Virtual Center Server. HPSIM also provides its own form of High Availability that will work only if the HPSIM server is not running within a VM on the host that died.

Ease of Install

HPSIM via the Insight Control DVD bundles HP VMM with it, therefore the installation occurs when HPSIM Insight Control Edition is first installed. However, the licensing aspect of HP VMM does take a little know how. First you need to Identify the server and then add the VMM agent to the server. Both of these steps and a few other helpful hints are provided at Edward Haletky's Virtualization Wiki. These steps are necessary in order for HP VMM to work properly. These are the only real installation steps necessary.

Ease of Configuration

There is one additional configuration script that is a part of HP VMM and that is to go to the Options->Virtual Machine Management->Security->VMware VirtualCenter Settings menu option. Here is where you will tie VMM to VirtualCenter to be able to see the hierarchy of folders of the VM and to allow HP VMM to Move a Virtual Machine using vMotion.

Speed of Backup

HPSIM can only backup to file locations which are known by the ESX Server. In essence the only network backup options are those provided by ESX itself, ie. using an NFS, local, SAN, or iSCSI Datastore, or a SMB mount from a Windows Server via the service console. Unfortunately the backup would often fail trying to perform a snapshot, and there are plenty of XML errors as well with communication to VC.

Size of Backup

In our tests, the backup produced by HPSIM was noticeably smaller than all the rest.

Impact on VI3 Servers

There is a relatively low impact on the VI3 servers however the hpvmmcntj java process will start to chew through CPU and will need to be restarted. But the impact is to the single process.

Impact on Network

The only impact to the network is when the backup is to a mounted device such as an NFS or CIFS share. Other than that there is no network impact.

Impact on Storage Network

There is a higher impact to the storage network as there are several files created and then shrunk down as part of the backup process. This is no different than any other backup tool available that rights to the local data stores.

Restoration Method

Restoration method is through its own interface within HPSIM.

Other Features

For backup there are no extra features, but for HP VMM there are several. There is a minor forms of capability mimicking VMware DRS, and VMware HA as well as some VirtualCenter features like vMotion, and Virtual Machine copying.

Changes w/ESX v3.5 Update 2

Not tested with the latest update.

Improvements I would like to see

There are a lot of screens to traverse to hit the location to specify where to place the backup. I would like to be able to set that per VI3/ESX Server instead of every time I do a backup. However, once set per VM, it sticks for the next backup of the VM.

Veeam Backup -- Most Improved

Veeam Backup is the latest player in the Virtual Machine backup game, and it is the most improved tool. Veeam Backup is also shipped with Veeam FastSCP.

Ease of Install

Veeam 2.0 installs easily and has no special requirements to run. This is much better than version 1.x.

Ease of Configuration

Unfortunately there is no configuration wizard presented when running the program for the first time so you need to find the menu option to load the separate license file. The next step is to Add a Server to Veeam Backup. The server can be either VMware ESX, Linux Host, or Virtual Center. If you use VirtualCenter you will need to enter passwords for all the hosts you wish to backup including the use of the root password. Once passwords are entered the Backup Wizard can be employed to create a backup of a particular VM. Unlike other tools, the wizard creates a backup job that can then be executed immediately or scheduled to run as necessary. Unfortunately, the backup wizard does take a bit of fiddling in order to get the backup names, compression levels, and directories to use as they do not default to any specific options. Not all the options are saved every time you run through the wizard however, specifically compression options.

Veeam Backup will also integrate with VCB, as well as Replicate an entire server to a new location. Integration with VCB gives Veeam a performance boost and the ability to backup ESXi based systems.

Speed of Backup

Veeam is still the slowest backup mechanism used to date for initial backups, yet it is quite improved over its previous version. Almost a 2x improvement in some cases. However its specialized incremental backups are designed to speed up recovery. They produce what they call a synthetic backup. They take the differential backup created and merge it in to a full backup so that when you go to do a restore, you restore the merged or synthetic backup. This promises quite a savings during restoration.

Size of Backup

When using High Compression within Veeam Backup the backup size is the smallest to date, but not by much. It is a 2.8GB file versus a 2.9 GB file. The extra 100MB savings may not be a huge savings to some. When backing up VMs of the same version of the guest operating system it is possible to get even more of a savings. Veeam does a block (1MB) by block comparison of the backup being created in order to see if they can save further on space. If the block of data is the same between two VMs, there is a pointer to the existing data made. Backups may take longer but there is a large savings on disk space for those VMs that are built from the same template.

Impact on VI3 Servers

The impact on the server increases as the amount of VMs to be backed up simultaneously increases. It is very easy to place all the VMs into one backup job with the backup wizard. It may be better to tune this so that not all VMs are backed up at the same time.

Impact on Network

There is no impact on the network unless a network based backup is being performed.

Impact on Storage Network

There could be a huge impact on the storage network as this backup tool allows for many VMs to be backed up simultaneously, but there is no way to order the backups to alleviate SCSI Reservation conflicts and other impacts.

Restoration Method

Restoration method is through its own interface within Veeam Backup. The synthetic backup created by the incremental backups makes restoration very fast. Veeam also has built into it a way to do File Level Restoration (FLR) as well. The last is an extremely nice feature if you often need to restore a few files.

Other Features

Veeam Backup includes a copy of FastSCP as well as the ability to Replicate VMs from storage device to storage device. This provides one tool with the ability to backup VMs prepared for tape and restoration, but also the ability to send VMs en masse to hot sites. The last feature that is quite cool, is the ability to do file level restores of Windows VMs.

Changes w/ESX v3.5 Update 2

Veeam 2.0.1.160 is now twice as fast as its previous versions but has a long way to go to reach the performance of the other tools.

Improvements I would like to see

All my previous wish list items have been made. However, one still remains, performance, backups should not take as long as they do to make while improved it is still the slowest tool available. I would also like to see a plugin made so that the tool could be used from within Virtual Center.

Conclusion

The bolt on backup packages vRangerPro, Veeam Backup, and esXpress provide more features and capability than VCB and HPSIM. VCB ships free with any VI3 license these days, but the rest are competitively priced. The total scores between vRangerPro and esXpress mark them at about the same. However, if speed of backup is the most important thing, then of the two vRangerPro with its vzboost capability is the best. However, if it is out of the box, minimal configuration that you want, then esXpress is the way to go if you are not afraid of the command line. If you are, and prefer an agentless style backup then vRangerPro, Veeam Backup, or VCB are your choices. Yet if integration with your existing backup software is your driving force then VCB or vRangerPro may be the better approach. Yet, if you are more interested in reduced time to perform DR and FLR, then Veeam Backup may be the best tool to use.

As with everything there are a number of considerations. This document will grow as more information is found about these and other products. If you have any comments please feel free to mail them to me.