11.5. Backing Up with VMware Consolidated Backup

Virtual machines are no less likely to lose data, become corrupted, or fail than their physical counterparts. And though some might argue against that point, it is most certainly the best way for you to look at virtual machines. With the opposite school of thought, you might be jeopardizing the infrastructure with overconfidence in virtual machine stability. It's better to be safe than sorry. When it comes to virtual machine backup planning, VMware suggests three different methods you can use to support your disaster recovery plan:

  • Using backup agents inside the virtual machine

  • Using VCB to perform virtual machine backups

  • Using VCB to perform file-level backups (Windows guests only)

VCB is VMware's ...

Get Mastering VMware vSphere™ 4 now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.