Backing up virtual machines in a ©VMWare ©ESXi host

Backing up virtual machines in a ©VMWare ©ESXi host

©VMWare ©vSphere is still the most advanced virtualization technology available in 2020, it outperforms its competitors by two digit figures in every aspect, that's why most people choose it as their virtualization software.

Nonetheless, using ©ESXi as your hypervisor has some drawbacks in regards to other virtualization technologies, as ©VMWare ©vSphere is a propietary solution that locks some of the hypervisor OS features.

One of the key aspects when it comes to use ©ESXi, in its free locked down version in production is the impossibility to use the built-in mechanisms to perform backups of your VMs, unless you license the software and pay the corresponding amount.

Some solutions came up along the years to cover this need, most of them were simple scripts that would just copy the virtual machines' virtual disks to some local datastore. This is really helpful, but just allows to keep some limited number of copies and loads the host while the backups are taking place. In case of big VMs this can become incompatible with a busy production scenario.

Many SMEs have nonetheless survived by using this kind of backup techniques, losing the advantages derived from using some advanced technologies like deduplication, many restore points, replication, live migration, etc...

Our ©XSIBackup line of products was conceived to offer advanced features to people willing to use ©ESXi hypervisors alone or in a vCenter managed context. It works in unlicensed (AKA ©ESXi Free) ©ESXi hypervisors as well as in licensed infrastructures in a VCenter controlled scenario.

©XSIBackup Features include:

- Hot backups and replicas.
- Full selectable block size plus compressed deduplication.
- Live migration and replicas of VMs.
- Unlimited restore points.
- Granular restores for every restore point and VM.

You can learn more by downloading a trial version and reading the software manual:

Full user manual