[Quick Guide] VMware Backup and Replication Software

Scenario: Any suggestion for VM replication backup software?

In VMware, if you want to replicate a VM to another site, you can utilize vSphere Replication provided by VMware. VMware vSphere Replication is designed to replicate virtual machines within the same site or remote sites for fast disaster recovery. It allows you to configure Recovery Point Objects (RPOs) for replication intervals between 5 minutes and 24 hours.

However, as a professional enterprise failover solution, vSphere Replication can be quite expensive. So if your requirements for business continuity are not as high, or you want a more long-term secure data protection solution, then you may also want to consider using VMware backup tool instead of VMware replication software.

What's the difference between replication and backup

Both replication and backup are efficient ways for VM data protection, but different in working purpose. Replication is to achieve disaster recovery, it transfers changed data to another host almost simultaneously. While backup is more secure for long-term storage, you can also schedule backup tasks to offer regular backup and recovery points to achieve replication.

Efficient and affordable VMware backup software

AOMEI Cyber Backup is a professional data security software which helps to replicate ESXi virtual machines. It can quickly backup and restore VMs to another host without any complex settings and interruption and allow you to restore VM from any point. So, this part will introduce the detailed steps to use this VMware backup and replication software.

Automatic VMware backup: auto backup virtual machines on regular basis to protect VMware workloads continuously, and auto delete unwanted obsolete backups to save space.
Instant Disaster Recovery: Once the VMware crashes, quickly restore VMware to normal state and reduce business-critical downtime.
Easy to use: You can backup and manage multiple VMware VMs though central console without installing agent on each VM.
Save storage: create full backup for entire VM or incremental/differential backup for only changed data, and specify retention policy as needed.
Economical cost: reduce O&M costs and additional hardware cost for replication.

*This software supports both paid and free versions of VMware ESXi and Hyper-V. You can either install this backup software on Windows or Linux system.

How to replicate VM to another host using AOMEI Cyber Backup

1. Click Backup Task >> Create New Task to start VM backup tasks.

2. Enter task name, then select VMware ESXi Backup and the VMs. You can batch backup large numbers of VMs managed by vCenter Server, or multiple VMs on a standalone ESXi host simultaneously.

3. In Target, select destination to store backups such as a local path or network.

4. In Schedule, create full/incremental/differential backup and select time to back up VM automatically (daily/weekly/monthly).

5. In Backup Cleanup, specify retention policies for each backup and automatically delete useless backups.

6. Click Start Backup. You can monitor the process of backup in the Backup Task page.

7. After creating backup task for VM, click Restore to perform recovery from backup. Select backup content and click Restore to new location. Then choose the destination host and configure the storage, RAM and Virtual Processor for new VM.

It is able to restore VM from any backup point directly if something happens to the original virtual machine.

Specialist VMware replicate software - vSphere Replication

Before you start replication, you should download vSphere Replication and perform a series of complicated configuration first which requires you to be extremely carefulness.

How to replicate VM to another host using vSphere Replication

1. Navigate to vCenter, click a VM >> All Site Recovery actions >> Configure Replication.

2. On Target site page, select a destination where this VM will be replicated to, then select Auto-assign vSphere Replication server.

3. On VM validation page, verify this VM can be replicated to another host.

4. On Target datastore page, select a datastore and VM storage policy.

5. On Replication settings page, configure the recovery point objective from 5 minutes to 24 hours and select Enable point in time instances.

6. On Ready to complete page, review all the settings, and click Finish.

This process is complicated and error-prone, so you can try an efficient and simple method. Meanwhile, VM replication requires more storage which may cause wasting of resource.

In order to avoid these problems and protect VM data comprehensively, a professional software seems necessary for your virtual machine replication.

Summary

Using vSphere Replication aims to consistently prevent your virtual machines from disaster. Whether you want a third-party software or the built-in feature, you can achieve the goal of protecting your virtual machine.

Try this professional VMware replication software. It aims to consistently protect virtual machine data is outstanding in data security, cost-saving and easy operation.

Not only for VMware replication, AOMEI Cyber Backup can achieve Hyper-V replica using regular backup and recovery as well. It always keeps your business continuity and safety by performing immediate disaster recovery.