- #HOW TO BACKUP VMWARE WORKSTATION FOR WINDOWS VMS INSTALL#
- #HOW TO BACKUP VMWARE WORKSTATION FOR WINDOWS VMS FULL#
For example, if your RPO is 1 hour, you need to perform frequent incremental backups throughout the day. Provide Ample Bandwidth and Resources for BackupĮnsure you provision adequate resources at the backup server and network level, to ensure you can meet your RPO objectives. For Windows machines, use the Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS), provided as part of VMware Tools, to quiesce applications. This means you should pause applications (this is called “quiescing”) and take other measures to ensure you don’t lose transactions during the backup process. When backing up a mission critical VM containing applications like OLTP databases, ensure you create an application-consistent backup.
This can be especially important for high-throughput workloads like databases, email servers or web applications. This method is operationally simple, and does not impose any performance penalty on the target machine. While we explained the pros and cons of both methods, many experts agree that the preferred option to directly backup VMs is the file-based method. Prefer File-Based (VMDK) Backup to Guest Operating System Backup Here are five best practices that can help you manage VMware backups while minimizing risk to protected data and interruption to user activities. Read more about these solutions in our article on VMware Data Protection.
#HOW TO BACKUP VMWARE WORKSTATION FOR WINDOWS VMS FULL#
You can only restore the full VMDK file, which may be large and contain irrelevant applications or data. Backup is performed and resourced by the ESXi server.ĭisadvantages: Captures a complete snapshot of a VM, with no ability to remove specific applications, or directly restore a specific application or file.
Unlike operating system backups that can take a long time and consume significant system resources, copying a VMDK file is a quick and simple operation.Īdvantages: Quick, easy, does not affect the guest operating system or its applications.
You can backup these files to protect entire VMs in a one easy step. VMware stores each VM as a VM file (typically a VMDK file). File-Based Backup for VMWare Virtual Machines
#HOW TO BACKUP VMWARE WORKSTATION FOR WINDOWS VMS INSTALL#
Administrators can install a backup agent and schedule backups just like they would for a regular machine.Īdvantages: Simple, no learning curve, allows administrators to exclude non-essential applications or data from backups to reduce backup size.ĭisadvantages: Protects the operating system and applications but not the VM, so there is no way to directly restore the full virtualized environment. This means that regular backup procedures used for non-virtualized workloads can work the same way for VMware VMs. Backing Up Virtual Machines as Physical Machinesįrom the user’s perspective, a virtual machine works exactly like a physical machine-it has a guest operating system that works in isolation from other VMs. We’ll cover three methods: backing up VMs as physical machines, backing up VM files, and using a dedicated VMware backup solution. When operating virtualized resources managed by VMware, you need a solid strategy to backup and restore virtual machines (VMs). Three Approaches for Backing Up VMware Infrastructureīackup is a critical part of any data center.