Introducing Arcserve Backup Agents and Options › Using Agents › Agent for Virtual Machines › Introducing the Agent › Introduction

Introduction

Arcserve Backup is a comprehensive storage solution for applications, databases, distributed servers, and file systems. It provides backup and restore capabilities for databases, business-critical applications, and network clients.

Among the agents Arcserve Backup offers is the Arcserve Backup Agent for Virtual Machines. The agent lets you protect virtual machines running the following systems:

• VMware ESX/ESXi Server and VMware vCenter Server--VMware provides you with a mechanism called Virtual Disk Development Kit (VDDK) that integrates with VMware ESX/ESXi Server and VMware vCenter Server. VDDK lets you protect Virtual Machine (VM) files and data. With VDDK you offload virtual machine backup activity to a dedicated backup proxy system, and then use the backup and restore functionalities provided by Arcserve Backup to protect the VMs.
• VMware vSphere--VMware vSphere is a virtualization tool kit that lets you integrate the latest versions of VMware vCenter Server and VMware VDDK with Arcserve Backup.
• Microsoft Hyper-V--Microsoft Hyper-V is a component that is included with Windows Server 2008 x64 or later operating systems. Hyper-V is hypervisor-based technology that lets you run multiple operating systems independently within the Windows Server system. Arcserve Backup lets you back up and restore data contained within the guest operating systems and Windows Server operating systems.