VMware Host Backup. Do You Need It?

VMware Host Backup. Do You Need It?

“No.”

That’s the answer I hear from almost every VCP (VMware Certified Professional). Then, many of them add: “installing ESXi is very easy!” and mention VMware Host Profiles, Auto Deploy, and other system deployment tools available to system administrators.

These points are great and valid for large environments. If you have 30 ESXi hosts — you use Host Profiles. If you have 300 diskless systems — you use Auto Deploy.

However, what if you have one host? Yes, just one. And you — the IT administrator of a small company — have users, windows systems, network, internet, intranet, website, phone systems, and sometimes the electric wiring to worry about. In addition,  you probably never had a couple of weeks to spare to get your VCP training and certification.

Suddenly, the seemingly easy task becomes complex, and time-consuming. Let us, for a moment, forget the hassle of getting new hardware and just think about VMware. What do you do next?

Here are the steps to reinstall your ESXi host:

1. Connect the hardware

2. Turn on the system

3. Boot the installation CD of your hypervisor

4. Input the network configuration

5. Input the security configuration

6. Install the hypervisor

7. Configure the hypervisor’s network

8. Configure the hypervisor’s storage

9. …

10. Install updates

11. …

27. Install additional software, agents – e.g. antivirus

29…

35. Install the backup software (to recover)

36. Configure the backup software (so it can recover)

37. …

55. Start recovering your VMs

Chances are you will be stuck on many of these steps. Do you remember all the details of your network configuration? Security? DNS? Now let me ask you one simple question – why not back up all of these? Why are you using technologies that back up only certain parts of your system? Why not backup up everything? The virtualization host is your system and you must back it up — inclusive of its configuration and applications. Moreover, it should not take 55+ steps to recover. It should take less than 10. Choose a backup solution that protects your entire environment — including your VMware ESX and Microsoft Hyper-V virtualization hosts — not just VMs. The only software that can do this is Acronis Backup 12. Try Acronis Backup 12 now and find out how simple, fast, and cost-effective it is to protect your VMware infrastructure (and all other small business data) with this powerful solution. READ MORE: Acronis Backup 12 Now Protects Microsoft 365 and VMware vSphere 6.5 Leveraging Hyper-V 2016 Resilient Change Tracking for Backup How to Restore a Server in Less Than 15 Seconds