Archsolution Limited

Even we are migrating application and database servers to an Open-stack environment, but there are still lots of Virtual Machines being maintained by our clients and our team.

Unfortunately, most of the Enterprise class backup solutions are not able to backup ESXi free version.  Otherwise, many other tools are allowed to backup ESXi free images but counted by each guest nodes.  The cost will be extremely high and not worth for ESXi free or other virtual environment like Hyper-V.  We will spend some time to try and test different products in the market.  Finally, we have picked up Iperius – a software vendor in Italy for doing the backup task for 10 guest live images of ESXi free.  It is powerful, complete, and extremely easy-to-use. It supports incremental and differential backup of ESXi (CBT/VDDK) virtual machines, including the free ESXi Free version.

Further, Iperius supports the replication of virtual machines from datastore to datastore and from host to host, to have an exact copy of virtual machines always ready to be started in case of malfunction or crash of the main machine. Replication can also be planned and performed on multiple destinations, thus enabling an optimal failover policy.

The most significant features of Iperius for this kind of backup are being list below:

1. Incremental and differential backups of virtual machines (full support for Changed Block Tracking (CBT/VDDK));
2. Backup of ESXi Free (the free vSphere Hypervisor version), including incremental and differential backups;
3. Replication of virtual machines from host to host and from datastore to datastore (to have an immediately bootable copy in case of crash)
4. Incremental Replication even between ESXi Free hosts
5. Backups only of the disk space that is actually being used;
6. Restore of individual files (file-level restore)
7. Full support for connecting to VMware vCenter Server and ESXi Cluster
8. Auto-restore of virtual machines, including on different hosts (also useful for the replication/cloning of virtual machines);
9. Extremely lightweight and stable software (Iperius is also portable and does not install anything that will affect the performance of the server);
10. Compatible with all ESXi (4.x, 5.x, 6.x) versions;
11. “Application Consistent” backups even of Linux virtual machines, by quiescing the file system with pre-freeze and post-thaw scripts.
12. There is also the possibility to exclude specific virtual machine disks and manage independent disks;
13. One of the lowest prices on the market (€ 269), perpetual license, both support and updates are for free;

(Buy from us with further discount!!!)

14. Agentless: with just one installation, you can back up any virtual machine on the network
15. Only one license needed for unlimited host and virtual machines;
16. Complete backup utility with many other features.

Apart from the great features for VM backup, it is possible to use Iperius backup for common database engines such as Microsoft SQL server, Oracle, MySQL and PostgreSQL.  It provides fundamental features like export DDL and data as text.  However, with their scheduling function, it is basically fulfilled most of the small network needs.  Apart from these fruitful features. They offer cloud storage for remote backup.

In order to share the great tool using by system experts, we are partnering Iperius to offer this tools for the Hong Kong market.  It is better to have a trial and you can find better price from your local reseller than direct from them.  Also, you can enjoy local support with the reseller with your mother language locally.

Please contact us for more information.