Since our last major upgrade, Vembu VMware backup has been using vStorage API to perform VMware backups and restores. More importantly, we also make use of Changed Block Tracking (CBT) technology to perform incremental backups for VMware virtual machines (VMs).
By using CBT technology, Vembu VMware backup backs up only the blocks that have changed, rather than backing up every block of every VM in the infrastructure. Vembu utilizes CBT as part of the powerful vSphere APIs for Data Protection (VADP) and request transmission of blocks of data that have changed on a virtual disk since the last backup snapshot. Thus by transferring only the changed blocks of data to backup server it avoids the copy of entire VM and reduces the amount of data getting transferred to backup server.
The major highlight of this implementation is the massive performance improvement for full backups as well as incrementals, which will be on par with the leading vendors in the VMware Backup marketplace. The CBT incrementals will speed up with only block level changes getting backed up. What took nearly 2 ½ hours for an incremental will be done in minutes! And needless to say that there will be huge savings – both resources and bandwidth.
To know more about Changed Block Tracking technology, drop me a mail at sathyanarain@vembu.com and I will be happy to help you with all your queries.
Happy backing up!
