8. vCloud Operations Control : 8.8 Continuity Management : 8.8.2 Backup and Restore of vApps : 8.8.2.1. VMware Solutions
   
8.8.2.1. VMware Solutions
VMware Data Recovery is a vStorage APIs for Data Protection-based solution. Other vStorage APIs for Data Protection-based backup technologies are available from third-party backup vendors. Currently, due to the Universally Unique Identifier versus object identifier issue, VMware Data Recovery cannot be used with VMware vCloud Director.
There are a few requirements to address for backup of vCloud workloads. VMware recommends that clients validate the level of support provided by the vendor to make sure client requirements are supported. The following table provides a list of vCloud vApp requirements to ask your vendor about.
Table 3. vCloud vApp Requirements Checklist
vApp Requirement
Detail
vStorage API Data Protection integration
vStorage API Data Protection provides change-block tracking capability to reduce backup windows.
Integration to enable backup of isolated virtual machines and vApps.
Integration with vStorage API Data Protection to provide LAN-free and server-free backups to support better consolidation rations for vCloud and the underlying vSphere infrastructure.
Use of the virtual machine Universally Unique Identifier versus virtual machine name will support multitenancy and avoid potential name space conflicts.
vCloud Director integration
Interface support for vCloud provider administrator teams. In the future, consumer (organization administrator and users) access may be provided by some vendors.
Include vCloud metadata for the vApps. This includes temporary and permanent metadata per virtual machine or vApp. This is required to make sure that recovery of the virtual machine or vApp has all data required to support resource requirements and SLAs.
vApp requirements
Provide vApp granularity for backups. Support backup of multitiered vApps (for example, a Microsoft Exchange vApp that has multiple virtual machines included. Backup selection of the Exchange vApp would pick up all the underlying virtual machines that are part of the main vApp).This capability is not available today, but is being developed by vendors.