VMware: VMware vSphere Data Protection

Traditional data backup and data recovery solutions are expensive, slow and complex. They write data to tape, which is difficult and time-consuming to restore. In contrast, VMware vSphere Data Protection (VDP) provides fast backup to disk with dependable recovery.
Furthermore, VMware vSphere Data Protection Advanced extends the backup capabilities of your VMware vSphere platform with greater scalability and application-level integration for your mission-critical apps.

Sophisticated vSphere Data Protection capabilities ensure that your backups complete on schedule, keeping costs down despite exponential data growth:

• Variable-length de-duplication - Breaks files into sub-segments to determine which are unique, minimizing backup storage requirements. Achieves the industry’s highest average rates of de-duplication: 99 percent for file systems and 96 percent for databases.
• Global de-duplication - Reduces required backup storage further by de-duplicating data across all virtual machines pointed to the same appliance.
• Changed Block Tracking backup (CBT) - Works with variable-length de-duplication to reduce virtual network impact during backups, sending only daily unique changes to the virtual appliance.
• Changed Block Tracking restore - Unlike other solutions, vSphere Data Protection also uses CBT during restores for dramatic reductions in data recovery times.

Traditional backup solutions were designed for physical environments, creating unnecessary complexity in virtual infrastructures. vSphere Data Protection is specifically engineered for the virtualization and administration capabilities of the vSphere platform:

• Full vSphere integration – Native management through the vSphere web client lets administrators run backup and recovery from a “single pane of glass.”
• Easy to deploy and use – vSphere Data Protection deploys as a virtual machine appliance for easy setup and minimal post-deployment configuration. Policies are defined according to specified retentions and timetables, making backup schedules simple to create.
• One-step recovery – The intuitive web-based user interface permits simple recovery of full virtual machines or individual files. In addition, the “end-user self-service restore” option allows restore requests to be offloaded from IT.

Reference:
Data Protection
http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/features/data-protection