What is esXpress Backpup

esXpress uses virtual backup appliances (VBAs) – small virtual machines – that can be deployed in minutes on an ESX server to autonomously conduct hot full or “virtual full” backups of all your Virtual Machines. esXpress VBAs operate outside of the ESX console, leveraging a virtual appliance architecture and our own innovative disk throttling so backups can be run during business hours with no impact on VM performance on the ESX server. And esXpress backs up virtual disks at the block level, delivering incremental backup that can be de-duplicated at the source before being sent to one or more local and/or remote storage targets simultaneously. The result? Backups are smaller and faster, storage capacity lasts longer, and your entire infrastructure – VMs, hosts and networks – performs better.

The esXpress Difference

The great promise of virtual infrastructures was to simplify IT by reducing hardware and removing costs. But as virtualization has gone mainstream, traditional backup solutions have failed to keep pace – adding hardware and software that virtualization was supposed to reduce, slowing down hosts and VMs with processor-intensive backup routines, clogging networks with huge backup files, and overwhelming storage devices with backup data.

esXpress shifts the mindset and value proposition of backup solutions for VMware virtual infrastructures by removing the worry, complexity, and cost associated with traditional solutions and giving you back something no other solution can – your time.

Protect Your Virtual Servers WITHOUT Adding Physical Servers – esXpress is a software-based solution that requires no additional hardware.

Restore Anywhere, Anytime – Perform file-level restoration without having to go through time-consuming virtual disk mounting procedures. Or restore an entire disk from a unique executable backup file format even if you don’t have access to the esXpress console.

Slow The Growth of Backup Data – esXpress uses “source-based” data de-duplication to dramatically reduce the size of backup files, speeding up both backup and restoration processes and extending both storage capacity and network capacity.

esXpress Backup Options

Block-Level Backup – esXpress uses a revolutionary “block-level” rather than file-level process to back up data for each virtual machine, backing up only the individual blocks inside of a virtual disk (.vmdk file) that have changed since the previous backup and creating a “virtual full” backup every time.

Resource Throttling – Innovative throttling capability protects the host’s resources from over-consumption during the backup, reducing contention and enabling you to back up even during your system’s peak operating hours.

Storage Platform Independent – esXpress operates with multiple storage platforms and targets simultaneously, including local storage, iSCSI, Fiber Channel, CIFS, NFS, SSH and FTP. This enables you to scale a vendor/platform-agnostic backup solution quickly and efficiently regardless of what storage you have in place or where it’s located.

Fault Tolerant Data Protection – esXpress is the only truly fault-tolerant virtual backup solution on the market today providing critical protection for your virtual backups regardless of whether hosts or storage targets happen to fail. If an ESX server fails, because esXpress operates independently of hosts, VBAs on other hosts in the cluster automatically identify and back up new VMs once they are VMotioned to the new host. If a backup target fails, esXpress automatically rolls to the assigned failover backup target.

esXpress Data De-duplication

esXpress performs “source-based” de-duplication of backup data to dramatically reduce the size of backup files and the time required to generate and transport them to the target storage device. It also vastly improves restoration timeframes by enabling point-and-click restoration of individual files or a complete virtual disk with no fragmentation.

esXpress Replication

esXpress provides built-in replication capabilities to enable several different types of replication based on your disaster recovery or business continuity requirements.

Simple Replication – Simple replication “pulls” a complete copy of the backup file for a VM and performs an automatic restore of that virtual disk file onto a VM at a DR site, ensuring an exact mirror of your VM at the DR site with very little impact on the network.

Advanced Replication – With the addition of an esXpress Data De-duplication Appliance, incremental “block-level” updates can be made to VMs at a remote DR facility in real time, ensuring an up-to-date mirror with even less impact on the network since only changed data is sent to the DR site.