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VMware ESXi virtualizes IT assets into a flexible, cost-effective pool of compute, storage, and networking resources. These resources can be then mapped to specific business needs by creating virtual machines. VMware ESXi provides several utilities to manage the environment. This includes utilities to clone, backup and restore virtual machines. All these utilities use host CPU resources to perform the functions. Furthermore, the utilities cannot operate on data not residing in the VMware environment.
All businesses have line-of-business operations that interact and operate with data on a disparate set of applications and operating systems. These enterprises can benefit by leveraging technology offered by storage array vendors to provide alternative methodologies to protect and replicate the data. The same storage technology can also be used for presenting various organizations in the business with a point-in-time view of their data without any disruption or impact to the production workload.
This chapter will include the use of Dell TimeFinder with VMware ESXi to clone virtual machines and their data. It will also include the benefits of offloading software-based VMware cloning operations to the array that can be achieved using “Full Copy”, which is one of the primitives available through VMware Storage APIs for Array Integration, or VAAI.