Using VDP for physical servers

[Provogeek]

I am looking for some clarification on the VDP backup capabilities for physical servers.

VMWare documentation states application aware agents support physical servers to backup SQL, Exchange, and Sharepoint.  I am trying to find out if VDP can also get a file system backup for file servers and other applications that aren't SQL, Exchange or Sharepoint.

Can VDP backup the file system of a physical server?

[vbrowncoat · Accepted solution]

The documentation is correct. VDPA can only backup physical systems using the SQL, Exchange & Sharepoint agents. There isn't a way to backup a physical file server using VDPA.

Does this answer your question?

[sclarkenetcraft]

The only way you could do it staying with the vmware suite of products is to have a scheduled task that runs vmware converter.

e.g.

Do an initial P2V (leave the virtual off if you don't want to migrate completely).

Don't finalise the sync.

Set VDP to backup the virtual machine.

Set a scheduled task to sync changes from the physical to virtual from converter before your vdp backup schedule.

[Provogeek]

thank you gs_khalsa