I'm considering getting the Backup Exec 12.5 AVVI program for some ESX 4.0 servers, but I ran into something that has me scratching my head. The Symantecc software requires:
VMware VirtualCenter 2.5 or later
VMware VCB 1.1, 1.5 or later
It's my understanding that VCB and VirtualCenter are now vSphere is that correct?
maybe this will explain it a bit
http://www.vmware.com/support/product_renaming.html
vSphere4 is a suite of products, which mainly consists of vCenter4, ESX(i)4 and the vSphere Client.
The overall product is vSphere but VCB agents and Virtual Center (now vCenter server) are still a part of the package.
Backup Exec is a 3rd party backup. VCB is a proxy. The way to communicate with ESX and vSphere suite is via the proxy.
This implies that Backup Exec can communicate with the latest versions of the VCB.
vSphere or not, they support ESX, so if you install the latest version of VCB (that is complatible with vSphere, ESX 3.5 or ESX 4.0) it should work. Testing will confirm this.
Interesting.. so now if you want to buy ESX you need to buy vSphere (with the appropriate # of CUPs)
Looking over the version of vSphere I have (VMware vSphere Standard) it includes:
• VMware ESXi and VMware ESX (deployment-time choice)2
• VMware vStorage VMFS
• Four-way virtual SMP
• VMware vCenter Server Agent
• VMware vStorage APIs / VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB)
• VMware vCenter Update Manager
• VMware HA
• VMware vStorage Thin Provisioning
Looks like I have everything but vCenter Server & Converter, I'll have to check to see if vCenter Server Agent is enough for this 3rd party tool to work.