Manual backups vs add-on product?

[scottsre]

In a brand new ESX 5.5 U1 environment - all equipment is brand new and running fine, is it possible to manually back up VMs to another server and not use add-on (SRM, third-party) products?

As a possible bottom-line question, if manual backup is chosen (for now), do we miss any vital elements should the primary system fail and we elect to rebuild with media and manually copy the saved VMs back to the rebuilt server?

I am stripping away the normally perceived importance of time to restore, automated events, etc.

From a most basic perspective, is there anything manual preservation/restore would miss?

Thanks.

[Sateesh_vCloud]

Welcome to the community scottsre,

If I understand the question - you want to take the backup for VM files (from data store) by copying them to another server? [OR]

You want to take the backup at OS level (if windows system state) and save it to another server?

I would recommend to use third party backup solutions like Symantec NetBackup,Veeam for better Backup/Restore procedures.

[scottsre]

Let me follow this question up - What are people's opinions of the various add-on backup options, such as SRM, Veeam, Zerto, PHD products, VM Explorer?

Thanks.

Scott