VMWare ESX/ESXi - How to Backup your ESXi configuration

Irwin W.There are a 1000 ways to skin the technology cat.
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There are many out there that are pressured to help reduce the overhead for their VMWare implementation.  ESXi seems to help fulfill this requirement as it's cost is zero, as long as you have the proper hardware to run this hypervisor.

The other issue that is commonly encountered is that there is no budget ever considered or properly allocated for a backup solution.  So, what do you do if you forget to document your ESXi's configuration and it fails?  Well, in many cases, you hope to God that you have a good memory and can remember all of the settings you created.

A utility I happened upon and tested is the VMWare ESXi backup and configurator utility.

With this application, you can:
Backup your ESXi's configuration - Allows backup to a remote machine. This is great in the event of your ESXi host dies, you can quickly recover the configuration from the file you have created.
Restore backup configurations - Restore your ESXi config to your ESXi host.

Other features of this application are:
Update your ESXi Host
View settings of your ESXi host

While most of these features can be provided via the VI client, the ability to backup and restore your ESXi host's settings has value beyond words.

Here is the link to the application.  Check it out for yourself CLICK HERE  

Now, the best part of all is that the application is considered freeware. Not so good is the little disclaimer on their site about not intended for use in a production environment. Having said that, some backup protection is a lot better than none at all and this tool does seem to have all the needed features and functionality to help secure your own environment.

Hope you too can find value from this tool, just as I have so far from the testing. You should of course first ascertain its use and functionality for your own site.
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Irwin W.There are a 1000 ways to skin the technology cat.
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Comments (1)

This utility requires RCLI.  RCLI cannot read/write to a free ESXi installation.

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