Another data protection vendor, Microfocus, released a VM Explorer compatible with the latest version of VMware vSphere 6.7. If you're new to this, you should know that VM Explorer was previously built by Swiss company Trilead. Since then HPE and now Microfocus took over the development and release cycles. VM Explorer 7.1 Released with vSphere 6.7 Support is the topic of today's post.
The VM Explorer 7.1 brought long-awaited vSphere 6.7 functionality but not only. We'll have a look on what's new in this release and check out also the list of fixes. The software grew overall for several years to cover not only the SMB sector but packing in enterprise features as well.
VM Explorer can backup to disk, tape or cloud. You can backup directly to cloud targets including Amazon S3, Microsoft Azure, Rackspace, and OpenStack.
The product is available as Free, Professional or Enterprise version. The Free version is obviously limited (but not limited in time) with Full backups only without task scheduler, so it's only good for some lab testing or non-production environments. The “Pro” and “Enterprise” has all you need to backup/replicate your workflows with all the comfort of modern backup software.
For example, VM Explorer can recover Individual Emails from MS Exchange Server.
VM Explorer 7.1 What's New?
- VMware vSphere 6.7 Support – now validated and updated for vSphere 6.7. Based on the latest VMware Virtual Disk Development Kit (VDDK).
- HPE 3PAR 3.3.1 Storage support – Now supporting the latest HPE 3PAR storage solutions. (Other then 3PAR previous releases brought support for StoreVirtual and ScaleIO).
As you can see, the release isn't a major release in terms of features set, but the importance of vSphere 6.7 is crucial. When environments need to be upgraded to the latest versions of vSphere, the first thing to check is usually the backup/replication or monitoring product, for compatibility. (other than VMware HCL as well).
Backup to Disk, Tape, and Cloud is fully supported with the Enterprise edition of VM Explorer.
The product has a quite large choice of storage backup targets. Let's have a look.
You can get a trial from at Micro Focus Website Here.
Different backup target option within HPE VM Explorer:
- Cloud Backup targets – Amazon S3, Rackspace, Microsoft Azure and OpenStack. The integration is direct, native, without an intermediary gateway. Support of single item recovery.
- A large number of different backup disk-based targets – directly attached storage, network attached storage (NAS), Storage Area Network (SAN), ESX/vSphere, Windows, Linux and FreeBSD based storage platforms, and HP StoreOnce backup appliances (NAS and VTL interfaces).
- Tape support – includes both locally or iSCSI attached to the VM Explorer server. Split-tape backup enables efficient use of tape media and saves the cost of storage.
- Automated storage tiering – allows movement of backup sets between disk, tape, and cloud allowing you to efficiently and cost-effectively utilize different available
storage tiers and meet varying RTO (Recovery Time Objective) needs.
You’ll find the versions and pricing on the vendor’s detailed page here.
Note: There is also a free version for VMware and Hyper-V.
Wrap up: More and more backup and data protection vendors are making sure that their product is compatible with the latest version VMware vSphere 6.7. We continue to monitor the backup ecosystem with interest as this sector is highly competitive. More and more vendors pack enterprise-class features, storage integration, cloud targets and it's difficult to make a choice when looking for the best deal concerning a backup product.
VM Explorer is small (in size) product, but has many features all you ever need so why pay more for something you'll never use? Pick wisely the version you need. If you don't run Exchange Server, does the Enterprise justifies its cost? There might be more questions to ask before a final choice.
Another important choice might be the fact that the product is multi-language. You can choose from different language during (or after) the installation. English, Italian, Spanish, German, Chinese (Simplified), French, Japanese, Portuguese (Brazilian), and Russian, are currently languages which you can set for the web based UI.
Thanks for reading.
More posts about Micro Focus VM Explorer on ESX Virtualization:
- VM Explorer 7.0 Released
- HPE VM Explorer 6.5 Released
- Web-Based Interface Only for VM Explorer 6.2
- VM Explorer – Backup your first VM
- VM Explorer Product Settings
- VM Explorer Free version for VMware and Hyper-V
More from ESX Virtualization
- Upgrade ESXi 6.x to 6.7 via CLI – Two methods
- How-to Upgrade ESXi 6.x to 6.7 via vSphere Update Manager (VUM)
- How To do a Dry Run of an esxcli Installation or Upgrade on VMware ESXi
- vSphere 6.7 dedicated page
- VMware vSphere 6.7 Security Features
- What is VMware Per-VM EVC? (vSphere 6.7)
- How To Upgrade ESXi 6.x to 6.7 via ISO
- What is vCenter Embedded Linked Mode in vSphere 6.7?
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