With VMware’s vSphere client and other tools you can create templates of virtual machines for situations when it is necessary to deploy VMs frequently. (See VMware’s documentation Working with Templates and Clones for details.) Unitrends releases 7.3 and higher support protection of VMware templates. Consider the following when using this feature of the Unitrends system:
| • | You must use the Unitrends Virtualization Protector for templates. Agent-based protection of templates is not available. |
| • | With VMware’s tools, you can create a template by cloning or converting a VM. In both cases, the template copies the VM, operating system, and any data saved to this VM. After the template is created, it exists independently of the original VM, so changes made to the template do not affect the VM, and vice-versa. |
| • | If you want to back up a virtual machine and its template, you must perform backups for both. If you clone a VM as a template and then backup only the template and not the original VM, you could lose data. |
| • | As explained in VMware’s documentation, you must be connected to vCenter server to create a template. To protect your templates, you must register your vCenter Server as a client to the Unitrends backup system. If you register the ESX server directly, your templates will not display in the Navigation pane. |
| • | Only full backups of templates can be executed. Because data in a template cannot be altered, there are no changes to capture in an incremental or differential backup. |
| • | When restoring a backup of a template, you can choose to restore the template or deploy it as a new VM. |
| • | Templates display in the Navigation pane in a Templates folder under the vCenter server. Different icons are used for VMs and templates, so you can easily distinguish between the two. However, it is recommended that when creating a template you use a file name that clearly identifies it as a template. The Backup Information page and backup reports indicate whether a backup is for a template. For details, see Backup Information page and Backups Report. |
| • | SAN-direct backups, HotAdd backups, application-aware backups, and instant recovery are not supported for templates. |
For details about protecting templates, see the following topics:
| • | Executing backups of VMware templates |
| • | Restoring VMware templates |