What is VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB)?
by VCP Help on 19/01/09 at 7:17 pm
VCB is the VMware Consolidated Backup product. It basically automates the process of entering snapshot mode and includes a driver to mount the virtual hard disk files (vmdk files) so you can copy data while a VM is up and running. VCB requires a Windows machine that can see the same LUN as the ESX hosts running the VMs. This is how the backup tool can open the vmdk files to access the data.
The VMware Certified Professional exam doesn’t focus extensively on VCB, at least as of the 3.5 update. It is good to have an idea of how it works and some of the requirements (such as the shared SAN) but an in-depth knowledge is not usually necessary.
