EMC and VMware have joined forces to launch a new backup and recovery solution for VMware vSphere 5.1, the industry-leading virtualization platform for building cloud infrastructures.

VMware vSphere Data Protection provides agentless, disk-based backups of virtual machines to deduplicated storage using best-in-class deduplication capabilities and full support of Changed Block Tracking to minimise storage resource consumption, reduce backup windows and enable fast recovery.

The solution provides full data protection, backup and restoration for customers that need these capabilities for less than 2 terabytes of data.

EMC and VMware have developed vSphere Data Protection using EMC Avamar, relying on the EMC product’s extremely fast and efficient backup of virtualized infrastructures.

“This announcement provides further evidence of Avamar’s performance in supporting VMware virtualization and opens up new opportunities for resellers,” says Shane Moore, EMC Director, Product Marketing, Backup & Recovery Systems Division, Asia, Pacific and Japan.

“Where clients have less than 2 terabytes of data to back up, they can use VMware vSphere Data Protection,” he says. “As they grow, they can start and expand their use of Avamar itself, which can scale up to hundreds of terabytes.”

The move follows EMC’s recent launch of Avamar Business Edition in a new preconfigured package of up to 7.8 terabytes. This is available to customers only from resellers.

Moore says VMware plans to add features to vSphere Data Protection that will be available to customers under license. This will provide more scope for resellers to offer their expertise and sell additional licenses to customers.

“VMware vSphere Data Protection is ideal for small to medium businesses and departments that run virtualized environments requiring backup and deduplication,” says John Roxburgh, Westcon Group, EMC Business Manager.

“The solution is tightly integrated with vSphere, is easy to set up and can be managed directly from the vSphere web client.”

Resellers should also consider using the solution in larger organisations as a proof of concept to help customers understand how it works, Moore says. “Resellers themselves can also use the product to familiarise themselves with Avamar without having to deploy a physical appliance,” he adds.

Businesses activated 7,000 copies of VMware vSphere Data Protection within three weeks of the offering being announced at VMworld earlier this year.