Released : vDR 1.2 (VMware Data Recovery Appliance)

VMware has released a minor upgrade to their Data Recovery Appliance (vDR).  Even though it is just a .point release, they managed to sneak some new features in there along with the usual fixes and patches!  For me, the most important one is the ability to now scale up to ten appliances per vCenter server.  Each appliance can back up about 100 VMs which now means you to scale to about 1000 Virtual Machines with backup.  With the new multi appliance support, you can now quickly (and with Auto Login) switch between appliances within the vCenter plug-in.

You can download the new version here : VMware vDR download page

I happen to really like vDR.  Most of my clients already own it through their licensing (It is included with Advanced Edition and above) and I think it is shaping into a very reliable backup product for the Virtual Environment. 

If you haven’t tried it out yet, here are some links to get you going :
http://vcloudinfo.com/2009/08/how-to-install-vmware-data-recovery.html
http://vcloudinfo.com/2009/08/configuring-network-share-for-vmware.html
http://vcloudinfo.com/2009/12/scratching-surface-with-vmware-data.html

PS. ‘ Your backup strategy is only as good as your last restore!’   Be sure to test it every once in a while! 🙂