The difference between backing up Windows® Hyper-V and VMWare

Basically, here's the difference between backing up Hyper-V Guests and VMWare Guests at present:

Hyper-V backups

When backing up Guests running on a Windows® Hyper-V Server, Hyper-V is VSS aware and the backup will be performed without the need to pause the Guest servers.

VMWare backups

When backing up Guests running on a VMWare Server, we are currently unable to use VSS to create a live backup. So the VMWare Guest must be suspended prior to the backup taking place, and then resumed once the backup has completed.

More information and instructions on creating the scripts necessary can be found on Page 12 of our BackupAssist Usage Scenarios Whitepaper. Just click here to find out more.

For more information on backing up VMware, see this VMware and VSS resource.

FAQs

Will the BackupAssist VM Granular Restore Console Add-on support restoring from a VMWare  backup?
At this time, the BackupAssist VM Granular Restore Console Add-on is only be able to restore from backups performed on a Windows® Hyper-V Server  OS family system.

Can the backup image of a standalone server be restored as a Hyper-V Guest?
At the moment it is not possible to do this directly, but it only requires a simple set up procedure. You will need to create a new Hyper-V Guest Server installation first, and then perform a restore from your standalone server to the new Hyper-V Guest installation.