Virtual server back-up is top of many IT departments’ to-do lists. As organisations virtualise servers they need to change the way back-ups are performed. The old strategies of one back-up representative per physical server are not sufficient to the task and introduce performance bottlenecks.

Inside their area, mainstream backup products have adapted to a world of virtualised infrastructures, new specialised backup products have arisen and techniques like replication have emerged as a data protection strategy to backup as serious competitors.

In this ComputerWeekly.com guide we examine the fundamentals underlying virtual server backup and also the very best approaches for various scenarios, choices like replication and snapshots, hints on better virtual server back-up operation together with guides to buying virtual server backup products.