VM Copy for VMware vSphere

With Veeam Backup & Replication, you can run a VM copy job to create an independent fully-functioning copy of a VM or VM container (host, cluster, folder, resource pool, VirtualApp, datastore or tag) on the selected storage. VM copying can be helpful if you want to move your datacenter, create a test lab and so on.

The produced copy of a VM is stored decompressed, in a native VMware vSphere format, so it can be started right away. Although VM copy is similar to replication in many respects, there are several important differences.

VM copy is a single-use process (that is, every run of a VM copy job mirrors a VM in its latest state). Due to their nature, VM copy jobs do not support incremental runs.
Veeam Backup & Replication does not create and maintain restore points for VM copies. If you schedule to run a VM copy job periodically, every new run will overwrite the existing copy.
With the VM copy job, all VM disks are copied as thick, while replication allows you to preserve the format of disks or convert the disk format on the fly.

Note

When registering a VM on an ESXi host, it is registered with thin provisioned disks by default.

There are no failover or failback possibilities for a VM copy.

VM copy jobs use the same infrastructure components as backup jobs (for details, see Backup Infrastructure for Backup). In addition to available scenarios, you can also copy VMs to a target folder on any server or host connected to the backup server.