These are things I've been wondering today.  If anyone can help answer these great mysteries I will give you five kisses each!

1.  If I backup my VMWare virtual machines at the VM file level (ie. .vmdk, .nvram etc... how would I restore a single file if a user deleted one?  Surely you can't restore an entire image for a single file?

2. Requires an example, so

<example>
I jump in my car and start streaming Dora The Explorer.  When I start streaming my connection is 1x (ie very shitty), I then drive into a 4G area, yet my phone refuses to bump up to 4G until there is no network traffic.  I can force it to do it by turning on and off airplane mode or after Dora The Explorer has fully buffered the song, which is forever because it's using 1x.
</example>

3. Where the fuck is PB?

There you go, three very important mysteries that need answers!

Exorcism. Now give me more kisses.

Exorcism? That doesn't work for any of those problems!

I'm also editing my first post to include a new mystery!

:-O 

Well it was worth a try. I don't know the answer to any of them.

Well thanks for trying!

(kiss) 

Backing up an entire virtual server in that way is not a very efficient way to backup data on that server. It would be more for the vent of an failure and needing to get the server backup.
If you have user data on there, I'd suggest backing that up separately.

Voodoo?

I bet that's where Pete's gone - deepest darkest South America to learn the black arts.

So he can speak with mother nature?

What Wayne said, backing up a vmdk like that is great for bare metal recovery, but it's rubbish for granular stuff. Not least of all because you'd need a new vmdk each night. I know some high end back up software can do some very nifty vmdk aware stuff, but imho, you're far better off backing up 'data' in the same way that you would for a physical server.

One other thing to watch with some kind of live custom vmdk backups is that you're not getting a snapshot, so you need to be wary of what's running. Basically, booting up from a standard copied vmdk would be like booting up from a server that has just had the power pulled.

There's loads on Google (application aware I think the term is), but it doesn't really change your original question.

As an aside, even on VMs we still use DPM to do full restores, but it's more a cost and support issue when we roll out to customers.

TO BE CONTINUED ...

My podgy fingers mashed post by accident :-(

:D

http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-8760

You may like that, by the way, if you've not seen it.

Oddly enough, I was pondering the peeb-missing question earlier today. But not so much as to actually post about it.

I have no idea about VM either.

Ah thanks for that!  I'll give it a good read when I have some time.

I'm currently backing up my VM's just as I would a physical machine.  I'm using Backup Exec right now, but it pisses me off most days and I'd like to find an alternative.  So maybe I can use a type of Veem or that script you posted to capture the machines at the VM level and then maybe Windows Server Backup for the file level.

Well it is a great mystery so it needed to be included! 

How very odd, he hasnt been here since the 15th it looks like. I have nothing to add. Your mysteries are quite mysterious to me too.