As I have spent sometime evaluating PHD Virtual Backup & Replication for vSphere to post the review on my Backup & Disaster Recovery blog TSMGuru Blog, I have went through the installation process and thought I may as well share them on here for people trying to install or just test PHD Virtual Backup & Replication for vSphere v5.3.1. On here, I will be showing how to quickly get up and running with PHD Virtual Backup & Replication, though if you want to read my review of it before testing it your self you can find it at: PHD Virtual Backup and Replication for VMware vSphere Review

Being distributed as a virtual appliance actually speed up the implementation of PHD Virtual Backup & replication for vSphere. Below is a summary of the steps you need to follow to initially install and configure PHD Virtual Backup & Replication v5.3:

1- Download the PHDVirtual backup software from http://www.phdvirtual.com/trial-vmware-5

2- Extract the PHDVB_5_3_1_VMware.zip to any folder

The PHD Virtual Backup installation package contains:

• PHDVB_Install.exe: The PHD Virtual Backup installation file to install the plug-in and PHD Virtual Backup Console.
• PHDVBA.ovf: The PHD Virtual Backup Appliance OVF.
• PHDVB_Exporter_Install.exe: The PHD Virtual Backup Exporter installation file to install the PHD Exporter Console.
• Documentation: I thought it was nice of them to include the documentation with the installer.

3- Close the vSphere Client before starting the installation. (PHDVB_install.exe must be run from a machine where vSphere client has already been installed)

3- Install the PHD Virtual Backup Console and Plug-in by executing PHDVB_Install.exe and follow instruction on the screen.

4- Deploy a PHD Virtual Backup Appliance PHDVBA.ovf  (File=>Deploy OVF Template)

5- Optionally install the PHD Virtual Backup Exporter if you will be exporting backup files to a staging location for archive or long term storage. This is really helpful if you are going to send your backup to tape drives.

6- Power on the Virtual Appliance (In my case it took an IP from the DHCP server I have, where you could actually assign it an IP manually from the console).

7- From vCenter right click any machine => PHD Virtual Backup => Console

8- on the dashboard next to the credential warning hit configure now and then enter your vCenter credentials

9- Add a VMDK disk to put the backup into or use CIFS or NFS and then next to “Appliance does not have storage defined for backups or replication”  hit configure now & configure your desired backup destination.

10- Restart the appliance to reflect step 8 & 9 changes

11- Right click the VM you want to backup => PHD Virtual Backup => Backup

12- Go through the wizard to configure the backup setting and schedule for that VM.

13- Repeat for other VMs you want to backup.

14- For restore you can either right click the VM you want to restore another version of => PHD Virtual Backup => Restore or you can open the console and from there go to the backup catalog and choose the VM you want to restore from your catalog.

The following Video shows how to carry out PHD Virtual Backup & replication for vSphere in step-by-step:

The following video show how to create a VM backup in step-by-step

The following video show in step-by-step format how to restore a VM with PHD Virtual Backup

The following video show how to do a file level restore from an image backup using PHD Virtual Backup & Replicaiton

The following video shows how to recover Microsoft SQL server databases and tables with PHD Virtual Backup & Replication without having to restore the full image

The following video shows how to recover a single user mailbox in Microsoft Exchange Server using PHD Virtual Backup & Replicaiton

Again if you care to read my review of PHD Virtual Backup & Replication for vSphere you can check it out at: PHD Virtual Backup and Replication for VMware vSphere Review

I hope you found something useful in this post and it help you evaluate it if you are working on that.