SnapCenter Plug-in for VMware vSphere documentation

SnapCenter Plug-in for VMware vSphere (SCV) provides fast, space-efficient, crash-consistent, and VM-consistent backup and restore operations for VMs, Datastores, and VMDKs. SCV removes the SnapCenter Server dependency with its 4.2.x release and is packaged as a Linux-based Virtual Appliance (Open Virtual Appliance format).

Features

VM-consistent and crash-consistent data protection operations

For Crash-consistent or VM-consistent backup and restore operations of VMware VMs and Datastores, use this appliance through the plug-in’s web client GUI in vCenter. There is no need to deploy SnapCenter Server in this case.
Application-consistent (application over VMDK/RDM) data protection operations

For application-consistent backup and restore operations of Oracle, MS-SQL, or Exchange workloads on VMware, you need to use the SnapCenter Server GUI and the appropriate application plug-in in conjunction with SnapCenter Plug-in for VMware vSphere.
SnapCenter VMware plug-in is deployed as a virtual appliance in a Linux VM

Although the virtual appliance must be installed as a Linux VM, the SnapCenter VMware plug-in supports both Windows-based and Linux-based vCenters.