I'd like to see how different people prefer to back up their vSphere environments: do you do it through the vCenter server or directly from the host? Why?
One aspect I haven't had defined for me is if I am backing up from the vCenter server, how does the traffic travel? Does vCenter merely mediate the connection between the host and backup server, or does the traffic actually go through the vCenter server? If I have hosts with all 10Gb NICs and I back up through the vCenter server, am I going to get 10Gb performance or just 1Gb performance, or possibly less than 1Gb?
Another aspect is this: if I backup the vCenter server, and it is a VM, am I going to be able to restore the vCenter server if it goes bad, say from a failed vCenter upgrade or update to a new version? Also in this line, if I have a physical vCenter server and I need to restore the vCenter server and multiple VMs, am I going to have to restore the vCenter server first, and then the VMs, or can I restore all at once somehow?
Please, let me know your opinions.