“Backing up and recovering VMs” is not solved. There are lots of options in market, and the dynamics seem to shift by the day:
The unified (physical plus virtual) backup solutions are trying to take back share from the virtualization-specific folks, now that some of them are catching up (or passing) on VM protection methods and recoverability features.
The virtualization-specific backup solutions are protecting their share from the unified folks (above) and the hypervisor vendors (below), while continuing to innovate and differentiate.
The hypervisor vendors are offering their own backup solutions, instead of just the VADP/VSS APIs that enable their ecosystems.
There are some disruptive startups that are forcing folks to reconsider everything they know about “backup” via advanced appliances that warp one’s imagination of consolidated protection, copy-data management, etc.
And everything that any of them are doing … are now or soon could be also going to the cloud (if the cloud-backup providers don’t beat them to it)
So, as IT organizations of all sizes continue their maturation from simply “consolidation” to the “private cloud” and the “software-defined-whatever,” 2014 promises to be even more interesting.
To celebrate that, here is a list of some of my virtualization protection posts, just from the 2nd half of 2013: